SageTV HD Extender Update

[lfilomeno]

Well, it is black friday! Were is the anouncement? I have been waiting for the media extender to be available as well to no avail. So I am going to configure a quiet, DIY "media extender" based on a Portwell 3.5" Intel® ECX Form Factor Embedded Board with Intel® 852GM chipset I had reserved for a carpc project. I am looking to install Linux on it to make it look like the "original" SageTV media entender. Will post pictures and results when ready. This prototype of mines has to be ready before Dec. 31st. I am showcasing SAgeTVto the family which is going to be at my house by that date. Big test for SageTV; if it works as planned, I will get a big WAF seal of approval!

[danmyersmn]

I did the same thing. I wanted an extender. I don't believe believe that Sage plans to release a new player to the market anytime before mid first quarter/second quarter of next year. It will also likely be 20-30% higher then the list price of the now defunct model.

A client PC setup is more attractive for many reasons.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by danmyersmn

I did the same thing. I wanted an extender. I don't believe believe that Sage plans to release a new player to the market anytime before mid first quarter/second quarter of next year. It will also likely be 20-30% higher then the list price of the now defunct model.

A client PC setup is more attractive for many reasons.

seriously - you just won the prize for most inaccurate post of the month. And that normally takes some doing

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by danmyersmn

I did the same thing. I wanted an extender. I don't believe believe that Sage plans to release a new player to the market anytime before mid first quarter/second quarter of next year. It will also likely be 20-30% higher then the list price of the now defunct model.

A client PC setup is more attractive for many reasons.

Wow.....I have to agree with Brent here. First off any retailer will tell you that the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is one of the most important months to make your cash. It can litterally make or break you. Sage has already stated that their goal is to release it in December. Last year the HD100 was released on 12/10 so that everyone could have their units by Xmas. They sold out of them in 4 (or was it 5) days. I see no reason to think this year would be any different. The issue is always shipping times/customs/etc. with any item shipped from China and so it always makes it difficult to project an exact date.

As for pricing. Sure. It is possible that it will be more expensive. It is also possible it will be cheaper or cost the same. The good people at Sage has never quoted a price.....so I guess I have to ask you why you think it will cost more? And what if it does cost more because it includes a Blu-Ray drive....is that really a price increase or are you really paying more for additional features?

(Disclaimer here: I have no information as to whether the next extender will or won't have a blu-ray drive, I am just using it as an example).

A full client has its advantages.....Internet Browser, Blu-Ray playback (thru an external player), etc. I will never build one again though. I used to have two, but now I am fully Extenders. It just makes my life easier.....

[Djc208]

I think the current price point worked well. Sage would be stupid to get rid of it. Naturally lower will always make us happy but they'd do OK leaving it alone too as we've proven twice already.

That doesn't however mean that they might not also offer a special BD player that could run Sage too, like the new one that will do Netflix. However I don't know that it would be a Sage machine with BD as much as it would be a BD player that can boot a special version of Sage.

Because while I might seriously consider buying such a device I wouldn't want one at every TV in my house, especially at $299 or more. I would however put it in the living room and kill two birds with one box. Then move my current extender somewhere else.

[bigbill]

Geezzz,, not having the HD100 available for the last four months makes me wonder if their business planning department was one guy and he got hit by a truck (or they forgot they needed someone to take that role). I've worked where i had to negotiate buying devices where I wanted the 10k unit price and had to negotiate that over a long term deal with small quantity releases monthly and even when it turned out we needed a lot less than we thought we still got the huge pricing discount and never got dinged for not actually taking 10k pieces. Anyway, I digress, what I really wanted to mention was I thought they were back in stock as I went to the home page and there they were. I read all about them and when I thought they sounded pretty good i clicked on "Buy it now", what a bad joke. Only after trying to purchase it do you discover its not available. Couldn't they put that on the home page. I wonder if their business planner was also the marketing genius.. Sorry for the rant, but it's black friday and I really wanted to buy something..

[Brent]

Originally Posted by bigbill

it's black friday and I really wanted to buy something..

Maybe we'll see something on CyberMonday??? Don't know honestly, but they said December and it's not yet December.

SageTV is a small company but they have always delivered as promised in the past. Part of being able to "deliver as promised" includes not promising something until you know for sure how many you have to ship and when you'll have them to ship. It is a pain to wait, but the alternative of saying "it will be here XXX day" before you know for sure would create more unhappy people then saying we'll let you know when we're sure. Hauppauge showed us the pain of over delivering and promising with the HD-PVRs and that created a lot of distrust. I much prefer the approach SageTV is taking.

And if you think you might want an extender I'd save some of that Christmas budget for the new extenders...

[valnar]

My biggest fear is they were underestimate the inventory needed for this new extender based on the fact they already sold a bunch to their most loyal Sage users. Sage, if you are reading, do not do that. Buy more than last time. I want a few, and I have two already (had three - sold one).

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

First off any retailer will tell you that the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is one of the most important months to make your cash. It can litterally make or break you.

Yes, some people here will get them as christmas presents, but for the most part most people will buy the extenders for themselves (or, at least, would have bought them for themselves). So, I don't think Sage has a huge motivation to get these things out the door before Christmas, other than they sort of promised that they would.

They sold out of them in 4 (or was it 5) days. I see no reason to think this year would be any different.

I don't know what's going to happen, but I don't think it's a good idea to assume what happened last year will happen this year. Last year was the first time the extender was released. Over the last year lots of people bought extenders, and many don't have a need to buy any more. I don't think Sage will sell out terribly quickly, but that's all dependent on how big this batch is.

[nstocke]

What are the alternatives? Is there any other extender on the market that can work with SageTV? My wife gets tired of me buying cart before the horse. She knows I would go buy an extender and then use that as an excuse to buy another Plasma TV. I just bought another Plasma TV and she wants me to have an extender for it before Christmas. I'm nervous I'll disappoint her. Are there any Alternatives?

[dadof4]

I've been following this thread on and off for a while. So far this is what I have learned.

- The new extender may be an "improved" model or it may not be an improved model.

- SageTV may be short on cash or SageTV may not be short on cash.

- SageTV may be working on a new driver for the new model which may or may not exist.

- SageTV may not have enough of the extenders to cover orders when the extenders arrive or SageTV may have enough of the extenders to cover orders.

- SageTV may increase the price of the extenders or SageTV may not increase the price of the extenders.

- SageTV should have had "Black Friday" changed to the last Friday in December because many potential buyers took "December" to mean November 28th.

I think I'm clear on the subject now!!

[bigbill]

I think you hit the target..











Except I was willing to purchase the old model...

[lfilomeno]

nstocke: One alternative is to build a client using a mini, or nano-itx motherboard. It will be small and silent, can run Windows XP qith the sage client or you can load it with SageTV for linux. I am going that route until the extender availability gets announced.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by lfilomeno

nstocke: One alternative is to build a client using a mini, or nano-itx motherboard. It will be small and silent, can run Windows XP qith the sage client or you can load it with SageTV for linux. I am going that route until the extender availability gets announced.

Do you have a particular MB in mind that can handle HD and run silent? Most mini-ITX boards I've seen are deficient in one manner or another - either CPU or GPU. And all of them will take more than 7-8 watts (HD extender).

I'm not trying to 'dis your suggestion - I truly am interested. I'd gain back Netflix, and subtitle support for MKV files (outside of Sage, if necessary).

Start a new topic on this if you're going through the build process. Thanks.

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by lfilomeno

nstocke: One alternative is to build a client using a mini, or nano-itx motherboard. It will be small and silent, can run Windows XP qith the sage client or you can load it with SageTV for linux. I am going that route until the extender availability gets announced.

That's an interesting thought, maybe booting from flash so no spinning disc to make heat and noise. Is anyone using something like that for driving HDTV? I think I found one a while back that had HDMI output built on but I never got around to finding out if it worked.

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by valnar

And all of them will take more than 7-8 watts (HD extender).

Has anyone validated the 7-8 watt usage with something like a KillaWatt? I just checked my HP Mediasmart and its running 70 watt's with two drives spinning. Way less than the old machine it replaced that I built, that was using 298 watts. I keep it in a small cabinet and this HP puts out way less heat than the old one too, so much less I might be able to close the cabinet doors now..

[danmyersmn]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

So I guess I have to ask you why you think it will cost more? And what if it does cost more because it includes a Blu-Ray drive....is that really a price increase or are you really paying more for additional features?

The cost listed on the sage website is an old price. The price can sit as it is because they are selling nothing. No inventory equates to no sales and therefore the price can be anything they want. If sage wanted to sell the current model I believe they would be forced to do so at a price increase or at a production loss.

I would bet the reason they have no inventory is a combination of not wanting to remove potential customers from the new product and also it is not profitable to sell the current model at the price its listed. Market theories have demonstrated that all electronics decrease in price as time goes on. Today's technology becomes yesterdays junk and all that.... However, I don't think the Sage device fits this model. The extender is a niche device. How many units can they sell? 1000, 5000, 10,000? To have more inventory to sell they would need to order another custom mfgr run. They do not have a mfgr. relationship in place or they wouldn't be sitting on no inventory making no sales. If the new product was going to be that much better then it could be sold as a direct replacement for the old.

SO, as it stands, they have no current inventory to draw income from. They are designing a new product that needs to be sold in a small number therefore it will need to be a custom run from any mfgr. and the unit cost will be higher for 5,000 units, or 10,000, then it would be for 100,000.
R&D investments need to also be recouped from the new model. I would think that R&D costs where incorporated into the old player as well, but if the company philosophy is to design a unit, buy a set number of units, sell them out and then start a new design then return on total R&D needs to be built into the initial production run.

As I said earlier i don't think that you can compare the sage extender to other electronics. Well, you could i suppose. Its like the Asus EEEpc. It was a niche device, a great design, with a waiting user base to buy it. Then it was marketed at a 100% increase in company released pricing.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by bigbill

Has anyone validated the 7-8 watt usage with something like a KillaWatt? I just checked my HP Mediasmart and its running 70 watt's with two drives spinning. Way less than the old machine it replaced that I built, that was using 298 watts. I keep it in a small cabinet and this HP puts out way less heat than the old one too, so much less I might be able to close the cabinet doors now..

Yes it has been validated. With KillaWatt and other tools. And it's actually between 6-8 watts.

Gerry

[valnar]

Originally Posted by bigbill

Has anyone validated the 7-8 watt usage with something like a KillaWatt?

Yah, 6 watts idle, 7-8 during use. Kill-a-Watt.

[lfilomeno]

O.k. I do agree with everyone who said tht many mini-itx board will fail to render HD. I am building my homebrew extender out of an embedded System board from Portwell. (here is the one I am using:http://www.portwell.com/products/det...R1=PEB-2731VLA ) it is for SD rendering. It has a low voltage Celeron processor and it will be attached to a projector or a flat screen TV via VGA. It is a very small, ECX (Embedded Compact Extended Technology) form factor board. Believe me , it is small and silent and should do the trick. In case the HD bug bites the wife, then I am considering building a box based on the Jetway NC62K mobo. It does handle HD but you have to use a series of tricky heat sinks to make it totally silent. I like the board but don't have/order it. The Portwell's PEB-2731 is just waiting to be activated. It is on my little cobbyhole I call a home-office. More later.