Questions about SageTV from a BeyondTV (possibly former) user

[bjp999]

I was a long-term TIVO user and short term BTV user. Swithing to Sage has not been child's play, but so far not so difficult either. It does take some effort to get started, though.

I got comskip configured with just a little trouble at the end (need to use UNC paths vs drive letters). Took me a solid evening.

Setting up the WebServer was easy, and VERY worthwhile.

My picture quality is pretty good, but on some HD material I am getting small tears during high-movement scenes. Different decoders have some effect. This same HTPC serves BluRay content over the network with zero problems, so I don't think it is network or machine horsepower related. Hoping to get EVR working, as others have commented that this fixes this type of issue.

For me the biggest issue with Sage is the whole lineup / physical channel / logical channel / remapping topic. I have yet to find an explanation that makes these concepts clear. Still working on it though.

I have an HDHR that is working well, but getting my HVR-1600 configured with it has been tough. I currently have it disabled. I want to order my Sage license with an HD-PVR, but am hoping to get the 1600 working and have some confidence that the HD-PVR is going to integrate with the other tuners before pulling the lever on the purchase.

[bigbill]

You know whats funny, back in early 2006 when I demo'd Sage and BTV I picked BTV because of the esc key getting me out of any menu and Sage left me for dead in the program guide every time. I'm back now after giving sage a lot more time on the demo and figuring out how to make the esc key work.. Just thought it might open some eyes to hear that.. Maybe make it work that way out of the box for v7.. -Bill

[APillowOfClouds]

Originally Posted by Brent

As Andy said above, you can re-map the keys to your hearts desire so if you don't like the way the key mapping work you can change them.

I'll tell you what I've discovered. When I first was using SageTV, I was a full-time, hard-core BeyondTV user. At that time I had a terrible time with the escape key veresus Alt>Left for going back one menu item. But now after being used to SageTV I get just as frustrated when I use BTV (I beta test and mess with BTV on occasion) and those keys aren't mapped the same way as I'm now used to.

Bottom line, it's not about what makes sense, it's about what you're used to. With the remote it won't matter since you'll have the same buttons mapped as you did with BTV. With the keyboard you either learn the new way or re-map the keys to the way you prefer.

I am now full time on Sage, I used the built in facility to map the old "BTV Esc" button on my remote to "Back" and haven't had a problem since, other than occasionally when I am actually using a keyboard to troubleshoot something.

[tmiranda]

As a BTV convert, I agree with Brent on this one. That ESC key drove me absolutely nuts for the first week. Having the video options menu pop up after hitting the ESC key was totally non-intuitive to me. This was my #1 complaint when switching from BTV.

Number 2 complaint was the lack of integrated commercial skipping.

Number 3 complaint was lack of ability to automatically convert a show after recording.

Number 4 complaint was accidentally setting the video options (see complaint #1) to "Always" and having Sage fill my drive with recordings.

Change these 4 things and Sage will make a lot of BTV converts happy.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

As a BTV convert, I agree with Brent on this one. That ESC key drove me absolutely nuts for the first week. Having the video options menu pop up after hitting the ESC key was totally non-intuitive to me. This was my #1 complaint when switching from BTV.

I used BTV for a couple of years before I switched to SageTV, yet I never had this ESC problem during the switch.

Number 2 complaint was the lack of integrated commercial skipping

Don't hold your breath as this will probably never happen. Just be glad you can install it manually.

Number 3 complaint was lack of ability to automatically convert a show after recording.

Not built-in, but like comskip, there's a plugin for that.

Number 4 complaint was accidentally setting the video options (see complaint #1) to "Always" and having Sage fill my drive with recordings

This is not set ON as default, so it shouldn't be a problem at all.

[markh]

I have been using BeyondTV for some time now, and have two Hauppauge HVR-1600 tuners. My current system is an Asus M3N78-VM motherboard with an AMD Phenom Triple Core processor, and 4Gb of RAM. I have been evaluating the SageTV software and have run into a couple of issues that I have not been able to resolve.

1. The picture quality is quite bad compared to either WinTV or BeyondTV. I have tried the registry change and other suggestions to no avail.
2. SageTV sometimes seems very sluggish, with a circular working symbol
3. Does anyone have a nice clean procedure for remapping Clear QAM channels?

There is a lot that I like about the SageTV software, but I need to resolve at least the picture quality issue to make this usable. Thanks for any help you can provide.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Brent

As Andy said above, you can re-map the keys to your hearts desire so if you don't like the way the key mapping work you can change them.

I was thinking more in the context of attracting/repelling prospective customers.

No doubt I can adapt or re-map.

But I've had a positive feeling about Sage from the first time I looked at it - quite different from the alternatives and, to tell the truth, from most products that I purchase. I'm probably the poster boy for buyer's remorse.

I *like* these guys. Never met them, never will... but I like them.
Extremely high level of discourse on the forums. Effortless install of the product. Easy-to-use.... and so-on-and-so-forth.

Having such warm fuzzies, I'd like to see Sage achieve the most success so they can keep on developinig/evolving - ultimately to my own benefit.

That's the reason I mentioned it.

[APillowOfClouds]

Originally Posted by markh

<snip>
2. SageTV sometimes seems very sluggish, with a circular working symbol
<snip>

Really? My experience has been that the responsiveness on Sage is almost always INSTANT, whereas my BTV setup toward the end-days would take up to a minute to respond to the remote (when it didn't just lock up)

[Brent]

Originally Posted by markh

I have been using BeyondTV for some time now, and have two Hauppauge HVR-1600 tuners. My current system is an Asus M3N78-VM motherboard with an AMD Phenom Triple Core processor, and 4Gb of RAM. I have been evaluating the SageTV software and have run into a couple of issues that I have not been able to resolve.

1. The picture quality is quite bad compared to either WinTV or BeyondTV. I have tried the registry change and other suggestions to no avail.
2. SageTV sometimes seems very sluggish, with a circular working symbol
3. Does anyone have a nice clean procedure for remapping Clear QAM channels?

There is a lot that I like about the SageTV software, but I need to resolve at least the picture quality issue to make this usable. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Mark,
I think we can address all three of your issues. I would suggest you start a thread for issue#1 and start with that one. PQ should be every bit as good with SageTV as it is with other HTPC solutions. You should NOT need to mess with registry or anything else like that. Possibly try some different settings under Detailed Settings>Video/Audio and see if that helps. Anyway, lets tackle these one at a time and make a specific thread to do so.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by APillowOfClouds

My experience has been that the responsiveness on Sage is almost always INSTANT,

Reading SageTV's User Manual, I noted a suggestion that the partition recordings are saved to should be blocked large - 64k IIRC.

I wonder if that could be a player. i.e. One person has it blocked large and sees quicker response than somebody who has it blocked smaller.

[APillowOfClouds]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

Reading SageTV's User Manual, I noted a suggestion that the partition recordings are saved to should be blocked large - 64k IIRC.

I wonder if that could be a player. i.e. One person has it blocked large and sees quicker response than somebody who has it blocked smaller.

Mine's whatever the Windows XP default is for a 160GB drive, and I also store one of my vid directories on the OS drive. In fact, I was getting random reboots that I thought were hardware related but the prob was that I had the C: vid directory using all available space LOL Windows don't like when it's got no disk left.