An open letter to SageTV and Hauppauge management

[vikingisson]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Sage relies on a strong partnership with Hauppauge. Could you imagine if Hauppauge wanted to release its next "greatest tuner ever", but because of a past strain they didn't let Sage get a hold of it ahead of time? BeyondTV, GBPVR, and Windows Media Center all got ahold of it and created support, but Sage didn't? Man talk about a death march eh?

I hear you but the alternative and what you say is the right way leaves their own customers out in the cold to figure out that same dirty laundry. Sounds like a lose lose situation with one option better for the companies but worse for the consumer.

So if Hauppauge is listening, pretty please with sugar on top, fix the drivers. But next time I'll wait for version 2 of whatever device I'm interested in or until there are more choices that give incentive to make it better than the other brand. Or simply work as advertised at least for the majority. I'm thankful for user to user forums such as this, products would never work without them.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by vikingisson

So if Hauppauge is listening, pretty please with sugar on top, fix the drivers.

It's entirely possible that the HD PVR can't be completely fixed with drivers and firmware. That the hardware itself is flawed whether by poor design or otherwise.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by vikingisson

I hear you but the alternative and what you say is the right way leaves their own customers out in the cold to figure out that same dirty laundry.

What are you talking about? The HD PVR is 1) made by a long time partner of SageTV and 2) wanted by a LOT of their customers. As best we can tell, SageTV is doing everything they can to support support it and make it work as best they can. Which apparently includes (SageTV) working directly with Hauppauge and SageTV working with it's own users to fix issues.

What more do you want? Would SageTV badmouthing Hauppauge do anything to improve the functionality of the HD PVR? Should SageTV stop supporting it and be in the Same position as Windows Media Center (no support for satellite HD)?

Sounds like a lose lose situation with one option better for the companies but worse for the consumer.

How is not badmouthing a partner "worse for the customer"? It's not like it's a secret, or that there's a coverup that people have issues. It's also true that there are quite a number of us with well-functioning HD PVRs.

As near as I can tell, for some to many, the HD PVR works as advertised. I'm using on Dish with S/PDIF input and haven't (to the best of my knowledge) ever had my HD PVR lock up, at least not since the first set of WHQL/non-beta drivers.

It's also clear that there is some other bug/defect in the drivers/firmware/hardware that affects some to many that has not yet been identified or fixed by Hauppauge.

As for any sort of "disclaimer" about the HD PVR, SageTV and Hauppauge are in a much better position to know what sort of percentage are having trouble with it that we are. Though I'd guess that as with most things, it's far less than it would appear by reading the forums.

[vikingisson]

Originally Posted by stanger89

What more do you want?

only what I paid for. pretty freakin simple and not a lot to ask for. But I'm glad it works perfectly for you. So I'm just imagining things. fair enough. I'm just a whiny consumer. I'll go away now and watch the tele.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by vikingisson

only what I paid for. pretty freakin simple and not a lot to ask for.

That's not what I meant. I meant what more do you want from SageTV. They can't fix problems in the HD PVR. They've done what they can to work around the issues they can. I fail to see how publicly badmouthing Hauppauge would have any positive effect on anything.

But I'm glad it works perfectly for you. So I'm just imagining things. fair enough.

I never said that, I know there are "some to many" people out there having trouble.

I'm just a whiny consumer. I'll go away now and watch the tele.

The point is you're barking up the wrong tree. There's only so much SageTV can do. Go complain to/about Hauppauge. I was responding to your idea that it's "worse for customers" if SageTV doesn't go out and publicly bash Hauppauge/the HD PVR.

[Skirge01]

My only thought is that he thinks a "big" company coming out and publicly talking about the problems with a product will force said company to work harder to fix the issue.

If that's the thought process--while I don't agree with it--I would understand someone believing that might help.

[reggie14]

I'm not sure what is fair and/or appropriate in this situation. Sage does sell the HD-PVR in its store, and it also officially supports it in SageTV Media Center. I don't consider myself terribly knowledgeable on HD-PVR problems, but if Sage knew (or thought) that one or more important features on the HD-PVR (e.g., digital audio recording) didn't work properly or well-enough for a release-grade product, I think Sage could easily justify saying something. For example, they could post on their store page and their supported tuner page that digital audio recording either isn't supported, or is considered "in beta". That way customers would get some warning that those things might not work. Right now Sage advertises the HD-PVR's optical-in port in their store, and that's a problem for Sage if (and I'm really emphasizing the if) that is only working for, say, 50-75% of customers.

I'm sure a lot of customers don't make a big distinction between problems with SageTV and problems with one or more of the video capture devices. So, I bet George finds himself responding to lots of requests that are really issues with, e.g., Hauppauge drivers. So, I think Sage could probably say something like that without upsetting Hauppauge.

Of course, I really don't have any inkling about how justified that would be right now. I don't have an HD-PVR and I haven't been following the HD-PVR threads terribly closely.

[Skirge01]

I understand that logic, as well. But, having an intimate knowledge regarding the relationships that businesses need to have, I also understand how critical it is not to upset any partners. It's not even worth the risk of a misunderstanding.

To put this in perspective, I work for a company that supplies Wal-mart (yeah, I know... who doesn't? hehe) with some products. Wal-mart is the 800 pound gorilla and we will do anything and everything to make them happy, at just about any cost, even selling at a loss sometimes. Any time we even TRY to push back a little bit, they quickly threaten to cancel all their orders and not take anything in the future... end result: we cave. So, it's not worth the risk of damaging an "arrangement" (not really a partnership, is it?) that, ultimately, benefits both companies.

BTW... the above is the reason that my family is banned from shopping at Wal-mart. I'll pay more and drive farther rather than support their tactics.

So, it's a very fine line that companies need to walk and they have to be careful how they approach things when it comes to publicity. I agree with others who have said that Sage has gone above and beyond what they needed to in order to satisfy customer complaints.

[vikingisson]

ok, sorry if I sounded harsh or simply misunderstood. I'm not calling for public badmouthing. What I don't want is to pretend that there isn't a problem. I always expect the official responses to be clever misdirection and to stall for time until the next big thing comes along. But if people close to the companies have any influence then honesty in these unofficial channels we call the forums is really all I ask. My fear is that like so many other products over my too many decades then as soon as something else comes along this product will be abandoned and the only fix will be another purchase. I've seen it happen over and over again so that is the basis of my apparent impatience and frustration.

On that note, my device works fairly well, I'm just a bit disappointed in a couple of things and one of the issues might be fixable if the pressure is kept up. The freezes if they keep happening are not a good thing. That may or may not be fixable. The .ts format is a real pain to deal with. I still can't watch anything from this box over placeshifter and that bothers me the most right now but has the best chance of getting fixed in software. In my case the fix isn't to buy an extender. Client app is an option even though I'll have unused placeshifter licenses and have to buy a different one to fix what shouldn't be my problem. No option right now on a linux client which is where I spend more time.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

So, it's a very fine line that companies need to walk and they have to be careful how they approach things when it comes to publicity. I agree with others who have said that Sage has gone above and beyond what they needed to in order to satisfy customer complaints.

Have they? I honestly don't know because I haven't been following the HD-PVR stuff that closely. I do know Sage's official policy is to charge a restocking fee when you return something (which I know is a very common policy). Now again, I don't know if the digital audio thing is really a big problem or not, but I'm just going to use it as a hypothetical example. If I bought an HD-PVR from Sage after seeing the description on the store page indicating it had optical-in, I'd be pretty upset if it didn't work. If I wanted to return it because that was an important feature for me, I'd be pretty upset if Sage wanted to charge me a restocking fee. The same thing would apply for any advertised Sage features that don't properly work with the HD-PVR. Of course I think it's a good idea to do additional research on products before buying them, but I don't think it's fair to have a "buyer beware" attitude to people that don't.

Restocking fees are perfectly normal, but in general I've found respectable companies will pretty quickly waive them if you have a decent reason. I've never had to pay restocking fees or even return shipping costs when I've returned defective items to Newegg.

But, I definitely see your point about working hard to keep good business relationships. Hauppauge seems like a fairly respectable company too. So, I think they'd probably be OK with carefully worded and accurate warnings, when they're justified of course.

[tahoetim]

We need a new poll.

"Based on what you have read on this forum regarding the HD-PVR, will you ever buy one?

yes or no



My vote is "no". I love Sage. However, if I owned the Sage company, I would immediately pull any product from my online store that hurts my reputation in any way. In business, you reputation is EVERYTHING. It's hurting Sage, whether they believe it or not. I've read enough here that i will not spend that kind of $ for a hit or miss product just to get a little better picture.

You guys need to take a reality check and realize that not everyone that buys Sage products ends up here on the forum. Like most other forums, there is a core of regular members of maybe 100 people. The rest of us drift in and out mainly to see what new plugins have been created.

[reggie14]

I actually have little faith that the HD-PVR wouldn't be a headache, but I'd definitely buy one if I wasn't able to get firewire recording working with most of my HD channels. I have quite a bit invested in my Sage system as a whole, and the cost of one HD-PVR really isn't very much compared to all that I've spent on everything else. Sage has to keep selling it, since there's really no alternative. For the most part, I think people see the problems that they're having as problems with the HD-PVR and not problems with Sage. So, I think Sage would be far more damaged by not having any option (other than the R5000 mod and firewire, which are special cases) for getting non-network HD channels into a Sage box.

[gplasky]

Keep in mind the HD-PVR and the R5000 mod are the only solutions that can record every channel on your cable and satellite STB. Firewire cannot because some of the firewire channles are encrypted. (And the satellite boxes don't have firewire.) The last HD-PVR poll I looked at almost 50 people are happy or happy enough until the bugs are fixed while only 10 are unhappy. From the other poll 61 had no lockups with 1 or more units while 96 had lockups with single or multiple units. Well I haven't had a lockup since within the first 30 days of owning one of the original units shipped (origianl with no fan) but I still had to mark the poll as having a lockup. So for over a year I have been recording digital SPDIF since the first capable driver came out and have been doing it on a WHS. And I have upgraded to every new driver without an issue.
So of course there is some kind of problem or issue but there doesn't seem to be any common denominator across drivers, hardware it is running on, cable boxes it is attached to and recording resolution, or product being used for recording. I don't think any company is denying there is an issue. I just think the problem is in the minority and it is going to take a long time to figure it out. Maybe it is time for a new, in depth poll but you would also need to poll across different products which wouldn't be that easy.

Gerry

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by tahoetim

However, if I owned the Sage company, I would immediately pull any product from my online store that hurts my reputation in any way. In business, you reputation is EVERYTHING. It's hurting Sage, whether they believe it or not.

Well if it is, it's hurting everyone else that supports the HD PVR too. And for those that don't (WMC) what's worse, supporting something with a few issues, or not having an option for recording the 100+ HD channels on Dish and DirecTV.

Right now the HD PVR is the only option for recording HD from DirecTV and the only sort of reasonably priced option for Dish Network.

I have to guess having an officialy supported solution for recording HD from Satellite is a far bigger benefit than any detriment the HD PVR's issues have been.

I've read enough here that i will not spend that kind of $ for a hit or miss product just to get a little better picture.

It's a matter of opinion, but recording HD with the HD PVR is not "a little better picture", it's IMO, significantly better than the PVR250 it replaced.

You guys need to take a reality check and realize that not everyone that buys Sage products ends up here on the forum. Like most other forums, there is a core of regular members of maybe 100 people. The rest of us drift in and out mainly to see what new plugins have been created.

What makes you think anyone here needs a reality check? You need to realize that for every poster here with a problem, there are probably many, many more people running happily without that problem.

And I don't think anyone here is defending the HD PVRs issues, we're just suggesting that some of the suggestions here for SageTV "dealing" with it (posting warnings/disclaimers/etc) are overkill for the situation.

[tahoetim]

Promoting a third party product that has known issues without telling anyone is simply foolish. I'm on their side. They are so loyal to the product it seems like the ties between the two companies is tighter than normal. If Sage is talented enough to design and build the HD200 themselves, why can't they design their own HD tuner?

As a business owner myself, if I installed products that I knew would not work all the time, I would soon be out of business. If I get one or two quality issues, I quickly find another supplier.

What happens to a restaurant that has bad food or tainted food? Do they justify putting out bad food because "at least people have something to eat"?

[HelenWeathers]

I think it's nice that the Hauppauge 45 button remote that comes with the HD-PVR also controls the HD-200 natively. For what it's worth.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by tahoetim

Promoting a third party product that has known issues without telling anyone is simply foolish. I'm on their side. They are so loyal to the product it seems like the ties between the two companies is tighter than normal. If Sage is talented enough to design and build the HD200 themselves, why can't they design their own HD tuner?

Not to diminish the HD200 at all, but I really doubt Sage designed it. It looks like they just got it OEM'd by someone else. At most told the OEM which features they wanted (ports, etc), but I really don't think they did PCB layout, parts selection, electrical design/integration, etc.

Sage is a software house, they don't "design" hardware. Designing something like the HD PVR would be something I think Sage just isn't setup to do.

As a business owner myself, if I installed products that I knew would not work all the time, I would soon be out of business.

For better or worse, the PC software industry is quite different than something like that. Zero failures is simply not possible in a PC environment. There are just too many different configurations to guarantee zero failures.

Note that I'm not saying the HD PVR issues are "OK", what I'm saying is that if you're making PC software, especially for the "mass market" (ie anyone on the internet can buy/use it), you have to set some sort of "acceptable failure" level.

This is very different than the type of environment I work in (aerospace) or where it sounds like you work. These are custom integration/development, in that sort of environment, the variables are substantially limited, which is what allows "zero fail" results.

Back to the idea of pulling products that don't work well... Sage has done that in the past. Sage used to sell the Wireless Media MVP, but they eventually pulled that from their web store because so many people had trouble with it. It would appear that they aren't getting that sort of negative response with the HD PVR.

If I get one or two quality issues, I quickly find another supplier.

Problem here is, there isn't one. I'm guessing if you were integrating a product that had high demand, and only one supplier, you'd work a little harder with that supplier than if you could just get something else.

[pawn]

I'd be pretty mad if I knew there was a product that does what the HD PVR does and Sage refused to support it because there are some problems. Pretty sure *everyone* here would agree deep down if they really thought that through. I mean, it's your choice: buy it knowing what you know, or....don't.

[tahoetim]

I think we are on the same page. The last time I tried Sage and abandoned it was when I bought mediamvp's. What a disaster that was but hey I'm back 5 years later running Sage again. It has come a long way.

I agree that Sage doesn't actually build the product, that's why I used the word design. I am impressed with the HD200 and wish they would come up with their own hd tuner built into the HD200 box; input and output ports all in one box. Now that would be the cat's meow!

[jack_leach]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You need to realize that for every poster here with a problem, there are probably many, many more people running happily without that problem.

I agree with the "possibility" that this is true, but frankly I don't know the answer. Only folks at SageTV and Hauppauge have a reasonable estimate of the ratio between "units sold" and "units with problems", and we'll never be privy to that information. If this forum had a very limited number of postings then I would be inclined to agree that there are probably many more satisfied customers who are not using the forum. But the fact that this is a very active forum and currently has more than 356,000 posts tells me that there are a LOT of folks with a LOT of problems. I know that only a small fraction of those posts relate to the HD-PVR, but without some sales figures, I'll never be able to approximate the percentage of owners who are happy versus unhappy. And taking polls on this forum won't answer the question either.

Here's an interesting analogy: We own an LG refrigerator that overheated and almost caused a fire. Research on the Internet has revealed that HUNDREDS and perhaps THOUSANDS of owners have had the same problem, but LG insists that the failure rate is below 2% and is therefore "acceptable". Well, it may be "only" 2% but I'm one of them and I don't like being ignored by the manufacturer when there's a serious problem. With the HD-PVR problem, if it's 2% (or 20% or more) who have issues, it's still a problem and needs to be addressed.