Are we ever going to get rid of the "pause"? YES WE DID!

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sage added support for the HD PVR because a strong user/customer desire for support for it, for a solution to recording HD from cable or satellite. They added it with a minor version change and did what they could to make it stable. It was not to sell the HD PVR hardware.

Absolutely agree. In fact I believe that many of the people (myself included) who moved to Sage within the past 18 months did this specifically because of the HDPVR support. I still think that Sage has good, if not the best HDPVR support. But there are still issues like this one here, which are simply annoying under certain circumstances. If these don't get adressed and other solutions improve (e.g. there are again rumours that Media Center will get native HD PVR support soon, whether that's true or not remains to be seen...), then it might be time to move on.
Bottom line to me is that the HDPVR (or potentially similar devices) is not unimportant to Sage. Unless we somehow see cable card support it's a big driver to attract new customers.

[korben_dallas]

While I have been a SageTV user for a while, the HD PVR is the *only* facility I have ever been able to use SageTV to record HD content. I have tried Over The Air HD and Free QAM HD in three different households over the course of four years, and they were all difficult to setup, lackluster in signal strength, stingy on available channels, and woefully unstable to record. The HD PVR has been mildly tempermental in comparison.

I only watch HD now. I wouldn't trade the HD PVR for anything. SageTV + HD PVR = better than sliced bread. Add VideoRedo TVSuite V4 to it, and you have one darn entertaining sandwich.

[sportera]

Originally Posted by blade

Please point out in the post I quoted where you referred to the HD PVR. You made reference to true HD recording capability not the HD PVR specifically. The HD PVR is not the only device capable of capturing HD. In fact since it uses the analog hole instead of capturing the digital stream one could argue it's the least form of true HD recording available in Sage. If you don't believe QAM tuners (which is what I have) are capturing true HD then I would say you're the one who isn't capable of making an intelligent remark on the subject.

Blade, I stand corrected on this one and thus have made an unfair assumption that ALL Sage users who watch and record Hi Def do it through HDPVR's. That was a dumb assumption on my part and I should have know better because I, also, do have a HD Homerun device I used years ago before converting from cable to Directv. In fact I've considered hooking it back up to see if my attic mounted OA antenna can pull in local HD stations (as I recall, it didn't do well in my area years ago). I did not link the difference in how the HDPVR works vs the HD Homerun in contributing to the pause effect. So in the hot headed remarks I made, I guess I admit my shortsided thinking.

That said, I'm still one of many of the growing HDPVR users who have no other option when using satellite vs cable to watch Hi Def TV. And therefore as one of this growing list who feel the extreme aggrivating and annoying effect of the long "pause" associated with HDPVR usage, I will continue to speak out "in my favorite" thread and others until either Sage fixes the problem, find an alternative application to switch to that does not exhibit this effect, I dump Directv for cable, or I just abandon it all and move to DIrectv PVR's.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by sportera

That said, I'm still one of many of the growing HDPVR users who have no other option when using satellite vs cable to watch Hi Def TV.

As am I, I'm a Dish customer and run an HD PVR, R5000 and HDHR.

And therefore as one of this growing list who feel the extreme aggrivating and annoying effect of the long "pause" associated with HDPVR usage, I will continue to speak out "in my favorite" thread and others until either Sage fixes the problem

That's completely fair, and I don't think anyone is trying to stop you from doing that, but you could stand to tone down the posts a bit.

But in the future, just consider that:

1. Sage has been around for over 6 years and "the pause" has been there since the beginning (no not as bad as with the HD PVR).
2. Sage has a history of implementing things that "most" users want
3. Sage is primarily (as any PVR) a recording solution.

I firmly believe that if a significant number of SageTV's users/customers felt "extreme aggravation" over said pause, it would have been fixed long ago.

find an alternative application to switch to that does not exhibit this effect, I dump Directv for cable, or I just abandon it all and move to DIrectv PVR's.

I still think the DTV DVR is the best bet for you and your typical usage.

[sportera]

Disagree with you stanger and from the way your responses to my posts have gone, probably always will.

Furthermore I believe that there are (4) different types of people who view this forum and respond to threads and polls with a guessimate of the following forum access habits:

1. Daily Forum Access:
- Sage Icons, fanatics, and advanced users, like yourself.

2. Periodic (weekly to monthly/quarterly) Access:
- (to check for bells and whistle updates but access more often when trying to solve problems with Sage system)
- I fall into this one

3. Very Little Access:
- (Problem solving Access (those who iniitally install sage or upgrade hardware or operating system and have re-config problems).

4. No Access:
- Installed Sage with no issues and believe in don't screw with it if it ain't broke.

The relative amount of response to polls and feedback decreases starting from #1 on down. So I would guess those who fit in #1 would feel they represent the "majority" of people who purchased and use Sage. This is where I strongly disagree with some of the comments made by those in #1 simply because there are many Sage users out there that probably would respond to a poll if popped up on their TV screen but seldom spend time reading through forums like those in #1 and #2 do.

Now all of this said, I would highly recommend that the forum moderator close this thread as nothing positive is coming out of this back and forth haggling. And as you stated, the "Pause" aggrivation has been noted and posted throughout the forum.

[bialio]

Sage is primarily (as any PVR) a recording solution.

I don't buy this line of thought.

SageTV, when used to its full potential, is the center of VIDEO entertainment for a household. It's way more than Recording shows. It's watching any content that Sage has (liveTV, recorded TV, ripped DVD /BD, online videos) on any TV in the house. It can even painlessly place shift ALL of the above content wherever you happen to go as well.

There are also Music / Photo applications, but those aren't really Sage's strength.

I don't expect someone who just uses a single aspect of Sage's Video distribution to really appreciate the full scope of what Sage provides. I use it for all of the above scenarios, and can't see myself using any other product. None of the competition fits the bill.

I also don't get the whole "if you use it for Live TV, why not just watch directly and not through Sage?" That is a very short sighted question - I have three sources of programming - OTA, cable, and satelite. I have no intention of setting up a live capability at every TV in the house - I'll need more STB's, more cabling, more settings on the Remote to handle all of this. With Sage it's all in one very small box and all combined seamlessly into a single EPG. Plus there is just one "activity" at each TV - simplicity and consistency across the board make it very easy for the rest of the family to use.

btl.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by sportera

Now all of this said, I would highly recommend that the forum moderator close this thread as nothing positive is coming out of this back and forth haggling. And as you stated, the "Pause" aggrivation has been noted and posted throughout the forum.

There is no reason to shut down the discussion because many may disagree with you.

My interest in this thread (and other "pause" threads) which as of yet has not been fulfilled, is to understand why people who frequently use the Live TV functionality would implement a SageTV setup in the first place. Understanding why and how people came to the SageTV community is paramount in keeping this forum an invaluable resource for both user-to-user support, as well as keeping informed of the HTPC space. If you could better explain your motivations (instead of your aggravations), it would benefit us all.

[sportera]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

There is no reason to shut down the discussion because many may disagree with you.

My interest in this thread (and other "pause" threads) which as of yet has not been fulfilled, is to understand why people who frequently use the Live TV functionality would implement a SageTV setup in the first place. Understanding why and how people came to the SageTV community is paramount in keeping this forum an invaluable resource for both user-to-user support, as well as keeping informed of the HTPC space. If you could better explain your motivations (instead of your aggravations), it would benefit us all.

Hey korben, I could care less whether the moderator closes this thread or keeps it open. I'm just making the recommendation as a consideration to others who have maybe had enough to this back and forth haggling between myself, stanger, fuzzy, and blade. As for closing it because you might think I'm worried about those who disagree with me, you're wrong there buddy. I'll argue with anyone till the walls come down if I firmly believe I'm helping others as well as myself. You might want to do a search on posts I've written. I have no problem admitting I'm wrong. When I think I'm right, AND believe there are others out there like me who won't, don't, can't, and do not access the forum enough to speak out for themselves, I'll lay my feedback on the line, anytime, anywhere.

And what motivations? I consider my motivations are very similiar to bialio's post above, which by the way, I think are the same motivations as many (if you consider why MS Media Center was marketed in the first place). As for aggravations, I don't see the connection unless you think the a "10 sec Pause with audio studder" every 1/2 hour, 1 hour, and at channel change during LiveTV viewing with family and friends is ONLY an aggravation and annoying experience to one person...ME.

The reason I speak out IS what I consider a "benefit to all",

[slowpoke]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

There is no reason to shut down the discussion because many may disagree with you.

My interest in this thread (and other "pause" threads) which as of yet has not been fulfilled, is to understand why people who frequently use the Live TV functionality would implement a SageTV setup in the first place. Understanding why and how people came to the SageTV community is paramount in keeping this forum an invaluable resource for both user-to-user support, as well as keeping informed of the HTPC space. If you could better explain your motivations (instead of your aggravations), it would benefit us all.

I am 50/50 with livetv and recorded. Everything I watch is recorded but sporting events and news I tend to start watching after some of it is recorded - the pause is very annoying and difficult to explain when you have a roomful of friends over watching the playoffs and the screen pauses and jerks every hour or so.

The reason I use Sage, other than PVR, is because of the Photo and Video capabilities. I have the kids favourite DVD's ripped to a library and we have all of our digital photo's shared over the network and accessible via Sage. Sage is a complete solution for my family in that way and one of the few annoyances is the pause.

[OneOfMany]

I'm more like slowpoke. I just want a solution that allows centralized storage of all my media, a single repository to manage and store my family's TV requirements, and the ability to access all of these from any location I want. So far, Sage does it for me. Perfect? Well, the more I tweak, the more I break, the more I fix. It ain't easy, but the end results still impress, regardless of the...........




pause


..................

Grant

[bunch92]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

.. all solved by SageTV's wonderful pause, rewind, and skip features.

Would I give up those features so a harmless pause that never affects me can be fixed? NO.

Why do you think we have to lose other features to get rid of the pause ? We just do not want the pause, but keep all the features. That is feasible as systems such as Sky+ here in the UK do that without a problem.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by slowpoke

I am 50/50 with livetv and recorded. Everything I watch is recorded but sporting events and news I tend to start watching after some of it is recorded - the pause is very annoying and difficult to explain when you have a roomful of friends over watching the playoffs and the screen pauses and jerks every hour or so.

You shouldn't be getting 'hourly' pauses like that. The pause should only happen at an actual show boundary, which during playoffs or whatever sporting event, shouldn't be til after the game (unless the game runs long). This is easily avoided for nearly every major sporting event with SageRecordingExtender.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by bunch92

Why do you think we have to lose other features to get rid of the pause? We just do not want the pause, but keep all the features.

If it were a simple "fix", it would have been "fixed" a long time ago. It has not been addressed because it is the result of a combination of design choices. So there are pros and cons to the design.

Personally I think SageTV should have implemented, as a LiveTV option, direct streaming from capture devices. If you don't want the pause, you can stream straight from the capture device, but then you have to accept all the other limitations of doing that.

That is feasible as systems such as Sky+ here in the UK do that without a problem.

Comparing SageTV to Tivo & family is way off base.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

You shouldn't be getting 'hourly' pauses like that. The pause should only happen at an actual show boundary, which during playoffs or whatever sporting event, shouldn't be til after the game (unless the game runs long). This is easily avoided for nearly every major sporting event with SageRecordingExtender.

I was experiencing this problem as well with my old server. It was underpowered. It was OK when it was all SD, but adding a Firewire STB and 3 QAM Tuners was too much for it. (Almost everything I record now is HD)

I since have upgraded and record to striped drives with a much faster server. Works great now.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

If it were a simple "fix", it would have been "fixed" a long time ago. It has not been addressed because it is the result of a combination of design choices. So there are pros and cons to the design.

The design choice in question here is the "easy way out" approach SageTV selected, by using a simple file writer filter and, as a result, adding the requirement of a graph re-build/re-tune to shift output from one file to another.

Is there simple fix? Possibly. I haven't done much research on it (CapSwitch comes to mind, but may not suit SageTV's needs), but my guess is that there is an off-the-shelf filter to solve this situation. If not, or if the licensing of such a filter is prohibitively expensive, the solution could be more complex, requiring a custom filter to accomplish the goal.

In any case, it is false to assume that an existing feature would need to be given up to solve this.

Also, it should be noted that this "easy way out" design choice not only adds the irritating pause, but is also the reason why we need to format our dives with 64k clusters. And even with 64k clusters, can run into storage bandwidth issues when recording from enough HD Mpeg2 tuners to a single drive. The is because the file writer filter used is apparently horrible at buffering and committing large enough chunks of the stream to disk on each write, creating horrible file fragmentation.

[tmiranda]

I've got to laugh a little about this thread. Before using Sage I used BeyondTV and there were always long rants about how the circular buffer was stupid and why can't BeyondTV record everything like Sage did?

I'm not saying "the pause" should not be fixed, because it should.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

long rants about how the circular buffer was stupid and why can't BeyondTV record everything like Sage did?

You'll see similar threads in MediaPortal.

I would much rather deal with the pause than see any implementation of a circular "live tv buffer" -- but I think it can be fixed without any such sacrilege.

[sdsean]

Ok so i justed wanted to comment on korben_dallas said in #327

My interest in Sage (or any other HTPC option, so far I just still think Sage is the best), is to manage all my media through one setup.

An HTPC is useless unless the "LiveTV" works just like everything else. . .yes most of my stuff is recorded or timeshifted. . . but Live is still hugely important, in fact a lot of times i get "the pause" b/c I caught up when timeshifting. . .

And honestly Sage is really the only option (fringe of myth and others aside), where I can manage ALL of my content how I want, and to anywhere in the house (thanks to the HD-200).

Yes SRE does help a bit with "the pause", but its best with sports and only works if it gets the right meta-data (cue complaints about NFL Sunday Ticket meta-data here).

I just want Live to work, as well as everything, and we all know that "the pause" is greatly excacerbated by using the HD-PVR, which TONS of use are using b/c its the only reliable option for HD content, and Sage supports it.

All that said, i'm confident , given the ranting in this forum, that some steps in a postive direction will be taken in Sage 7 (for which I will gladly pay for. . . ).

In fact, assuming you have some stout hardware, you can minmize the pause quite a bit by tweaking settings, and if you have multi-tuner setups, plus some creative programming, I know it can be done without having to completely abandon the "show record" model.

Btw. . .isn't there another thread around here somewhere that talks about how one might go about eliminating/minimizing "the pause" (from an engineering perspective?)

And isn't there another one around here about how we can minimize it. . . I'd be fine with that for right now while we wait for Sage 7. (I started one a while back, but i'm curious what others have tried that might be working for them. . .).

[evilpenguin]

From Geektonic on v7

Originally Posted by Geektonic

Live TV seamless transition between shows – If you’re a SageTV user already you know about this one. In the past say you were watching a sporting event and it ran past the scheduled end time. SageTV used to pause playback for a few seconds while it transitioned into the next show causing an annoying irritant to users. That problem is gone now and you’ll have seamless transitions.

We can finally lay this nitpicking... I mean, very, very, very important topic to rest

[bialio]

Dang it. Now I will need new batteries in the clock in the family room - it ran out but the pause always let me know when the hour changed...........