A clear statement regarding DVB subtitles support

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by mpogr

So far their responsiveness was far from ideal. Often issues have been mixed up. Many times I got wrong or irrelevant replies (e.g. the issue was told to be fixed while it was not, or the reply referred to a different issue). I have also experienced lack of any response... There is a lot of room for improvement on the support side.

Although, I use DVB quite heavily, I have to say that I am not aware of many channels with DVB subtitles here in Europe so I voted No.

On SageTV support my experience is quite the opposite. I have communicated with support/dev team hundreds of times and every single time had a response from as little a few minutes to max 48 hours.

I can't think of any other software company that provides better real support and resolution times. Sure sometimes, pinning down the issue can take time but with persistence and good attitude everything works out.

[jaminben]

I also use DVB heavily and its supported in the UK on most main stream channels. However I never use it but I did vote yes as I can see it would benefit some users. I wouldn't move to MediaPortal as it never worked, for me anyway.

[Brent]

Here's the response I received when I posed the question to SageTV support - emphasis mine:

We apologize for the ambiguity related to DVB subtitles. We did plan on implementing them earlier; but the complexity of
the implementation on the HD200 caused us to put it on hold. We do plan on revisiting it at a later date; but we don't have an actual target yet for when.
Thanks,

And before anyone gets all upset about them not giving a target date now think about this thread. It almost screams "don't tell us what your planning to do or we'll yell when your plans don't happen on schedule."

I think they'll still do it. But it doesn't sound like it will be tomorrow or anything.


By the way, isn't DVB guide support more of an issue than CC? I don't really know, but that's what I've heard from a few European SageTV users. Just curious.

[shnootz]

i am guessing that all of us who is in the need of dvb subtitles should move to media portal.tch no media porta

mpgor - i think that once you and iprogramer will solve the ndscam with media potal we will all switch to media portal

[Brent]

Originally Posted by shnootz

...we will all switch to media portal

So you are saying it is futile for SageTV to work on the DVB support of subtitles you have asked for? Definitely not the best way to plead your case.

[shnootz]

dear brent,

i am not trying to plead.

there are so many free dvb viewer softwares out there which handels dvb subtitles perfectly.

so if sage does not solve this issue i will move from sage to other solutions out there.

it seems like their problem is that they cannot make it work on their extender and this is why they are not releasing it.
i am not using their extender, i have a pc for every location i want to watch tv.

my buttom line is if sage cann't deliver, there are other which will

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by shnootz

dear brent,

i am not trying to plead.

there are so many free dvb viewer softwares out there which handels dvb subtitles perfectly.

so if sage does not solve this issue i will move from sage to other solutions out there.

it seems like their problem is that they cannot make it work on their extender and this is why they are not releasing it.
i am not using their extender, i have a pc for every location i want to watch tv.

my buttom line is if sage cann't deliver, there are other which will

That's a perfectly acceptable opinion. Each one of us decides what is important, weighs up the different options and goes ahead with the option/software that's suits their needs.

In my case at least and for many more, the strong points of sagetv outweigh the strong points of other software free or not thus we decide to stick with it.

I can't say I am disappointed with the progress so far. May be in some cases sagetv is behind some others in bringing in new functionality, in some other it is way ahead but at least when it comes out sagetv make every effort to make it work reliably. The product is solid and can withstand the use/abuse of wives, guests, kids etc with the sort of reliability one expects from appliances.

As far as DVB goes, if one looks at the forums, there's already a thread in which sageTV is releasing betas of the new version core for DVB recording and playback which I guess will eventually will support DVB subtitles.

It probably did not make any sense to add this functionality to the old core since the new one is imminent.

[bjkiller]

I have huge SageTV system, may be even biggest in the world - i do not sure, currently I do not see any alternative for my case where i have many clients/extenders working from 1 server. Any one have such extender from point of heat and noise?
Soon i will buy elliptical trainer, and I will add $180 HD200 as additional TV, what system can beat it?

I voted for 2nd choice, I think if they promised, they will implement.

[shnootz]

Do not get me wrong, i think sage is an amazing system, which i love using.
but wen i need to take into consideration the fact that i have kids, and parents which does not know english into a level that they can watch tv without subtitles.

this is why my wife told me that either i will get the subtitles working or kick the system out.

[mpogr]

Brent,

Thanks a lot for sharing this information!
I'd like to be as optimistic as you are but, regrettably, I can't. The way I read it, they planned to implement them, but, when they realized the complexity involved, they put these plans on hold. To my understanding, this means they're currently not planning to implement it, unless something changes.
Wording games aside, when someone plans something and makes these plans public, this is called a promise. When a vendor makes a promise, some people make purchasing decisions based on it. This is what happened here, and this is why the level of frustration is so high.

Originally Posted by Brent

"don't tell us what your planning to do or we'll yell when your plans don't happen on schedule."

Your point would have been correct if we had been talking about scheduling issue only, but, seemingly, this is not the case, and least until someone from Sage comes out and claims otherwise.

[Taddeusz]

And plans change. Just because someone tells you they're planning something doesn't give you any indication of priority. They were planning to add it. It obviously became more difficult to achieve than they had originally envisioned. So it got bumped down their priority list. Not the first company that's done this and certainly not the last. I'm sure it's still on their priority list but there are other things that have become more critical that require less work hours to achieve.

Plans and priorities change. Sure, it sucks to be on the other side of it but I doubt you can say that you've never done something similar yourself. Everyone's priorities change from time to time.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

And plans change...

This is obviously OK. However, what I learned myself working in the R&D management of a major software vendor personally talking with many customers, is that you don't easily cancel plans that have already been made public. That is, under-promise is always better than under-delivery
In this particular case, they should have learned the subject complexity before they announced DVB subtitles support...

[stanger89]

And people complain that Sage never tells us what they're planning anymore.....

[Brent]

Originally Posted by stanger89

And people complain that Sage never tells us what they're planning anymore.....

That was my point albeit obviously lost in the message. As I said before, I understand this is important to many of you posting in this thread and probably many others - and I know the guys at SageTV do as well. But they won't be making any promises and likely won't be saying anything about it anymore until (or if) it's in a public beta.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by mpogr

In this particular case, they should have learned the subject complexity before they announced DVB subtitles support...

I'm sympathetic to your complaints, but it's almost certainly the case that Sage made some progress on DVB subtitles, then ran into an unexpected problem. They probably thought they had a pretty good grasp on the difficulty of the problem when they said it was coming "soon". But sometimes those really simple problems end up being more complicated than you originally thought.

That being said, when I work on a project and I tell my boss that something is coming "soon", if more than a few weeks passes I'll probably have to explain what happened. 99% of the time he doesn't think its a big deal, but he still wants to know what happened and what the new plans are. In an ideal world I'd like to see that sort of thing extend to the communications with customers, but obviously that could go overboard. For all kinds of reasons you shouldn't expect a business to communicate every little detail of things to come. But, I kind of think this was/is an exceptional enough case that it makes sense to want Sage to make some type of statement clarifying if DVB subtitle efforts have basically stopped (like Hulu support, which Sage was also vague about), or continuing, albeit slower than expected. Timeframes probably wouldn't be appropriate or necessary, as long as "continuing effort" actually means some sort of active development currently in progress.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by Brent

That was my point albeit obviously lost in the message. As I said before, I understand this is important to many of you posting in this thread and probably many others - and I know the guys at SageTV do as well. But they won't be making any promises and likely won't be saying anything about it anymore until (or if) it's in a public beta.

I think this is fair. As I said before, under-promise is better than under-delivery...

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by reggie14

But, I kind of think this was/is an exceptional enough case that it makes sense to want Sage to make some type of statement clarifying if DVB subtitle efforts have basically stopped (like Hulu support, which Sage was also vague about), or continuing, albeit slower than expected. Timeframes probably wouldn't be appropriate or necessary, as long as "continuing effort" actually means some sort of active development currently in progress.

This is exactly the kind of clarification I would expect from Sage.
Anyone?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by banjo

it will be great if sage implement the dvb subtitle support in the sage software/
so i could stay and use the Sage software.

I'm currently testing a STVi plugin (based on the Caption Playback STVi for SMI files) to play DVB Subtitles (correctly laid out on the screen as they should).

So far I have great success with the STVi, but I'll allow me some time to watch entire shows / movies to see if memory usage is acceptable (DVB subs requires approx. 2000 images to be displayed per show)

The STVi will read a .isub file that is a sub file format containing bitmaps that my network encoder will create in real time (a dedicated file format I created for SageTV).

Regards,
Stéphane.

[mpogr]

Stéphane,

These are really great news!
Two questions:
1. Will your STVi plugin be able to play DVB subtitles for live shows?
2. Will you publish the format of .isub files, so other recorders (e.g. DVBE4SAGE) will be able to create these?

Thanks and best regards,

Michael.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by mpogr

1. Will your STVi plugin be able to play DVB subtitles for live shows?

The default STVi for SMI playback normally allows real time subtitle (it has worked once for me, but not in all versions). In the current version I'm using I removed the real time playback.

Drawback : SMI is 77 Ko per show, ISUB is 4 Mo per show. Reloading the isub might cause playback hiccup (SMI does if constantly reloaded)

2. Will you publish the format of .isub files, so other recorders (e.g. DVBE4SAGE) will be able to create these?

Yes, the file format is not difficult : one epoch per line (epoch = all images to be displayed or none at a specific time). Images are positionned (left,top,width,height) and are png base64 encoded images.

Regards,
Stéphane.