IT seems awfully quiet in the beta department... until now

[cncb]

I have a "bad" feeling they have been spending all this time on the Sage (Linux) "on a stick" which sounded like it was the next big thing. This would be good for some but I have personally have no interest in it.

[Fuzzy]

I think anything that could bring in larger numbers of users will help. The increased user base will increase the bargaining power for things like Hulu and Netflix type integration, as well as cablelabs certification. And I fail to see how more users would HURT in any way.

[fatboy]

Unfortunately they may well be about to lose some users as support for freeview in the UK has now been broken for about two months. There was some work being done (search 'native recording patch') that fixed some of the problems but even that seems to have stopped. The WAF has dropped to zero and I've already had to buy 'temporary' hardware whilst sagetv is being 'fixed'. A real shame

[jamesdisco]

Originally Posted by fatboy

Unfortunately they may well be about to lose some users as support for freeview in the UK has now been broken for about two months. There was some work being done (search 'native recording patch') that fixed some of the problems but even that seems to have stopped. The WAF has dropped to zero and I've already had to buy 'temporary' hardware whilst sagetv is being 'fixed'. A real shame

I'm a UK user its been working fine for me. I recently put up a dish so have now integrated freesat and freeview together all working well.

[ntisdale]

Originally Posted by fatboy

Unfortunately they may well be about to lose some users as support for freeview in the UK has now been broken for about two months. There was some work being done (search 'native recording patch') that fixed some of the problems but even that seems to have stopped. The WAF has dropped to zero and I've already had to buy 'temporary' hardware whilst sagetv is being 'fixed'. A real shame

DVB-T freeview is working fine for me. I'm on Sage 6.6.2 using a Hauppauge Nova-T 500 PCI card. What problems are you experiencing with Sage?

Neil

[fatboy]

since we started the switchover in august sagetv has been unable to pick up most of the new frequencies from the caradon transmitter. the patch i mentioned has improved this and it picks up the majority of channels with a few glaring holes such as ITV.

The tuner works fine and other third party applications (e.g hauppage and MCE) can happily pick up all the new frequencies.

Also since the patch has installed i can not get the service to run.

The 'native recording patch' thread is the patch I am referring to and that has not had any new releases since version 7 on 19/09

I have also switched from vista x32 to win 7 RTM x64 and don't expect that is helping

[wayner]

Originally Posted by cncb

I have a "bad" feeling they have been spending all this time on the Sage (Linux) "on a stick" which sounded like it was the next big thing. This would be good for some but I have personally have no interest in it.

I agree as well - this will not benefit me directly at all. If it does pull in lots of users then that will be good as it will help to ensure the viability of Sage and should lead to more add-ins, etc.

[wayner]

A month or so later and it is still "vewy vewy quiet" (as Elmer Fudd would say) on the beta front. I sure hope that there is lots going on behind the scenes that will wow us all.

[Fuzzy]

Honestly, I'd expect that the current mode they are in is minor enhancements to the current product, and initial development on the version 7 product. Also, work is being done on the Server-On-A Stick, which they can't really beta test all that easily.

[Lucas]

Given what we have already, I don't think there are any pressing pending items to warrant an interim release.

The announced future products seem to be a lot of work.

[LehighBri]

I love threads like this... it just creates noise for Sage and doesn't really add any value to anything.

Nonetheless, Sage has indeed been pumping out new beta versions, albeit with minor enhancements and not some of the major enhancements you may be expecting. The enhancements below include a variety of great little tweaks and improvements continuing to make Sage an even better product until they formally release a beta in the future whenever that may be (perhaps CES next year??).

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43453

[wado1971]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

...Nonetheless, Sage has indeed been pumping out new beta versions....

But these are not new beta releases - just stvi updates.

Since the release of 6.6 on 7/23, a new beta cycle has not started yet. This ~4 month lapse is much longer than usual & that's what makes this thread even more interesting. What do they have up there's sleeve that's taking the extra time?

[cat6man]

and hopefully working behind the scenes on

1)
a hd300 for next year some time..........new 864x chipsets with hdmi1.3 so we can get HD audio from our media extenders

2)
support for new cablecard tuners in windows7

i trust these and other goodies will get here when the time is right



lots of scut work building functionality and foundations is required for some of this stuff before it is ready for
a public beta.................plus the basic h/w and drivers often need a few iterations before they are stable enough
for a public beta...................i actually find the absence of public betas encouraging as i wouldn't expect either
of the 2 items above to be ready yet for prime time (and they are my 2 personal priorities these days)

[reggie14]

<wild speculation>

I suspect there's a fair amount of activity going on behind the scenes that we're not seeing. Sage had a lot to say about the server-on-a-stick concept in the interview with Brent. That doesn't mean that its definitely happening, but I still suspect it is. Though, I basically agree with one of the other posters that I'm not very excited about that.

Brent's interview also alluded to UI enhancements. I kind of wonder if they're working on that right now, and maybe the STV updates we're seeing are backports of things that they're building into the next interface.

I doubt they're doing any work on cablecard. Even thought they could, in theory, do something like the cable card hack on Win7, it seems pretty clumsy to do it in a commercial product. And I can't imagine Sage has the resources to do "real" cablecard support, given the necessary DRM and licensing fees that would go along with it.

</wild speculation>

[mkanet]

Cablecard support? I dont think that's what they are working on right now. Something REALLY big would have to change in the technology world for that to happen; which I'm sure we would hear about in the news. The only news I've heard for cablecards is Hauppauge is going to release their version soon; with other manufcturers to follow.

I never did understand why they never came out with mobile phone support for placeshifter. The CEO of sageTV has an iphone. Why he wouldnt want placeshifter on it, I have no idea...

Originally Posted by cat6man

and hopefully working behind the scenes on

1)
a hd300 for next year some time..........new 864x chipsets with hdmi1.3 so we can get HD audio from our media extenders

2)
support for new cablecard tuners in windows7

i trust these and other goodies will get here when the time is right



lots of scut work building functionality and foundations is required for some of this stuff before it is ready for
a public beta.................plus the basic h/w and drivers often need a few iterations before they are stable enough
for a public beta...................i actually find the absence of public betas encouraging as i wouldn't expect either
of the 2 items above to be ready yet for prime time (and they are my 2 personal priorities these days)

[tmiranda]

My money is on "server on a stick".

[mkanet]

Okay, I have to ask. What practical purpose does a server on a stick serve? My intention isnt to sound negative. I just dont know what it is and what value it would offer to sageTV customers.

I'm sure it must be something more than just having sageTV media center stored on a usb thumb drive. I dont mean to sound stupid, but would it have ATSC antenna/QAM coax inputs at the tip of the stick? Maybe a "server on a stick" implies a bootable linux/windows disk that just has sageTV on it; but then, it wouldnt make sense to plug it into a PC that already has an OS. No matter what I guess "server on a stick" means, my ideas sound completely useless/impractical. I'm sure there's gotta be a whole more more to it. Could someone please explain?

Originally Posted by tmiranda

My money is on "server on a stick".

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Okay, I have to ask. What practical purpose does a server on a stick serve? My intention isnt to sound negative. I just dont know what it is and what value it would offer to sageTV customers.

I'm sure it must be something more than just having sageTV media center stored on a usb thumb drive. I dont mean to sound stupid, but would it have ATSC antenna/QAM coax inputs at the tip of the stick? Maybe a "server on a stick" implies a bootable linux/windows disk that just has sageTV on it; but then, it wouldnt make sense to plug it into a PC that already has an OS. No matter what I guess "server on a stick" means, my ideas sound completely useless/impractical. I'm sure there's gotta be a whole more more to it. Could someone please explain?

It's a bootable thumb drive. I think the idea is that SageTV is in a relatively known environment. All the problems people have due to variable operating system and software environments can affect SageTV in different ways.

Certainly, it's not for everyone. But for someone who has a fairly simple environment it might just be what the doctor ordered.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Okay, I have to ask. What practical purpose does a server on a stick serve? My intention isnt to sound negative. I just dont know what it is and what value it would offer to sageTV customers.

I'm sure it must be something more than just having sageTV media center stored on a usb thumb drive. I dont mean to sound stupid, but would it have ATSC antenna/QAM coax inputs at the tip of the stick? Maybe a "server on a stick" implies a bootable linux/windows disk that just has sageTV on it; but then, it wouldnt make sense to plug it into a PC that already has an OS. No matter what I guess "server on a stick" means, my ideas sound completely useless/impractical. I'm sure there's gotta be a whole more more to it. Could someone please explain?

You must not have ready the interview on Geektonic. Basically the Server-on-a-stick is a USB drive that will have linux and Sage installed on it so that you can plug it into any computer (that boots to USB) and instantly have Sage up and running (sure you still have to do the location specific setups via the gui). The idea is that ANYONE could run a Sage setup with very little computer knowledge. Imagine telling someone they can go to their local PC store, pick up a computer, maybe a couple of USB tuners, and just plug this stick in and they are ready to roll with Sage! For those of us using Sage currently, it doesn't do us much good except that if Sage becomes more broadly adopted, then there will be more money for developmemt.

[Brent]

I think they must be readying a tabletPC that will have a color touchscreen, free 3g internet and cost less than $100... Or was that the supposed apple thingy?

Whatever is going on I'm sure the SageTV team is working hard on something... And we have had many betas in the past several months - just not a lot in the past 30 days.