Tongue-In-Cheek - Compliment to Sage & Users vs. That "Snappy" PVR Software

[Savage1701]

Wow - I never knew a PVR could actually make a series of recordings, all at different outputs (MY STB won't fix its output), sequentially, via an HD-PVR without locking up all the time.

Wow - I never knew a programs's Newtwork Service process could not take over the CPU and burn it at 100% and ruin its recording cycle. Daily.

Wow - I never knew I could record multiple HD OTA and Cable streams without bogging down my lowly P4 478 3.2GHz. What the heck is that thing doing at only 10-15% max utilization?

Wow - I never knew the HD-PVR could last more than a day without 2 or 3 recycles. After several days I'm starting to feel like the Maytag repairman did with my HD-PVR.

Wow - I never knew that as a program was released as a series of improvements that meant the program was supposed to become MORE stable and NOT start doing weird things like dropping OTA HD tuners it had dealt fine with for at least a couple of years.

Is it really true that as a program's release number increases over time that means that it gets better and more stable? Sheesh...Who knew????

[MitchSchaft]

[HelenWeathers]

Glad you are enjoying Sage as much as I am. Thanks for the laugh.

[Skirge01]

At first, I thought this was "against" SageTV, but after reading it a second time, it's a compliment to how much better things are working since switching over to SageTV.

[Brent]

Just curious, what HTPC or DVR did you use before SageTV?

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by Brent

Just curious, what HTPC or DVR did you use before SageTV?

Brent, need coffee?



"Snappy" is the clue....

[Brent]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

Brent, need coffee?



"Snappy" is the clue....

Ahh - I did totally miss that. You know I've had a lot of coffee already - I think I need something stronger.

[Savage1701]

Sain is correct. SS is supposedly going to let the consumer version of BTV fall by the wayside and focus on its enterprise version. It's sure starting to look that way. Each iteration of BTV is getting a little worse, not a little better. I am a die-hard BTV user. It's got some nice features that SageTV does not, but it's becoming more unstable with each release.

[sainswor99]

The only real feature that I miss is the official web interface; nielm's is a nice substitute, but I worry at times it's going to go away.

[Brent]

nielms webserver isn't going anywhere and it's a great interface with more functionality.

I see these things missing with SageTV versus BTV:
1. No built-in webadmin - webserver for SageTV is an 3rd party add-on and it doesn't have the ability to change settings. But I now like it better because of the many additional things it can do.
2. No built-in showsqueeze - I don't care much about this anymore, but it is something nice on BTV
3. No built-in commercial skipping - I really like comskip better than smartskip in a lot of ways but it isn't built-in. By the way, my wife still calls it "smartskip" since that's how we learned it .

Overall I think it's the fact that those things are built-in and you get them with the install of BTV. This matters mostly to new users and probably makes it a bit more difficult at first, but beyond that I don't miss a thing. And SageTV brings so many additional things to the table that it was very worth it for my htpc at least.

EDIT: I guess I should state that I think the choice of HTPC software is a personal one and obviously there is not one perfect solution that fits everyone's needs. Also it makes me sad to see what is happening with the consumer side of Snapstream. It used to be a really good solution with a lot of potential. Now it seems to be mostly in a holding pattern at best.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

Sain is correct. SS is supposedly going to let the consumer version of BTV fall by the wayside and focus on its enterprise version. It's sure starting to look that way. Each iteration of BTV is getting a little worse, not a little better. I am a die-hard BTV user. It's got some nice features that SageTV does not, but it's becoming more unstable with each release.

They already have let the consumer version go to pasture. I'm glad I switched when I did.

BTW - I agree with Brent. Those are the key items I miss with BTV and BTV STILL has a better OOTB experience as far as I am concerned.

[Savage1701]

Where do I find "nielm's" web substitute? Is there a sticky for that?

Thanks again.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

Where do I find "nielm's" web substitute? Is there a sticky for that?

Complete list of customizations, add-ons themes etc:

Web Interface Thread & Download

Tutorial for installing and using Web Interface

[APillowOfClouds]

I wholeheartedly agree - I jumped ship from SS about a year ago now I guess and I'm very very very glad I did! I would say I reboot my Sage server about once every.... hmmm... when was the last time I needed to? Dont remember. It "just works". Of course my crappy Hauppauge 500MCE card produces drop-outs all the time but that's not Sage's fault.

The one tremendous thing I think is missing from Sage is the ability to easily move shows around and add/remove shows to a directory and have them show up in the TV portion instead of just generic videos.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by APillowOfClouds

The one tremendous thing I think is missing from Sage is the ability to easily move shows around and add/remove shows to a directory and have them show up in the TV portion instead of just generic videos.

Check on the Batch Metadata Tools... they will try to recognize tv shows in your import folder, and move them to the recordings database...

[petereader]

Originally Posted by APillowOfClouds

The one tremendous thing I think is missing from Sage is the ability to easily move shows around and add/remove shows to a directory and have them show up in the TV portion instead of just generic videos.

You can also do this using the Web User Interface. Here's a link to the page in the wiki that tells you how:
http://tools.assembla.com/sageplugin.../WebserverEdit

You can only do this one at a time, and the whole process is pretty much manual, so if you have more than a few recordings to import, BMT may be a better option. On the other hand, doing it this way, gives you quite a bit of control.

[APillowOfClouds]

Thanks for the tips, I know there are some ways to do it, but in SS all you had to do was cut and paste the files, and you didn't have to stop the server to do it. I actually had a system set up to transcode the .wav files I receive in email from my phone messages and post them on the SS server so that my wife could listen to the messages using the TV. In Sage I would have to write an add on, whereas in SS all I needed was a batch file to transcode the files and copy them to the right place. There's no way in heck I would go back to SS but nevertheless the functionality was in my opinion superior to having all the metadata in one large database and having to stop the server and use third party tools to move files and fill in metadata. I'm a programmer and i would imagine in a week's time they could code up a nice little interface to move shows and set up directories that would alwasy import to shows instead of videos.

[Fuzzy]

There is nothing stopping you from using the same batch file to copy your wav files to the sage library, or, not even bother copying, and just have sage point to whatever directory you have those messages in. No plugin required. As they are wav files, they would be visible in the Music section of sage. Also, why do you think you have to stop the server to move files around?

[APillowOfClouds]

They were transcoded to .wmv's and put into a 'messages' folder in the tv section and that is were I would prefer to have them as that's where my wife spends 99% of her time when the tv is on (due to the kids mostly). To put something into the TV shows list requires getting metadata to import, which, to my knowledge, requires a plug in or 3rd party software of some type.

As far as stopping the server, I specfically asked on another thread if I have to stop the server when I move shows from one tv directory to another and was told yes http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38808