questions from a potential vista media center user

[jagowar]

I have become more and more frustrated with media center's shortcomings (lack of customization of the interface as well as poor extender codec support). I exclusively use extenders currently so one of the big reasons im interested in sage is the hd extender which by all accounts is excellent. I know you. Ive read all positive reviews about the device and almost nothing bad about it. So I was wondering those that use it are there any quirks or shortcomings that a review wont bring out. (namely related to the themes/addons etc). Like I said I havent read anything but there is usually a few little things about every device.

Another reason I am interested in sage is its operability with windows home server.... Right now I dont have any hard drive protection and thats something that worries me because I have alot of content most of which is not protected (because the sheer amount of stuff I have). Is there any issues with whs (other than the corruption bug which ive seen confirmed will be fixed before i switch)

1. What are the best "addons" to use to mimick the vista media center experince.... im not a huge fan of the default sage interface (much prefer the vista look and feel).

2. Is there a addon that will make my movie library look similar to this? (i dont want to have my movies stored with the rest of my videos.... i think they should have their own section)


3. Is there any real support with home automation products? Since Im planning on whs I could use mcontrol (a media center home automation suite) but something that works with sage interface would be better. I would love if mcontrol would get some sage support although i think thats more a question for the embedded automation folks.

That said I wont completely change over until atleast CES09 (because i want to see what vista fiji and the directv tuners bring).... directv hdtv is going to be very important to me but we still dont know how unrestricted the directv tuner cards will be.... might end up with one of those hauppauge component capture devices and a few directv receivers. although i was hoping to do a quad tuner system which will get expensive paying for 4 receivers.

[DOS64K]

jagowar -

1. The HD-100 is simply the bomb. It just works. When issues do come up, it is almost always related to something else altoghther (network, firewall, etc.) Also, just so there's no confusion, the extender's interface is tied to whatever your Sage server is running, but is customizable for each extender.

2. The best "add-on" interface for the default STV is SageMC by far. You can find info on it in the downloads section. It is fully customizable and there are a few "skins" (e.g. CenterSage) that rival VMC. And yes, it allows you to setup your videos much like VMC.

3. WHS is a great way to run Sage as a server. There are a couple of tricks to using it (i.e. keeping your recording drives out of the managed pool), but it really does keep things all neat and tidy. There's plenty of info on the forums about Sage's WHS version.

[Polypro]

I'll just add that I use WHS to store everything but recorded TV (cuz I have a dedicated Sage Server/Client near the TV) and have zero problems streaming music, pictures, and video - including archived DVDs, from the WHS machine's managed pool...no stutter at all with the default cluster size or speed. Duplication is on for everything as well.

P