Sage / Frey at CES?

[evilpenguin]

Yeah, that 3D thing is pretty mysterious. About the only thing I can think of that I would consider a 3D interface is the new Xbox interface and possibly AppleTV.

[Clift]

3D UI similar to the Zune HD for animations, transitions and such...

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/16...the-full-tour/

[Tiki]

A good example of the difference between 2-D and 3-D graphics for a user interface is the difference between Windows XP and the Aero interface in Vista and Win7. 3-D graphics make it possible to do animations, transparent effects, rotations, shading, and lighting effects.

You can actually do a lot of pseudo-3-D effects using 2-D graphics. As an example, you may have noticed that some of the imports already available for Sage are able to show a picture of a DVD cover for a movie with a "reflection" effect. The trick is that the reflection is static. What they can't really do with 2D graphics is make it look like the DVD box is spinning and have it create a reflection on the fly that spins with it. Or shine a moving spot-light on the box and have it cast a "moving" shadow on the wall behind it. Or, make the screen "ripple" when you click a button.

[wayner]

Where would this new Sage UI leave the custom UIs such as SageMC and the under-development stuff like Ortus and Phoenix? In other words - will those guys have to start over once Sage7 comes out? Or is there any point in them still working on these projects?

[evilpenguin]

I'm curious where Sage is going to look for the HD300's chipset. They'd be very smart to follow Boxee's lead and go with Tegra. That thing is a *beast* and would provide all the graphics and video decoding they could ever want.

Granted, that opens up a problem where they would have to chose whether to design their new UI with the restriction that it needs to function on the H200/100 or just leave those two in the dust with the current STV and swing for the fenses with a new one that takes advantage of all the new processing power.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by wayner

Where would this new Sage UI leave the custom UIs such as SageMC and the under-development stuff like Ortus and Phoenix? In other words - will those guys have to start over once Sage7 comes out? Or is there any point in them still working on these projects?

That is an interesting question the answer could be one reason why the UI change has been so long in coming.

One possibility is that the entire Sage rendering engine/logic/structure is redone from the ground up. This could have many benefits. For example if there were some inefficiency or limitations involved with the current structure that cause major performance problems, a "do over" could fix those, of course it would have drawbacks too, like all the debugging that's been done since V2 would be tossed and have to start over again. Current "plugins" wouldn't work, and replacement STVs (eg SageMC) would also not work.

The next possibility is that the core rendering engine is redone, but the existing STV structure is retained. This could also have benefits like the prior example, but could be less beneficial if inefficiencies are in the STV translation layer. This method would have less drawbacks depending on how it's done. If doing the update requires a new API, then current work would not function, unless the existing API was kept around for backward compatibility. Of course it's also possible for all the work to be done "under the hood" with no changes to the API, just rendering work in which case all the existing stuff would work, (plugins only if the stock STV is retained).

Now, if I had to prognosticate, my guess would be that what's going on would be roughly the later. A lot of work redoing/optomizing/improving the under the hood rendering capabilities, but tied with a new stock STV. I'd guess the new STV would either use all new "3D" graphics, or more likely, make extensive use of extensions to the current API (for the 3D stuff).

I'd bet against a complete rewrite as the current structure has many advantages. The primary being evidenced best by SageMC, it's a completely different UI, which is possible due to the way Sage's UI is structured. And if you look at the CPU usage while running either UI, you'll see that they don't hit the CPU very hard, so it's not likely there are significant performance inefficiencies in the using of STV logic.

The one thing I really do hope for is a drastically improved (well technically "created") skinning tool/method/environment, and or a real plugin architecture. SageMC is great and the work done on it is amazing, but IMO it's not good for Sage to have two completely different and incompatible UIs floating around. Right now there are essentially two versions of Sage, the "stock" one, and the SageMC one, and that just makes things confusing.

Given the history, it would be sad to see the STV system go, but if I were wishing, I'd rather see a robust skinning and plugin architecture than the continuance of the STV system, and I'd applaud that change.

Here's to hoping the new UI brings with it the best of the above....

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by wayner

Where would this new Sage UI leave the custom UIs such as SageMC and the under-development stuff like Ortus and Phoenix? In other words - will those guys have to start over once Sage7 comes out? Or is there any point in them still working on these projects?

As with any software upgrade, it's possible that the next version of Sage could impact these and other imports, but I don't think it will affect them very much. As I understand it, both Phoenix and Ortus are planning to build a stand-alone UI that talks to the Sage Server "Back-End" via the Sage API's, but does not rely on the "Front-End" stuff or Sage's Studio at all. Therefore, they should be mostly unaffected by Sage overhauling the UI. However, if Sage does a good enough job with the new UI, some people may not see the need to use an alternate UI.

Now, I think there is a much bigger possibility it could break a lot of the other plugins or make them obsolete (things like the Dynamic Menus, Weather Report Suite, Fan Art, etc.).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Tiki

As with any software upgrade, it's possible that the next version of Sage could impact these and other imports, but I don't think it will affect them very much. As I understand it, both Phoenix and Ortus are planning to build a stand-alone UI that talks to the Sage Server "Back-End" via the Sage API's, but does not rely on the "Front-End" stuff or Sage's Studio at all.

Unless I missed something, they're definitely planning on using Studio to create their UIs. Doing anything else would be very difficult. The APIs they're creating (Phoenix) are tools that wrap both the Sage APIs and custom APIs to extend functionality and make developing the UI in Studio easier.

My guess is SageMC and the like don't have much to worry about because I doubt the current API will be obsoleted, I'm still guessing the "SageTV 7 API" will "simply" have new functionality and will be paired with a new SageTV7.xml that makes use of them. That will probably bust any of the stock STV, STVi's though.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Unless I missed something, they're definitely planning on using Studio to create their UIs. Doing anything else would be very difficult. The APIs they're creating (Phoenix) are tools that wrap both the Sage APIs and custom APIs to extend functionality and make developing the UI in Studio easier.

I would be very surprised if they use Studio for the final product (at least for the Phoenix project). There is really no reason to wrap the Sage API's if your are calling them from inside Studio. The only reason to wrap them is to call them from another language/platform. Of course, I'm not a developer for either one, so I could be wrong in my interpretation.

Originally Posted by stanger89

My guess is SageMC and the like don't have much to worry about because I doubt the current API will be obsoleted, I'm still guessing the "SageTV 7 API" will "simply" have new functionality and will be paired with a new SageTV7.xml that makes use of them. That will probably bust any of the stock STV, STVi's though.

That's pretty much what I'm thinking

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I would be very surprised if they use Studio for the final product (at least for the Phoenix project). There is really no reason to wrap the Sage API's if your are calling them from inside Studio. The only reason to wrap them is to call them from another language/platform. Of course, I'm not a developer for either one, so I could be wrong in my interpretation.

The Phoenix STV is definitely being developed in Studio. There would be no other way to get the UI onto media extenders or placeshifter. There are numerous other reasons to wrap the sage api's, but we can get into that another time.

Aloha,
Mike

[Straykat]

Maybe, maybe not, the 3D UI will have similar elements / intent as this download posted by Narflex from the 2006 CES:

"This is the UI that we were demoing at CES in 2006. It's a 3D UI and you MUST have 3D acceleration enabled for it to work properly.

It features main menus that zoom in as they're selected. It also has a fluid moving background on the main menus. A lot of the 'lines' from the UI have been removed as well to make it look cleaner."

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/down...?do=file&id=53

[jaminben]

Sounds quite exciting, would be nice if they could get it to run at a HD resolution as well.

Cheers

Ben

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

The Phoenix STV is definitely being developed in Studio. There would be no other way to get the UI onto media extenders or placeshifter. There are numerous other reasons to wrap the sage api's, but we can get into that another time.

Aloha,
Mike

As mike said all the ui portion of ortus as well has to be written I. Studio as there is no other choice. Just as you have your imports written in studio a full stv must be as well.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

The Phoenix STV is definitely being developed in Studio. There would be no other way to get the UI onto media extenders or placeshifter. There are numerous other reasons to wrap the sage api's, but we can get into that another time.

Mike, I don't want you to violate any NDAs but can you confirm or deny that you have had contact with Sage about the UI changes in Sage7?

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by wayner

Mike, I don't want you to violate any NDAs but can you confirm or deny that you have had contact with Sage about the UI changes in Sage7?

Just call me Sergeant Schultz.

[wayner]

Thank you Schultzie!

[MeInMaui]

Hmmm, maybe I implied that I know something by indirectly implying that I don't know anything.

Let me be clear that that that I know is no more than is known by those in the know. Though if I knew any more I know I'd have to take care not to show that I know. But lucky for me it's doubtful that I do or don't know any more than is generally known, so that makes it much easier to concisely explain just how much I may or may not know. Or maybe not....I don't know.

Well, I hope that cleared things up.

Aloha,
Mike

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Hmmm, maybe I implied that I know something by indirectly implying that I don't know anything.

Let me be clear that that that I know is no more than is known by those in the know. Though if I knew any more I know I'd have to take care not to show that I know. But lucky for me it's doubtful that I do or don't know any more than is generally known, so that makes it much easier to concisely explain just how much I may or may not know. Or maybe not....I don't know.

Well, I hope that cleared things up.

Aloha,
Mike

Nice try but you already let the cat out of the bag. I'm telling mom.

[xxLJLxx]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Hmmm, maybe I implied that I know something by indirectly implying that I don't know anything.

Let me be clear that that that I know is no more than is known by those in the know. Though if I knew any more I know I'd have to take care not to show that I know. But lucky for me it's doubtful that I do or don't know any more than is generally known, so that makes it much easier to concisely explain just how much I may or may not know. Or maybe not....I don't know.

Impressive...

[voidpt]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Let me be clear that that that I know is no more than is known by those in the know. Though if I knew any more I know I'd have to take care not to show that I know. But lucky for me it's doubtful that I do or don't know any more than is generally known, so that makes it much easier to concisely explain just how much I may or may not know. Or maybe not....I don't know.

I knew it!!! It's you who compose all those EULA's I'm forced (no choice) to read sometimes. I'm telling the world !!!

... after my morning