Sage 7.0 Wishlist

[JetreL]

I would love to see Blue-Ray Support now that the standard has been decided. If not support for it then at least better integration to the DVD Software players.

Also, I like the the Netflix plugin for SageMC but I think it still has a bit of tweaking to get it right. Maybe native video streaming from Netflix.

[nycjoe]

One annoyance that I would be very happy to be rid of is a letterbox issue I sometime encounter. When watching a SD channel on my widescreen TV, the 4:3 aspect ratio leaves some unused space on the sides of the screen.

While this is fine for most TV (plus the fact that sagetv allows me to stretch the picture to 16:9 ratio to use up the space), an annoyance occurs when watching content originally intended for HD that is being broadcast on an SD channel.

Basically, the issue is that HD content on an SD channel leaves unused space at the top and bottom of the screen, which in effect leaves me with a gigantic black frame around the video being displayed. It would be really cool if sage could just add another aspect ratio mode that would zoom in and use up all the space on the screen.

[Taddeusz]

You can already do just that if you have an HD Extender.

[ke6guj]

Or else just adjust one of your existing aspect ratios to have it zoom in and fit the screen. I've got the 4x3 aspect ratio set to zoom in 133% and it makes that "widescreen" 4:3 content fill the screen.

And you can use the auto aspect ratio switcher to automate it.

[nycjoe]

perfect! the %133 zoom solves it completely. The quality is ridiculously bad, but I suppose thats the price you pay for having a large TV.

[Bacon2002]

Hi,

I'd like to see:-

1) A PSP client
2) Option to use a Slingbox as a source
3) Better channel sorting, editing, deleting, numbering etc software/options
4) Radio (internet, DVB-S, DVB-T, FM etc)
5) Picture in picture, live feed for searching the TV guide
6) Archiving and editing/cutting recordings to different directories and drives
7) DVD burning and editing/cutting options
8) The ability to see/pick which TV sources are going to be used for scheduled recording

No doubt others have already suggested some of these.

Thanks,

David

[scoful]

Maybe there's a way to do this or someone else has suggested it, but I would really like the option in Favorites to distinguish the preference of HD or SD and a default preference.

My daughter is constantly adding favorites and now that we have Disney in HD it is sucking up my hard drive space like crazy.

I want to be able to default new favorites to prefer SD recording and have a per favorite option to select HD or SD as the preferred recording.

[gblinckmann]

Originally Posted by Varible

Hello, Im new here to SageTV and so far its great. The one thing I seem to be missing is good photo transitions when you are watching photos in slideshow mode. I would like to see something similar to the 'Ken Burns' effect that MCE has.

Thanks!

I'd like to add something to that. Along with the transitions, planning across panoramic photos.

[dooferlad]

I know I like banging this particular drum, but DVD playback is my #1 area for improvement. I really want to see Sage save the position of DVDs, not just imported rips. Also, I can't skip past the copyright notices in Sage, even though I have used DVD Region Free to remove user prohibitions. All other programs let me skip. A title / chapter list would be great as well. The is nothing nicer than being able to jump past all the menu rubbish on a disk to an episode of a series you are watching. Whoever designs DVD menus needs a lesson in not irritating users - I have seen your pointlessly flash menu into on disk 1. I am now on disk 5 of series 7 and I am still skipping past it! Just take me to an episode list!

[Fuzzy]

My list:

• HD-DVD/Blu-Ray support
• Per-User favorites and watched flags (Each user has their own set of favorites, and each file has a watched flag for each user. A show does not get bumped up on the autodelete list until it is marked watched for each user which has the show as a favorite.)
• More transparent wiz.bin... wizbin.xml anyone?
• Metadata (all show info from database) reside in the media file as well. This would allow portability, without having to add extra text files to the recording directory.
• Improved Music Library. A better playlist editor, visualizations, video file override (if video file exists alongside the music file, play the video instead, still in the playlist. Otherwise, play the visualization).
• Built-in DVD burning. Generate a standard menu that looks like the sage interface (though obviously limited to selecting which episode to watch). Allow the menus to be modified/created by developers so they can make DVD menus to match their custom STV themes.

[gblinckmann]

One issue that I have (minor, I know) is that I can't stop a video podcast at one TV and pick it up at another TV the way that I do with TV shows. That would be a great 7.0 feature.

Netflix streaming would be great, too! How about Pandora and RadioTime?

[Fuzzy]

Oh yeah, once more item for my 'list'.

• Server Status Screen: I would like the ability to have a screen display on he server that gives a rundown of what is going on currently. A preview display from each source, with appropriate guide info. A list of the clients, and what is currently being watched. A list of storage locations and space used/free. It should be a nice full-screen display, and could actually help out quite a bit for at a glance status.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Oh yeah, once more item for my 'list'.

• Server Status Screen: I would like the ability to have a screen display on he server that gives a rundown of what is going on currently. A preview display from each source, with appropriate guide info. A list of the clients, and what is currently being watched. A list of storage locations and space used/free. It should be a nice full-screen display, and could actually help out quite a bit for at a glance status.

I would think you could get the web server to do this. If I remember correctly the main screen has most of this info on it. With the right extension to Firefox you can have it auto-refresh the screen every so often to maintain the display current. Plus with a mouse or touchscreen you can still control everything else including the running extenders.

[broderp]

Is comercial skip off the radar at this point?

That and how about utilizing windows visualizations.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by broderp

Is comercial skip off the radar at this point?

That and how about utilizing windows visualizations.

There are legal ramifications for officially supporting comskip so I imagine Sage will just leave that to us lawless forum users and our excellently written and easy to install plug-ins.

[HelenWeathers]

I would like to have the ability to stop a recording in progress in record options for favorites.

I would also like to see a restart from beginning choice when I stop watching a recording. I use a remote and have to use the |< when I need to get back to the beginning.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I would also like to see a restart from beginning choice when I stop watching a recording.

The Multi-Function Stop import does this.

John

[reidfo]

I'm sure there are others, but here's what comes to mind at the moment (in order of preference):


-Multizone audio through HD-100 extenders and/or soundcard in the server. Ability to control an audio zone through extender (i.e. back porch speakers can be controlled thru any extender)

- FM and AM radio tuner support

- picture-in-picture support. It would be great to be able to pop up a PIP box showing the front door cam when the doorbell rings for instance. If we had PIP support the plugin wouldn't be too difficult to write.

- Better DVD library support. MyMovies is the only thing I really miss since the switch from MCE.

- Better audio visualization

[jhendrix]

Could sage store channel info (or be able to import it) in an XML file?
When playing with multiple sat. feeds through a diseqc switch, the channel lineups can become very complex. Right now it takes a long time to manually add each channel and it would be nice to be able to edit a file or import a file with all the channel info.

[jherrick]

Originally Posted by briands

Lot's of good ideas... maybe we should be capturing them to the first post and keeping a tally...

My biggies from a feature perspective (I trust that SAGE is working on the performance issues that we all want):

Favorites

keep at least -for those kids shows ... i don't care if it has been watched, keep at least this many . preferably prioritize deletion/ recording to those watched longest ago.

Just as important, to me, would be:

STOP RECORDING WHEN FULL (per favorite) - for the same kid shows that are on 40 times a day (on 5 different channels), don't keep recording (and cycling through) the unwatched episodes, if the "Keep At Most" limit has been reached. I have 10 of em already recorded and that's enough, thanks.