SageTV vs Media Center 7

[pgman]

Originally Posted by stanger89

That's why you get extenders

True, that. Although the extenders didn't exist (to my knowledge) when I started down this path, and I still like the ability to grab my wireless keyboard and mouse to watch Hulu on the big screen and do some web surfing with the family. I'll have to look at these extenders next time around - do they allow for this sort of activity?

[hockeyfan]

Hey if you wanna to do the 7mc thing I say "go for it!" I for one love horror shows. Bet you forgot about broadcast flags, I almost did. I remember when my kid couldn't record spongebob on teletoon due to broadcast flags. At least you'll have the eye candy!

[stevech]

Said earlier here
I'm sort of split on the UI hatred for Sage. Yeah, it's not as shiny as 7MC or XBMC, but it's not by any means horrible, it's better than or at least on par with the UI on most STBs. Sage is actually a lot like the Dish Network UI (in some ways it's kind of eerie) .

I was in business class international for several long flights this week. Eerie how the Linux based passenger entertainment system's UI was Sage-like. Movies, recorded TV shows, music, photos. Controlled by an in-seat wired remote that has a small full keyboard.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

Wow. I see. It's really that bad. So what good is 7MC for example ?

As far as recording TV? About as good as Sage.

Does MS get a licence for decrypting the stuff (even if DRM'ed) ? I mean, if you just want to see live TV on your PC, change channels, etc, etc, do you have to start a computer lab with HDPVRs blasters and all? This is not realistic for even the average literate PC user. Who bothers at all ? I am confused.

For Satellite, the only way to record it directly is with a provider DVR. There are absolutely no third party devices that decrypt satellite (legally, and possibly even illegally at this point now that Dish has gone to Nagra3).

The one exception is Cable, for that there's CableCard, but it's quite crippled at the moment. Up until recently you had to buy a PC from a big OEM who had a license to build a machine and install a special CableCard bios, and a special CableCard version of windows. This has changed recently or will soon...

And then the recordings are all DRM'd and can only be watched on the machine that recorded them, or a WMC extender. This is supposed to be changing in the next 6 months or so so only shows marked Copy Once will be DRM'd but we don't really know what that will be.

Tell me, does any of your providers use NDS CA's ? Cause for them there is a good solution. I mean, you still have to be a valid subscriber, but there is a good software CAM that interfaces a smartcard reader with a valid subscription card. I thought Hughes used NDS and isn't DirectTV a successor to that ? On second thought, if it were so, you'd all know about it.

Dish uses a tweaked version of DVB CA that has the card locked to the box somehow, and thus won't work with any of the EU cam stuff. DirecTV I think eliminated cards and uses something totally different.

Trust me, if I could have pulled my CA card out of my Dish box and just stuck it in a reader in my PC and been on my way I would have been a long time ago.

The other problem is Dish uses "Turbo coded" 8PSK as opposed to DVB-S2's 8PSK so IIRC the only way to actually recieve Dish is to use a tuner cobbled together from the tuner out of a Dish box. There are companies that do that, but you can't buy eg a Skystar or something.

And Direct I believe uses a different protocol/modulation.

[pgman]

Originally Posted by pgman

True, that. Although the extenders didn't exist (to my knowledge) when I started down this path...

I think what I meant there was the HD Theater box - not sure. See what I mean? I don't know much about this stuff.

[brandypuff]

Considering how complex the SageTV software is - and i mean complex - I am totally amazed at how very,very well it works with little or no issues. I can't say that for most of the software i use. My wife's been using it for more than a year and i never hear any complaints.
She could not live without SageTV anymore.

[sdsean]

For Satellite, the only way to record it directly is with a provider DVR. There are absolutely no third party devices that decrypt satellite (legally, and possibly even illegally at this point now that Dish has gone to Nagra3).

This statement is not 100%. While there is no way to decrypt the satellite signal legally, recording via the analog hole is completely legal . . . so far anyway. . .

[PGPfan]

I think what Stanger89 meant is that there is no way to decrypt the signal to allow for recording it directly. The 'analog hole' is just using the STB for decrypting, but then it converts that digital feed into analog output - which is up for debate as to wether or not there is any loss in quality as a result.

-PGPfan

[sdsean]

agreed, I just wanted to note that this is completely legal. . at least so far. . .:-)

[stanger89]

I did word it rather carefully for those reasons

For Satellite, the only way to record it directly is with a provider DVR.

Note "directly" in there, ie LNB->tuner without an extra STB to do the decrypting.

There are absolutely no third party devices that decrypt satellite (legally, and possibly even illegally at this point now that Dish has gone to Nagra3).

What I was getting at is unlike EU, where there is a standard DVB-S with CA, where you can go out and buy a DVB tuner with CAM and stick your authorized card in and it will work with any provider, here in NA, none of the (major) Satellite providers use a standard protocol (well Dish uses almost standard DVB but it's modified enough that the EU equipment won't work), and none license their technology to third parties. This means the only way to legally decrypt content from them is to use one of their STBs. Further, while there were ways around that, AFAIK, both DirecTV and Dish's latest encryption have basically gone unbroken so there aren't even illegal ways to decrypt their content.

Which leaves us using workarounds, which by their nature of using the provider's STB are yes, perfectly legal.

[sdsean]

Indeed. . .

You know I was wondering something about their encryptions schemes btw. . .

What if you had an STB from either DirecTV or Dish, and that STB could provide a ClearQAM output coax?

In theory using DirecTVs SWM (swim) system where you can have multiple singles coming down one line. . .you could have one box, with one input, and then have it dole out multiple clear qam signals. . .that way you could have tvs in the house that can still tune channels and what not. . .even though they wouldn't get guide data. . .and of course HTPCs could work as well. . .

The downside for DirecTV is that they loose recurring $5 every month for every receiver/access card combo. . . but they could recoup that a bit by charing more for said device. . .

And its a selling point for them as well. . .b/c it would mean bars and places that have lots and lots of TVs don't have to have 1 receiver per TV sucking up a whole bunch of power (eg. making them more likely to use DirecTV, and making them "more green").

And they could still provide a guide if they really wanted too. . . just using EVR like rendering in the clear-qam output. . .

This would also get rid of the need for the HDPC20 thing that got dropped a while back. . .

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by sdsean

You know I was wondering something about their encryptions schemes btw. . .

What if you had an STB from either DirecTV or Dish, and that STB could provide a ClearQAM output coax?

This will never happen. They won't let any insecure access to their content. They even redesigned all their new boxes to not have any insecure MPEG2/4 outside of a DSP chip, so things like the R-5000 wouldn't be possible. Now, with them fighting to close the Analog hole as well, they are DEFINATELY never going to do so.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by sdsean

Indeed. . .

You know I was wondering something about their encryptions schemes btw. . .

What if you had an STB from either DirecTV or Dish, and that STB could provide a ClearQAM output coax?

Dish used to offer a module for their STBs that created 8VSB (ATSC) output. But that was killed long, long ago.

Tons of stuff could be done, but most of it that's consumer friendly never will be.

[Fuzzy]

don't forget that the only reasonable explanation for even WANTING your television on a computer, is to pirate it to the world...

[pingmustard]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I've tried a few wiki's recently, looking through the ubuntu wiki and some of the osx86 wikis. IMO, they're no better than forums, in some ways they're worse. Sometimes info is a little easier to find, but all too often it's out of date, and can lead you down a stray path.

I would agree SageTV needs more sticky style WIKI system. I've used many WIKI's in the past. The one I currently use is deki from MindTouch (freeware). I would highly recommend it -- however, be warned the free version does require a lot of manual work to install, but I think most of us here are ready for that If not, the commercial one comes with installer.

Having the information available plays a big factor for determining if one can get what we want setup correctly. If one can't get things to work, one could be inclined to blame the HTC software.

Information scouring the forums is great, but when you have to browse through threads that are 300 posts long, it does get VERY keep the main post updated and find useful content.

As for bells and whistles, I would agree the default STV is just not pretty compared to Win7MC. I would really like to see the fan art stuff "just work".

What's kept me on STV so long is because of the actual TV features it provides and ability to extend However, I do wish the UI could come stock more glorified.

[sdsean]

Fuzzy: I'll I can say is LOL!

[stevech]

helped my brother upgrade his DirectTV box - was the one with TiVo integrated. New one is non-TiVo. Nice GUI. WAF went like this...
Oh No, where's my TiVo!!!! Grrr.
Then she spent an hour or so with the new box. She said "it's just as good, has all the features except thumbs-up/down which wasn't useful anyway."

The new box has USB/eSATA. USB doesn't work. eSATA works but it supercedes the internal drive and all that's on it. Has ethernet.

No extenders, of course.

Very simple nice GUI. In the guide, just click on a program to record, then click a second time to make it a favorite. KISS.

[J3G]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

I don't understand your logic. First you post

and then you say



So, what are you saying here? How about some consistent logic to go with the flame bait!

-PGPfan

(my emphasis added)

My point is very simple. I have to hack around on SageTV to get the "goodies". The process always requires lots of research in the manual or the forums. So the consistent logic is hacking! If I am going to hack something to work as I want, then why not hack on the FREE Windows Media Center 7. You want to argue about "cheap" extenders...last I checked xbox 360 was about the price as SageTV HD. You want Hulu, Youtube, blahblah ... get PlayOn. I'm saying you can hack the free solution to do a lot of stuff!

So back to SageTV vs MC7...why would someone other than an enthusiast pick $99 software over the already free installed MC7?

As I said in my first post. If sagetv is to see an increase in market share there needs to be some significant changes to the website, GUI, extensions, and documentation. MC7 is now bundled with about every ones Windows 7 machines.

[J3G]

Originally Posted by hockeyfan

Hey if you wanna to do the 7mc thing I say "go for it!" I for one love horror shows. Bet you forgot about broadcast flags, I almost did. I remember when my kid couldn't record spongebob on teletoon due to broadcast flags. At least you'll have the eye candy!

The intent of this post was not because I "want to do the 7mc thing". Its because I want SageTV to succeed. I have invested in it. I enjoy it. I see great potential.

So are you saying sagetv ignores broadcast flags? I use hd-pvr, I don't think broadcast flags would be a concern in 7MC.

[J3G]

Originally Posted by pgman

I don't really know anything about Codecs, graphs, and demuxers but I've been using a PC-based home-entertainment system since 2005, when I bought SageTV (I think it was version 4 then). I've tripped, stumbled and fallen all over the place trying to make my HTPC work exactly the way I wanted it to. Most of the time I failed, but I learned the whole time and, evnentually, I got it sorted out. I must say, it was worth it. I could never go back to doing home entertainment the old way.

Over the years, I've been frustrated with SageTV for reasons that are largely my own fault - I just didn't want to take the time to understand all this stuff. Television, to me, is an escape - a way to be lazy. That makes it something I am just not willing to work real hard to do. For that reason, I've been frustrated in the past with SageTV because of some of the little quirks and "bugs". I just wanted it to work perfectly right out of the box, and it didn't always do that for me - I am not sure why. Still, I always seemed to be able to get it to work well enough to become mostly transparent, which is the real mark of a good piece of software.

I've never modified anything on my Sage UI, nor do I want to. SageTV is definitely not as sexy as WMC (Vista or 7) but it is way more flexible and it doesn't blank out my screen and tell me that I do not have authorization to watch a program. That alone will keep me on the SageTV bandwagon. I gave up on SageTV for a while because I just couldn't get smooth HD playback with it. I started using Vista MC, and it worked very well for me (with the same hardware, by the way), but the PQ was not as good as with SageTV (the stuttering playback notwithstanding). I dropped VMC like a bad habit when it started with the DRM garbage, though. We missed the end of many shows because the screen would suddenly turn blue and a message would politely tell us that we were not authorized to watch this program. That's a bunch of crap. After this happened three times, I re-loaded SageTV and bought a more powerful video board. HD playback was acceptable after this upgrade and I've not looked back. I DID try Win7 MC and, in my opinion, the Vista version of Media Center was better. I only used it for about a day and I re-loaded SageTV on my brand-new Win7 install. 7MC just seems too invasive. I feel like someone is inside my TV watching ME. No thanks. Windows 7 is great, though.

The best part about SageTV, in my opinion, is that it STILL runs on my 5-year-old hardware that is at the end of it's upgrade path. I was able to get Vista to run on this machine pretty well - and Win7 runs better - but SageTV just sits there in the background, faithfully recording our favorite shows week after week, and it doesn't hog all the hardware and make the computer unusable for other things like web browsing or music playback. As long as SageTV remains an independent software that is not in bed with all the DRM horse hockey, I will be a customer.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with both. I learned a lot. SageTV wins that round