Is the STV plague speading through BTV?

[davefred99]

My reasons for leaving BTV were like most the lack of integration and also there forums became overly censored to try and quiet the growing numbers of dissatisfied customers. So I switched and have never looked back.
I do not think that Sage Tv is perfect but it is better than BTV or any other option I have seen so far.
My only real beef with SageTv is the lack of information about an HD thin client that was first mentioned at CES. HD is a real problem with all the crap the content providers are trying to force on us so I can only hope that we can get past it some how. With HD becoming more and more in demand I just dont know if anything will make me happy in the long run.

[Khristopher]

For quite some time, SS has not moderated their forums......and this can be confirmed with some of my comments on the forums which are far from kind.

I also do not think SageTV is perfect, however in comparison to BTV, it certainly has more Pro's than Con's.

One of my biggest gripes with BTV (beyond Integration) was the lack of a Preview window while viewing the guide. You had the option to view TV behind the guide, or nothing at all. This feature for me is one of the must have features for a PVR. Granted, it's a small feature, but sometimes it's the little things that can make or break a product.

[mayamaniac]

This thread is starting to sound like an AA meeting.

"Hi, I'm Bob and I'm a BTV user."

[tawd1992]

I tried BTV earlier this year & actually really liked the UI, it seemed very similar to Tivo. I was quite disappointed when I learned that you had to buy 2 programs to get much of the same functionality that 1 program (SageTV) offers. Not only the extra price, but just the fact that everything wasn't integrated into a single solution made me lose interest quickly.

[mickp]

It was the lack of DVB support in BTV forced me to look elsewhere. Rakesh at Snapstream eventually came clean, admitting that DVB support was nowhere on their roadmap and that they would be concentrating exclusively on the ATSC market for the forseeable future. With absolutely no future in BTV I cast about for a replacement.

Candidate 1) MCE

I liked the interface and "full integration" (a term only a btv/bm user can truly appreciate) but had problems getting it to work with my two dvb set top boxes which required different lineups. The lack of a software client to replace btv link was also a deal breaker

Candidate 2) Myth TV

Looks to have all of the required features except there's no true Windows client. Non starter

Candidate 3) GB PVR

I spent a few days playing with this on a test rig. It was a bit fiddly and the interface wasn't perfect but worked tollerably well. With a bit of mucking about it was possible to have a btv link style client running and I very nearly stuck with GB, only revisiting Sage on a whim. A new version of GB that completely replaces the ui has been released recently and if I were in the same position again there is every chance that I would be a happy GB PVR user.

Candidate 4) Sage

Everything just worked for me out of the box. Gone were occasional lip synch problems I'd experienced in btv. My discarded Avermedia M150 (pal) card which refused to record at pal resolution under BTV (no help from SS support I'm afraid) worked flawlessly in Sage (as did my pvr 150 mce's) and I was free to shop for a shiny new dvb card. I could also ditch girder as Sage had native support for my usb uirt.

Gripes that folks on the ss forums had such as dvb/qam support, bm/btv integration, cross platform support, recording to multiple drives, customisability etc just weren't issues in Sage. It was a revelation.

The main thing that had stopped me from moving to Sage years ago was that the interface screenshots on the site didn't appeal to me at all. It's very shallow of me I know. Many people are very happy with the default Sage interface but at the time it seemed like a step backwards from BTV.

Within a day of actually having Sage installed on a test machine I stumbled upon the SageMC stv and haven't looked back. I couldn't get btv/bm out of my life quick enough.

If only I had seen some screenshots of SageMC in the first place I might never have gone the BTV route.

Things that I miss from BTV/BM;

BTV stores show metadata in the recordings themselves. This makes it effortless to move recordings. In BTV I was able to specify my dvd drive as a video folder and inserting a dvd with archived recordings would show all of the original metadata instantly. Maybe I just need to experiment with .my files in Sage but this was pretty cool.

There is a nice Game Library plugin for BM which works as a 10' front end for mame and other emulators. It would be nice to have a replacement for this in Sage sometime.

Mick.

[Khristopher]

I guess I have to fess up as well as being shallow because I thought Sage was pretty unattractive and didn't try it because of that!

What did I learn? Don't judge a book by it's cover!

I agree that Sage just "works". I didn't have to sit there and tweak it to function properly, never mind using two programs (BTV and BM) to accomplish the same thing that Sage does in one.

I installed the Trial of Sage on a Monday, and by that Wednesday, all traces of Snapstream were removed from my life!

[flavius]

GB PVR is still a one man show, isn't it? Or has he gotten any help?

[mickp]

Originally Posted by flavius

GB PVR is still a one man show, isn't it? Or has he gotten any help?

From what I can see on the forums it's still just Sub. Pretty impressive for one guy.

Mick.

[flavius]

^Yes.

[Khristopher]

Originally Posted by mickp

From what I can see on the forums it's still just Sub. Pretty impressive for one guy.

Snapstream should take some lessons! LOL

[shadowb]

I'm a new convert as well. What brought me over to Sage from BTV is the better support for the HDHR. Since joining this forum I now realize I could have tried the QAM function with my HDR 1600 card

I spent close to 2 days trying to get BTV to work with the HDHR w/o success. I did like the web interface but have also realized there is a cool plugin for web written by one of our community members!!! The other thing I realized I did not like about BTV is that you are stuck going with all or nothing when it comes to the EPG. There are some channels listed for Digital cable in my area that I don't have and have recorded stuff that wasn't there!!!! At least with sage I can pick and choose what I want. I did try both at first before going to BTV. A lot of what I've been trying recently has turned me from them. Now all I have to do is implement utilizing the USB-UIRT and I can finally control my htpc with my Harmony Remote

[Safemaster]

I've already invested on BTV and BM, but I'm thinking of calling it a loss and jump ship to sageTV. the worst part is I've only had BTV with BM for only six month.

man do I feel like I've been had. Big sucker on my forehead.

[cmcquistion]

I'm considering jumping ship from BTV to Sage, but I have a couple questions:

-Does SageTV have something like the DVD Library plugin for Beyond Media?
-Can I set up shows to record "all episodes" or just "new episodes" like BTV does?
-Can I turn auto-commercial-skip off, but still have a one button skip function like BTV does? (pressing UP or DOWN goes to next or previous commercial start)
-Do I have to buy client licenses or anything for the Media MVP's that I already own?
-How difficult is it to set up the Firefly remote? I have a couple of these and as remotes go, these are great! (I have two of the RF versions and one of the IR versions.)
-Can I view my recorded shows by Series?

[sainswor99]

Welcome to Sage; I answered the questions I was familiar with. Others may give you a better picture.

Originally Posted by cmcquistion

Can I set up shows to record "all episodes" or just "new episodes" like BTV does?

Actually, if I recall the BTV interface correctly, Sage actually has a bit more flexibility. Sage allows you to set up Favorites and prioritize them; you could set up a Favorite for All airings, or you could set up a Favorite for New ones and a Favorite for repeats. I did this for Stargate SG-1 (before the series ended); I wanted to be sure to ALWAYS record a new one, but recording old ones was OK if nothing else was going on. Of course, with multiple tuners, this becomes less of an issue.

Originally Posted by cmcquistion

-Do I have to buy client licenses or anything for the Media MVP's that I already own?

Yes, but the licences for the MediaMVP are concurrent usage. If you only use one MVP at a time, you can get by with one MediaMVP/Placeshifter licence. See this post for more details.

Originally Posted by cmcquistion

-Can I view my recorded shows by Series?

Yep; it's called Grouping, and it's a valuable aspect of Sage. However, IMO, the default UI still does a poor job of Grouping shows. You may want to look for the hidden extras (the malore menus) or SageMC to deal with that.

HTH,
Stu

[Khristopher]

Originally Posted by cmcquistion

I'm considering jumping ship from BTV to Sage, but I have a couple questions:

-Can I turn auto-commercial-skip off, but still have a one button skip function like BTV does? (pressing UP or DOWN goes to next or previous commercial start)

-How difficult is it to set up the Firefly remote? I have a couple of these and as remotes go, these are great! (I have two of the RF versions and one of the IR versions.)

-You can turn auto-commercial skip off. Rather than pushing UP/DOWN like in BTV, you push LEFT/RIGHT.

-I believe there is already a SageTV profile included with the FF remote that works "reasonably" well. Having said that however, I dumped both my FF remotes to purchase MCE remotes and have been much happier with them.

[Khristopher]

Originally Posted by Safemaster

I've already invested on BTV and BM, but I'm thinking of calling it a loss and jump ship to sageTV. the worst part is I've only had BTV with BM for only six month.

man do I feel like I've been had. Big sucker on my forehead.

If you contact Rakesh on the BTV forums, he can tell you how to get a refund for BM.

Best thing I did was jump ship!

I was at my parents place last night (who have BTV that I setup for them awhile ago), and it just pained me to use it again now that I'm used to using Sage. Having to exit BTV and load MediaPortal to watch DVD's/External Videos just sucks!

[cmcquistion]

Originally Posted by Khristopher

If you contact Rakesh on the BTV forums, he can tell you how to get a refund for BM.

Best thing I did was jump ship!

I was at my parents place last night (who have BTV that I setup for them awhile ago), and it just pained me to use it again now that I'm used to using Sage. Having to exit BTV and load MediaPortal to watch DVD's/External Videos just sucks!

I've got a similar sort of situation. I've got BTV setups at my parents place, my brothers, and several of my friends. BTV is great for watching TV, but it just do much else. All I really use BTV and BM for is watching TV and using the DVD Library plugin for BM. That plugin, alone, makes BM worthwhile.

At my parents setup, they have several Media MVP's. The Beyond TV MVP program is really limited and unstable. I'd love to replace it, but I don't want to spend time and money on something that isn't going to meet all their needs. For my home, I'd replace BTV and BM as long as I can get the functionality of BTV and DVD Library and still use my old remotes.

[mickp]

Originally Posted by cmcquistion

I've got a similar sort of situation. I've got BTV setups at my parents place, my brothers, and several of my friends. BTV is great for watching TV, but it just do much else. All I really use BTV and BM for is watching TV and using the DVD Library plugin for BM. That plugin, alone, makes BM worthwhile.

At my parents setup, they have several Media MVP's. The Beyond TV MVP program is really limited and unstable. I'd love to replace it, but I don't want to spend time and money on something that isn't going to meet all their needs. For my home, I'd replace BTV and BM as long as I can get the functionality of BTV and DVD Library and still use my old remotes.

IMHO the "My Videos" interface in sagemc is better than the "DVD Library" plugin (sorry Kilrsat). You can import metadata from imdb or dvd profiler (I use imdb) and it offeres a bit more flexibility in organising content. You can just create sub directories in your movies folders and it will show thumbnailed directories in the video browser, or if you prefer you can catalog entries according to genre or other groups. It works across multiple sage clients well too. I don't remember that being the case for bm though it's been about a year so I might be making that up.

Here are some pics;









Some of the many cool things to check out in sage are;

Bob's amazing video editor plugin

Evil Penguin's incredible SageMC video tools for distributed dvd authoring

I notice in the other fourms that you're supporting a setup in Australia. Stephane's XML tv import thinger for Sage works just like the btv version.

Hope this helps.

Mick.

[cmcquistion]

Can the My Videos thing work with ISO files, though?

If not, can it work with VOB files that have just been ripped into a file structure. (Take the ISO's and unpack them into a directory?)

I've been using DVD Profiler to catalog my DVD's for DVD Library (about 250 of them). Can I just import the DVD Profiler XML and go from there or do I have to go through some manual process for every movie?

[MarcP]

Originally Posted by cmcquistion

If not, can it work with VOB files that have just been ripped into a file structure. (Take the ISO's and unpack them into a directory?)

I haven't tried ISOs, but you can rip the entire DVD onto your HD and it will work fine with Sage. Just make sure to have the VIDEO_TS folder in your directory (i.e. <Movie Title>\VIDEO_TS)