Are you happy with your PC PVR?

[lobosrul]

First off, if I wasnt a gamer I would've put together a PVR on a linux OS.

I bet a lot of stability issues are causes by Windows/Hardware issues.

The other day I turned on Sage and my OTA (ATI HDTV Won) didnt work, got a playback error, but firewire worked fine. I did a reboot and it worked fine. Was it sages fault I dont know. I also had a terminal spinning icon the other day, and I could not even alt-tab out, another reboot.

Yeah its frustrating sometimes for sure. If i didnt enjoy tweaking Sage I probably wouldve given up loooong ago.

[AtariJeff]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Wouldn't watch TV any other way, especially with ShowAnalyzer killing the commercials.

However, SageTV is definitely getting slower. The video playback is great but command response is slow, lots of spinning icon. Not sure why, let's hope it improves in version 6.

Ken C

AGREED! I have the same issue with my client. Switching to a NAS improved performance but caused jerky recordings so I went back to a local drive on the server

SageTV has revolutionized the way out family watches TV. We watch our favourite shows on our own time. If Survivor is on but the wife is busy - no big deal - it's being recorded. Time for supper - I tell the kids to pause their show and come to the table - no hassles My daughter (6 yrs old) even asks to pause TV while she's at a friends. She often get's a puzzled response.

Definitely "Cold, dead hands" here.

[Mahoney]

One thing thing that long time forum readers will be well aware of is that forums are places that focus, almost exclusively, on problems. Things often look much, much worse on forums than they are in reality.

On the other hand, forums are places inhabited, in large part, by enthusiasts who are still interested in using/fixing the product. Which can equally distort appearances and polls.

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by Mahoney

On the other hand, forums are places inhabited, in large part, by enthusiasts who are still interested in using/fixing the product. Which can equally distort appearances and polls.

This is so true. Just last night, we were watching a live TV recording, and at the top of the hour, SageTV did its infamous "between show pause" while it stopped recording one show and started recording another. Annoyed, my wife asked me why it keep doing that. I was able to easily explain why, and she understood, but the fact is that the ReplayTV and Moxi DVR's we have used didn't do that, this was seen as an annoyance.

I only bring this up because though I am one of those enthusiasts, I also have experience with other DVR's, so comparisons are inevitable. To me, SageTV is really an amazing product. But it is not a perfect one. People's perceptions are often tainted by polls and enthusiast postings, so it's important for us enthusiasts to be fair and objective when conveying perceptions.

That said, you will take my SageTV only when you pry it from my cold, dead hands...

[Ken C]

Originally Posted by salsbst

Do you by any chance use the disk space bar?

Yes, I do. Does it mess with the command response time ?

Ken C

[farscapesg1]

Originally Posted by jbarr

This is so true. Just last night, we were watching a live TV recording, and at the top of the hour, SageTV did its infamous "between show pause" while it stopped recording one show and started recording another. Annoyed, my wife asked me why it keep doing that. I was able to easily explain why, and she understood, but the fact is that the ReplayTV and Moxi DVR's we have used didn't do that, this was seen as an annoyance.

This has got to me the biggest issue in our house also. Even after almost a year of using a HTPC, the wife still complains about it. Luckily, we rarely watch a show that is currently on (usually get to watch TV shows the day after they aired, or at least 1-2 hours later) so it doesn't happen very often.

I will say that last week we had our first instance of the software locking up the computer while recording, which caused us to miss the first 3-4 minutes of The Unit and really messed up her Gilmore Girls recording. That didn't go over real well. I don't know why but when it hung during the last couple minutes, the file didn't close properly. It still took up about 2 GB of space, but you could only watch the first 5 minutes of the show???

Luckily, I grabbed the episode with bittorrent the next day and she was satisfied

[stevech]

I must be missing something here... for some reason, our TV habits are, when looking at live TV, to use the actual TV tuner, not Sage. Our TV has Sage coming in on an AUX-s-video jack. So the "watch live TV" in Sage is never used.

The only reason we'd use it would be if we delayed starting to watch long enough to be able to skip commercials. We don't seem to do that out of habit and that we're tipped off on something to watch by the on-screen guides (we have 2 + sage's EPG).

I must be in the minority thinking watch live tv glitches are a don't care.

[Mike Hinton]

I am very pleased with SageTV! I seldom watch live tv any more, I never get there when the shows I like are on.

I don't think I would walk away( limp maybe ) if I told my wife that I was going to take it away. I do have some problems though; I seem to get in trouble when the wife is watching regular TV on a regular set. She can NOT skip through the commercials or pause when the phone rings. I guess I am going to have to invest a little more and convert the other sets in the house to clients or somthing.

Another vote for Cold,Dead Hands..


Mike

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by farscapesg1

and really messed up her Gilmore Girls recording. That didn't go over real well.

This will never go over well, my first month with Sage back using 2.2.8 the PC crashed while we were at the gym and missed the GG season opener, it wasn't a pretty sight.

[sixdoubleo]

Cold Dead Hands....and even then you can't have it.

Using a PC-based PVR (especially one as configurable as Sage) gives you an enormous amount of flexibility that you dont have with anything else. Edit shows, pull snippets, burn DVD's, publish something to YouTube, catalog and categorize your stuff any way you want and play it anywhere, anytime, any way. I have a server, 2 HTPC's, and 2 MVP's providing Sage content to any room of my house. Doesn't get any better. Yes I am happy.

As far as problems, Stanger is 100% correct in that forums tend to only expose the problems, not the successful installs. I am one of those people you never see because I am off enjoying the product. I have been a user since 1.4 and SageClient and Sage Server have been an integrated, problem-free part of my household for all this time. I run a Logitech Harmony and can truly say that I have a single remote for EVERYTHING and a complete turn-key setup that anybody can use. Combine it with Meedio, Girder, TheaterTek, and JRiver Media Center and I have a really sweet system. People rarely suspect they're even looking at a computer application. I have friends who come over and are able to just pick up my remote and start using sage without any instruction.

I would say to the people who have had continuous problems with Sage, are frustrated with it, etc.....you are in the minority. Just within my circle of friends, three of us use it absolutely problem-free with ear to ear grins, and none of us are ever on the forums..

[Ken C]

Originally Posted by salsbst

Do you by any chance use the disk space bar?

Thanks, Salsbst. turning off the disk space status bar makes things a lot snappier. So, every time you send a command, the disk space function goes out and scans all the drives. Not too bad with local drives but scanning the network drives takes much longer.

The 'spinning icon' was a big irritation for me and it wasn't a Sage problem after all. Hey, I even turned on the menu fade animation !

Again, thanks,

Ken C

[salsbst]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Thanks, Salsbst. turning off the disk space status bar makes things a lot snappier. So, every time you send a command, the disk space function goes out and scans all the drives. Not too bad with local drives but scanning the network drives takes much longer.

The 'spinning icon' was a big irritation for me and it wasn't a Sage problem after all. Hey, I even turned on the menu fade animation !

Again, thanks,

Ken C

The disk space bar got a substantial improvement in v6.0.16 to avoid this problem (it now updates itself in the background so it doesn't get in the way of navigation).... so if you're on 6.0.16 or later, it should be safe to turn it on again.

[Ken C]

Originally Posted by salsbst

The disk space bar got a substantial improvement in v6.0.16 to avoid this problem (it now updates itself in the background so it doesn't get in the way of navigation).... so if you're on 6.0.16 or later, it should be safe to turn it on again.

I will probably wait for the released version, beta's and I usually don't get along too well. But, at least I'm now looking forward to version 6.

Ken C

[broderp]

Occational bumps and pains, like the NEW random shut down 'bug' I have. (Even though I have changed NOTHING, other than allow auto updates to windows XP) (I'm not saying they are SAGE issues)

Annoying closed caption on DVD movies in SAGETV.

[geogecko]

Few bumps and pains here, software, hardware, you name it, it happened. I liked the puff of smoke that came out of the top of my case one time (there went my BFG 6600GT). Fun stuff. I've also lost a fanless power supply, and have one bad SATA port on my nForce4 motherboard. Once I switched all my FusionHDTV PCI cards to Fusion USB tuners, I've got stutter free HDTV now.

That came with some software bumps too, and a learning curve with SageTV, but now I wouldn't go back to the VCR days.

There is just too much that I get out of having a PVR with Sage setup on it. It's funny when people at work tell me about some show that sounds interesting, and I get online, and schedule it to record. That, or I can pull up a song to listen to over the internet.

There is just too much to list. But, it's not a plug-and-play type of thing either. I've spent many hours getting this thing setup, and fighting problems. My only problems now, is not enough time in the day to watch what I have recorded (over 300GB of Modern Marvels? Who would have thought there were that many episodes of that show...)

My only feature request of SageTV just keeps getting ignored, so I've stopped bringing it up. Christmas is what normally brings my wish out, all those new CD's that I have to RIP first, before I can play them.

So, I voted for prying it out of my cold dead fingers, or from my kung-fu grip, which ever it was, even though there were bumps along the way, not so many for me to dump the PVR PC, and go with Verizon's DVR.

[ozfiles]

Started in the htpc scene around 4 years ago now. Brought a copy of Sage and Beyond tv and found Beyond tv easier to setup. Used Beyond tv for about about 2 years and then gave Sage another go and haven't looked back since.

Just sat outside on a barmy night with the wife watching recorded and live shows using Placeshifter on the laptop....it just doesn't get any better than this.

Sure, there's some refinement and tweaks to iron out of Sage but for the expandability of the htpc and shear ease of recording your favourite show using a diverse program such as Sage, just leaves everything else for dead.

[paulbeers]

Since Ozfiles reopened this thread...I have to make a quick comment...How many of our wives watch Gilmore Girls? OMG!!! Last year somehow GG fell off our favorites for the final episode of the year and my wife about freaked out on me! Luckily they replay all the episodes over the summer so she was able to see the final episode last season right before this season's first (might actually have been better for her!). Just thought it was funny how many of us have been affected by a lost GG episode....

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Since Ozfiles reopened this thread...I have to make a quick comment...How many of our wives watch Gilmore Girls? OMG!!! Last year somehow GG fell off our favorites for the final episode of the year and my wife about freaked out on me! Luckily they replay all the episodes over the summer so she was able to see the final episode last season right before this season's first (might actually have been better for her!). Just thought it was funny how many of us have been affected by a lost GG episode....

You aren't kidding. Same thing happened to me, we got a couple episodes without sound as well, but it turned out to be a Sage problem, not a broadcast problem...

What is the deal with those two girls and their must fill every episode with as much talking as possible?!