HD200 Stability?

[Greg]

How is using the guide? Browse the guide, find a show and select. Is that fairly quick? Is there a lag between button pushes on the remote and what is happening on the TV screen...........not surfing, just using the guide and getting a live show up.

Thanks,
Greg

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Greg

How is using the guide? Browse the guide, find a show and select. Is that fairly quick? Is there a lag between button pushes on the remote and what is happening on the TV screen...........not surfing, just using the guide and getting a live show up.

Navigating through the menus and the guide itself is quick. In my opinion, there isn't a significant lag when presses buttons to move between menus, or select different things in the guide.

There is a significant lag, however, when you actually select a live TV show to watch, since you have to wait for Sage to change the channel on the set top box before recording and playback can begin. In my case (which I think is very close to a best-case scenario), playback of live TV starts about 5-6 seconds after I press a button on the remote to watch a show (really, in my case its 6.5 seconds, but my TV adds a little bit of time handling resolution changes since I do native resolution switching).

[Greg]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Navigating through the menus and the guide itself is quick. In my opinion, there isn't a significant lag when presses buttons to move between menus, or select different things in the guide.

There is a significant lag, however, when you actually select a live TV show to watch, since you have to wait for Sage to change the channel on the set top box before recording and playback can begin. In my case (which I think is very close to a best-case scenario), playback of live TV starts about 5-6 seconds after I press a button on the remote to watch a show (really, in my case its 6.5 seconds, but my TV adds a little bit of time handling resolution changes since I do native resolution switching).

Thanks for the explanation.

I think the way I would do things is basically how Dave explained it.........surf via the set top box without Sage. When doing this you probably are not looking for something to record. If I decide to settle on a show then maybe at that time I would engage Sage so that I could pause live TV.

OK, so cool, not really an issue! I'm liking this more and more.

And now I understand that SageTV may be getting into the Cablecard game, as the restrictions have been lifted. Those tuners got to be a small fortune, especially the Ceton multi-tuner when it comes out.

Thanks,
Greg

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Greg

I think the way I would do things is basically how Dave explained it.........surf via the set top box without Sage. When doing this you probably are not looking for something to record. If I decide to settle on a show then maybe at that time I would engage Sage so that I could pause live TV.

I don't know if you have a set top now with an electronic program guide, but if you don't I think its likely you'll stop channel surfing relatively quickly. The general idea behind channel surfing is that you don't know what's on so you're scoping things out. Well, with the program guide you'll easily see what's on, a description of each show, and an indication of whether you've watched it before. I pretty much stopped channel surfing as soon as I started using Sage.

Some people basically completely stop watching live TV. If you have lots of favorites, you pretty much always have some sort of recording to watch. And if it was previously recorded, you can fast forward through commercials!

DVRs really do completely change the way you watch TV.

And now I understand that SageTV may be getting into the Cablecard game, as the restrictions have been lifted. Those tuners got to be a small fortune, especially the Ceton multi-tuner when it comes out.

Just so you know, Sage isn't likely to get official cablecard support. A Sage user wrote a plugin that provides some support for cablecard by basically having Sage interact with Windows Media Center in Windows 7, with Media Center doing the work behind the scenes and Sage just providing the user interface. This apparently works fine as long as the shows aren't marked for any kind of copy protection. There are several threads on this issue. This thread talks about the OEM restrictions being lifted. And this thread talks about the CableCard plugin.

[Greg]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I don't know if you have a set top now with an electronic program guide, but if you don't I think its likely you'll stop channel surfing relatively quickly.

I use one Comcast STB on my hi def TV, and your right, I don't surf at all........I use the guide. There are way to many channels and it's kind of slow to surf. For my analog TV I have a direct cable connection (no STB) and I do have a few channels that I hit routinely, which is very quick. That's going to change soon, though.........I just received my notice that Comcast is going all digital, except for the very basic local channels and that I'll have to get an adapter box. Seeing that I already have 1 STB I'll be able to get 2 more boxes free.

I'm looking forward to SageTV. I just read a review of the HD Theater extender from MPC Club..........great review!

Originally Posted by reggie14

Just so you know, Sage isn't likely to get official cablecard support. A Sage user wrote a plugin that provides some support for cablecard by basically having Sage interact with Windows Media Center in Windows 7, with Media Center doing the work behind the scenes and Sage just providing the user interface. This apparently works fine as long as the shows aren't marked for any kind of copy protection.

I guess it depends on what shows have copy protection. I mainly watch Discovery, TLC, USA, TNT, ESPN, A&E, History, Military and the Food Network. No HBO or stuff like that.

Is there a way to find out from Comcast what shows are copy protected?

Some of these shows I can stream from the internet..........I keep telling my wife that I'm going to cancel cable and just use a roof top antenna.

Thanks,
Greg

[davephan]

Originally Posted by Greg

Some of these shows I can stream from the internet..........I keep telling my wife that I'm going to cancel cable and just use a roof top antenna.

Be careful if you have Comcast cable Internet. If you download too much, they will cut you off for a year, unless they changed their policy lately... Comcast apparently wants Internet customers who faithfully pay the high price each month for the service, but don't use the service much.

Dave

[Greg]

Originally Posted by davephan

Be careful if you have Comcast cable Internet. If you download too much, they will cut you off for a year, unless they changed their policy lately... Comcast apparently wants Internet customers who faithfully pay the high price each month for the service, but don't use the service much.

Dave

Thanks for heads-up! Parental control from Comcast.........great!

Right now I have DSL, which I'm not sure has the bandwidth for quality streaming. I have Comcast just for TV...........for now!

Greg

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by davephan

Be careful if you have Comcast cable Internet. If you download too much, they will cut you off for a year, unless they changed their policy lately... Comcast apparently wants Internet customers who faithfully pay the high price each month for the service, but don't use the service much.

That's still their policy. Comcast has a 250GB cap on traffic each month. But, I think you're exaggerating how draconian it is. First of all, they don't enforce it terribly strictly. You won't get a call or warning as soon as you hit 250GB. It seems to depend on where you are, and how congested their network is there. Second, they don't kick you off for a year immediately. You get one warning. If it happens again within six months, then you can get kicked off for a year.

Third, the caps really aren't that restrictive. Let me put 250GB into perspective a bit. The highest quality video streaming that someone is likely to use a lot of is probably Netflix's HD watch instantly videos. By my calculations, at the absolute highest quality, you can watch about 150 hours of HD Netflix streaming videos with 250GB. Perhaps a more likely use case is 480p Hulu videos. In that case, you can watch about 580 hours of video for 250GB.

Could someone, particularly a family, go over those limits? Sure, they could, but it wouldn't be easy. It's a little easier to imagine if a family is completely replacing their cable TV service with online streaming, but I think that falls outside of "acceptable" use for Internet service. And really, I bet a huge percentage of 250GB infringers get there by downloading seasons of shows off bittorrent. As long as they provide some warnings, and they don't charge an ETF, I think its perfectly acceptable for Comcast to cut people off.

Personally, I think we should move to metered internet service, at which point these problems probably go away. Not tiered service like cell phone service (which is what ISPs are actually talking about doing), but true metered service like other utilities. Metered pricing would almost certainly cause the price, for me at least, to jump fairly significantly (since I'm sure I use a lot more traffic than the average person), but it seems like a more fair way to do it.

It seems popular to rag on ISPs and cable companies, Comcast in particular, but over the last four years I've gotten significantly more HD channels and a 200% increase in Internet bandwidth, while keeping the same price. Adjusted for inflation that actually means it has gotten cheaper.

Anyway, that's just me being a Comcast apologist. But, I wanted to point out that the traffic cap isn't quite as bad as the reputation it has gotten in some circles.

[davephan]

It sounds like Comcast's policies have changed from what I heard in the past. Before, I heard of people being kicked off for a year because they downloaded too much. Comcast would not tell anyone what their limit was at that point in time. There was no way for a person to determine how much was downloaded, or how close you were to their secret limit either.

So, it sounds like Comcast did change their policies quit a bit.

I have Comcast Internet, and their service is pretty good. They do have occasional outages though. If you do catch outages that last a long time, they will credit your account. If you don't complain about it, they don't credit you anything. A year ago, Comcast was down every night, for hours each night, for a week. They finally fixed their major problems. Now the outages only last a few minutes from time to time.

Dave

[TwistedMelon]

Originally Posted by Greg

Let's say I'm watching a live show through the cable box, not through SageTV and I want to pause live TV, which basically means that I want SageTV to start recording it. What do I have to do? Switch the TV input to where the extender is, pull up the guide, click the show and then pause? That would seem like a lot of work.

I understand that changing channels on the cable box is slow. How about an ATSC tuner, such as the HDHomerun?

When using SageTV, through an extender such as the HD200 or any other means, do not ever use your Cable box or other source directly. That is, with its original remote and without using Sage. Your cable box is now just a source, forget it exists after yo've set it up.

That said, if you're surfing or watching "live" tv from within Sage, regardless of the source, you don't have to do anything to record it. It is always recording. What you can do is press the Record button if you want to SAVE what you're watching. That way the program will be marked with a manual recording flag and will be available in your recorded list instead of being automatically removed when you change channels.

This is the same regardless of your source. Tuner cards are all going to be faster than changing channels on an external box through the use of IR transmitters or serial cables. I don't know anyone who "surfs" by using channel +/- when they have a Guide, even without a PVR function. It just hasn't made sense since channel numbers hve grown into the dozens or hundreds. If you go through the guide you won't have much of an issue waiting .5 seconds to a couple of seconds for tuning when you select your channel. The total time it takes depends on the source. Most MPEG cards will still take at least half a second. External boxes will take longer because you've got the delay associated with the IR transmitter (or serial cable) then the box tuning and of course possibly re-initializing the capture device and starting a new recoding stream.

[Greg]

Thanks for the additional comments.

[QUOTE=TwistedMelon;393121]That said, if you're surfing or watching "live" tv from within Sage, regardless of the source, you don't have to do anything to record it. It is always recording. What you can do is press the Record button if you want to SAVE what you're watching. That way the program will be marked with a manual recording flag and will be available in your recorded list instead of being automatically removed when you change channels./QUOTE]

I assume that when Sage is recording live TV on its own (you didn't pause live TV or hit record) that it saves only so much information and then deletes it, such as 30 minutes.
Do you know how much is saved and is that user adjustable?

Thanks,
Greg

[gplasky]

Everything in Sage, including live tv is a recording. It writes it to the hard drive as long as you're watching it or leave it running on a channel.

Gerry

[Greg]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Everything in Sage, including live tv is a recording. It writes it to the hard drive as long as you're watching it or leave it running on a channel.
Gerry

I understand that.

My question is, assuming that you don't hit record, does Sage auto delete the information and if so, is the save time user adjustable?

Thanks,
Greg

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Greg

I understand that.

My question is, assuming that you don't hit record, does Sage auto delete the information and if so, is the save time user adjustable?

Many DVRs use what's known as a circular buffer when playing back live (or nearly live) TV. In that case, the DVR program has a fixed buffer size. For a variety of reasons, Sage doesn't use a fixed circular buffer. I'm not going to get into the pros and cons of a circular buffer versus Sage's approach, except to say, in my opinion, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Instead, as gplasky said, everything is a recording in Sage. When you start watching a live TV show, Sage starts recording that to a new file on your hard drive just like it was a recording. Thus, there is no limit to how big that file can get. If you watch the whole show, the whole show is recorded.

Sage will automatically delete live TV shows. There are two options for when it will delete partial live TV recordings. I believe by default, Sage deletes live TV recordings as soon as you stop watching a show. I don't use that setting. There is a setting in Sage to let it keep partial live TV recordings. In that case, Sage waits until it runs out of space on the hard drive before it deletes the live TV recordings.

[Greg]

reggie, thanks for that explanation. I wish Sage had a third option: an adjustable time or at least some set time, every 30 days, for example. Either way, it doesn't sound like a big deal.

Thanks again,
Greg