New SageTV Interface

[Rob]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

I'd hope they deal with the stuttering issue first too!

You are so right! I just did not mention it because I hope the extender takes care of it.

[JUC]

Originally Posted by JUC

Anyway- a nicer, flashier UI = better reivews = more sales = faster production of an HD extender for us!

Originally Posted by blade

Not necessarily. It could even delay something like the HD extender. All companies have a finite number of resources. To overhaul the UI Sage would need to hire additional programmers or divert resources from other areas of development. Sage is a small company and doesn't have the resources or economies of scale that MS does so it's difficult.

Good point. A flashier UI COULD have resulted in a quicker HD extender if implemented a while ago. Obviously starting on something now would delay anything coming down the pipeline.

[JUC]

Originally Posted by blade

The core issue is actually profit not sales.

They are not mutually exclusive. I see no distinction between the two here. sales = profit; profit = sales

I would actually argue more sales would result in more buzz which would result in more press which would result in even more sales and ultimately more profit.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by JUC

They are not mutually exclusive. I see no distinction between the two here. sales = profit; profit = sales

I would actually argue more sales would result in more buzz which would result in more press which would result in even more sales and ultimately more profit.

What about the guy buying watermelons for a dollar each and selling them for 50 cents each. All he needs is another truck to haul them in...

[JUC]

Originally Posted by Rob

What about the guy buying watermelons for a dollar each and selling them for 50 cents each. All he needs is another truck to haul them in...

i see your point...but i would think the initial costs/effort of software development have been recouped. Sage is not losing money (i hope) on each license they sell.

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by Rob

I for one sure hope sage finishes the HD extender before trying to figure out what ugly, eye candy, poorly layed out and all the other generic statements mean.

OK, so as a consumer of a product that I paid for, the onus is on me to develop new features (through Studio) or plan out a production plan for features that I want? I can't give general feedback without people suggesting that such feedback is "useless", or underdeveloped. I'm sorry, but that just seems insulting to me as a customer. If I wanted to develop PVR software, I'd go work for Sage, or work on MythTV.

Can I design a user interface that suits my needs? Sure. Can I develop it in Studio. Maybe. What's my incentive for doing so? Not much.

I agree that adding new features like the HD extender are important, but I think that making sure that people can use your software intuitively is also pretty high on the "to-do" list. I don't have HD, so as an individual user, I don't care if a product supports HD at this time. I do care if the software is easy to use.

I used to run Beyond TV, but I left BeyondTV (which does support skins, BTW) because I wanted a PVR software that also handled my music collection for my home theater. Sage (with the MediaMVP) was the best solution for me at the time. I run SageMC on the MVP because it's easy for my wife to figure out where the music is. If another package comes along that's easier to navigate, allows me to watch my recorded shows and listen to music on any computer in that house, and gives me a reliable media extender, it's "bye-bye, Sage". Right now, there doesn't seem to be much competition in this realm; that will change.

I agree, profits should drive business decisions, and I also agree that the Sage team should be the one to ultimately make the call as to what business decisions will reap the most profits. However, UI ( in terms of both intuitive navigation and visual appeal) should (in my opinion) be pretty high on the list of things to improve in SageTV without blaming the customer for being too lazy to do anything about it (not that the Sage team has done that, but it seems to be an attitude expressed in some posts in this thread).

Stu

[Rob]

Originally Posted by JUC

i see your point...but i would think the initial costs/effort of software development have been recouped. Sage is not losing money (i hope) on each license they sell.

I agree with you and I think your right in this case. I was just using an extreme example to point out that sales do not always mean profits and more sales do not always mean more profit.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

OK, so as a consumer of a product that I paid for, the onus is on me to develop new features (through Studio) or plan out a production plan for features that I want?
Stu

I never said you had to develop new features. I just cannot image how the people at Sage are supposed to turn all these generic statements into something useful. All I'm meaning is that specific feedback is much more useful to the Sage developers.

[JUC]

Originally Posted by Rob

I agree with you and I think your right in this case. I was just using an extreme example to point out that sales do not always mean profits and more sales do not always mean more profit.

Rob-i think its a good point to make. Its not always cut and dry. I think we can all agree we want whats best for sage and us. If that means an end result of more profit and better UI --then everyone wins. How to get there is the question.

I am curious to see what is up with that Green sage icon we got a tease of a little while ago though...


edited to add quote for reference

[Rob]

Originally Posted by JUC

Rob-i think its a good point to make. Its not always cut and dry. I think we can all agree we want whats best for sage and us. If that means an end result of more profit and better UI --then everyone wins. How to get there is the question.

I am curious to see what is up with that Green sage icon we got a tease of a little while ago though...

Definitely

By the way, thanks for the work you did trying to get th D-link source code. It pushed the HD extender (and maybe it pushed Sage toward its HD extender solution) and I appreciate it.

[jbarr]

Let's keep one thing in perspective here: This is a user-to-user forum. My understanding is that SageTV does keep an eye on this forum and does participate, but if anyone has specific suggestions or feature requests, by all means, contact SageTV directly with them. Bouncing them off of us here is fun, and potentially productive, but we really need to communicate with the people who can really make the differences.

[blade]

Originally Posted by src666

Except - they used to have a lot of people running around saying " ... and in addition to all that, upgrades are free! They aren't trying to milk you for every new feature." They don't have that anymore. That's a feature that was removed from the product.

Yes and it makes sense to do so. When the user base was smaller there was very little potential revenue in upgrades. As the user base increases in size there is more potential revenue. Eventually the user base reaches a point where charging for upgrades will generate more revenue than the "feature" of free upgrades will.

You start charging for upgrades, and you are going to start leaving some portion of your customer base behind. Period.

If the customer base isn't generating revenue for the company then keeping them doesn't have a lot of benefit other than word of mouth. As I said before as the potential revenue for upgrades increases it becomes more beneficial than retaining customers that will no longer generate revenue for the company.

I can almost guarantee that they agonized over the decision to charge for upgrades to V6, and that they did it for a better reason than "everyone else is doing it". SageTV is NOT an "everyone else is doing it" company, or at least hasn't been one in the past.

This has been discussed numerous times before. Sage is a business. Expecting them to continue to provide free upgrades while their competition is generating revenue from upgrades makes no sense. They can either pocket the additional revenue or put it back into the company. Either way to ignore a valuable source of revenue would be a foolish business decision.

They charged for upgrades because they need the money, either now (decreased sales/increased expenses) or anticipate needing it later (preparing us to expect upgrade charges in the future). And the best way to increase revenue is to increase sales (obviously, without increasing the cost of a sale or reducing the income from a sale). They need to be able to compete with the products in the market today.

I don't pretend to know why Sage charged for the upgrade, but I don't see how you justify your assumptions. If a company only looks to increase their profits when they need money they're being run very poorly. Companies should always look for ways to increase their profit regardless of their financial situation.

Obviously the best way to increase revenue is to increase sales. You seem to be confusing sales/revenue and net income. Saying increasing sales would be the best way to increase net income would be incorrect. There are thousands of examples where companies have increased sales and decreased their profit margins. Just take a look at some of the corporation's financial statements.

[blade]

Originally Posted by JUC

They are not mutually exclusive. I see no distinction between the two here. sales = profit; profit = sales

It is nowhere near as simple as sales = profits. Last year I performed a financial analysis on a company that did +$5.9 billion in sales. They had increased sales every year for the last 5 years yet their profit margins had decreased each year. From 05-06 sales for this company increased by $238 million and net income decreased by $2 million. They were still turning a profit, but they focused too heavily on how to push the product without focusing on the margins.

I would actually argue more sales would result in more buzz which would result in more press which would result in even more sales and ultimately more profit.

I totally agree that more sales would help increase the buzz and would be a positive thing. I just feel that none of us know enough about the internal workings of Sage as a company or the PVR market to say with certainty that their course of action is incorrect. We all have our opinions and I agree with a lot of what has been said. I just know a business must look at more than just what users will like. It must be feasible for the company.

I just want to be clear that I'm in favor of improving the UI. Personally I feel a HD extender and smooth HD from a PC client should be the main priority. Multi-user capabilities, parental controls, and eye candy are also important.

[JUC]

Originally Posted by blade

It is nowhere near as simple as sales = profits. Last year I performed a financial analysis on a company that did +$5.9 billion in sales. They had increased sales every year for the last 5 years yet their profit margins had decreased each year. From 05-06 sales increased by $238 million and net income decreased by $2 million.

was that a software company? of course the bigger a company gets, the more overhead it has but when talking about sage-i don't see how increased sales could result in less profit. Then again, i am probably WAY oversimplifying this in my head. I have no clue how large a company sage is.

[matrix35]

I believe anything anyone of us will say right now would only be speculation.
it would be nice if someone from sage can chime in and help us understand what is their main focus right now. nothing vague please.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by matrix35

I believe anything anyone of us will say right now would only be speculation.
it would be nice if someone from sage can chime in and help us understand what is their main focus right now. nothing vague please.

Unfortunately, Sage stopped giving out information on what they are working on years ago becuase they kept getting roasted for missing dates or not including things they had mentioned. Now they usually keep quite until they have something to release.

[blade]

Originally Posted by JUC

was that a software company? of course the bigger a company gets, the more overhead it has but when talking about sage-i don't see how increased sales could result in less profit. Then again, i am probably WAY oversimplifying this in my head. I have no clue how large a company sage is.

No it wasn't and software companies do scale much better than traditional businesses. Look at it this way, Sage has x amount of man hours available each week. Assuming everyone is working at max capacity to completely overhaul the UI they would either need to hire additional programmers (which adds overhead) or assign the task to an existing employee pushing back the release date of whatever he/she is working on. I've worked for small companies before that could have used more people, but literally had no space for the employees. So to hire a few more people a new building had to be purchased or rented and the company had to be moved. There are a lot of costs that can creep into decisions.

I'm not saying it isn't feasible just that those running Sage are the only ones who have access to the information needed to make the decision. I'm not saying they'll make the right one. There are plenty of CEOs who screw the pooch. We have no clue what their revenue or costs are or the projected sales each new feature is expected to generate.

Oh and to put things into perspective. MS had +$44 billion in revenue for 06 and a net income of +$12.6 billion. I wouldn't be too quick to think that Sage has the resources to do something just because MS managed to do it. I have no clue how large Sage is, but I know they aren't that big.

[Crashless]

I've finally read through this entire thread, and I'm completely exhausted.

It seems that we're talking about why SageTV hasn't 'updated' the default interface recently - but no one seems to agree what 'updated' means.

Could it be flashier? Yes.

Could it be easier to use? Maybe.

It seems that Sage is facing an interesting problem - there are two conflicting factions of users. One is the tweakers, who want more functionality, with everything visible and lots of transparency to the inner-workings of all that is SageTV.

The second might be considered 'Joe-Schmo'. They just want something that is easy to use without all the other distractions.

The only thing these two groups agree on is that things could be a little 'prettier'.

So how does Sage cater to both camps while leveraging their existing investment in the standard UI? My suggestion would be to start by giving the images that make up the interface a little face-lift and then try to come up with a few 'wow' effects. These can be simple little add-in animations that dress up the experience a little. Similar to when they added to dissolve transition between menus. Maybe give the option to have sound effects. While a lot of people might turn them off, Tivo has set the standard as requiring some sort of audio feedback to user actions.

I have more specific ideas on this how this could be done. If anyone is interested, please PM me.

Those are relatively simple options that could potentially impress both types of users. Beyond that, it would be quite difficult to completely satisfy everyone.

The only idea I can come up with that might be remotely realistic would begin with modularizing the UI system, which would allow committees of people to work on a single UI. This would help relieve the extremely daunting task of creating an entire UI from scratch for a single person and would basically open-source the UI.

In doing this, I think they might be able to get a few additional options out there for users. I know I would love to get a team of people together to work on Meekell more often - but it's extremely difficult to manage when you have one file with thousands of lines of code to integrate changes to. It becomes way easier to just do it yourself than to try and get help from others.

In any event, I'm still extremely satisfied with SageTV - it is without a doubt superior to its competitors. There are just a few things I hope they can figure out in order to keep that edge, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

[sainswor99]

Just checked; how does one contact Sage with development ideas? All that's listed on their contact page is information for support and/or sales:

http://www.sagetv.com/contact.html?navA=contact


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[JUC]

Originally Posted by Crashless

.

So how does Sage cater to both camps while leveraging their existing investment in the standard UI? My suggestion would be to start by giving the images that make up the interface a little face-lift and then try to come up with a few 'wow' effects. These can be simple little add-in animations that dress up the experience a little. Similar to when they added to dissolve transition between menus. Maybe give the option to have sound effects. While a lot of people might turn them off, Tivo has set the standard as requiring some sort of audio feedback to user actions.

I think thats a great point. It won't take much to add a little sparkle to the UI...a slight change here, a new background there, move a menu like so...
This has been what I have been thinking in terms of a UI update anyway.