Where would YOU put Sage's improvement priorities?

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by comet48

How about getting the software up from alpha quality to release quality!!

Troll much?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by comet48

How about getting the software up from alpha quality to release quality!!

Oh yeah... That's constructive. perhaps you could at least TRY to explain how software that has been used in production in thousands of homes for 5+ years is alpha quality

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by comet48

How about getting the software up from alpha quality to release quality!!

Dude-seriously!? Seriously!?

Gerry

[OneOfMany]

Seems odd that someone would use the product for two years, complain about it in every post, and not move on to a more "elegant" "polished" solution lol..

[fleetwood]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

DVB subtitles

+1

[RyanW]

Time for a new poll now that V7 is released?

[bigo93bronco]

I wish V7 had added native support for FM radio (yes I still use it , a sports score section like media center, and better multi-threading and memory usage. With RAM so cheap, i'd like to load the system up to the point where all of the sagetv components could reside in system memory. I'm pretty sure this will happen eventually though.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by bigo93bronco

I wish V7 had added native support for FM radio (yes I still use it , a sports score section like media center, and better multi-threading and memory usage. With RAM so cheap, i'd like to load the system up to the point where all of the sagetv components could reside in system memory. I'm pretty sure this will happen eventually though.

This biggest thing they could do for memory usage would be to split UI contexts for extenders into their own process/JVM's.

[Skirge01]

I see two things as severe issues in SageTV:

1. The disparity between a full client PC and the HD Theater. This has serious impact on design decisions for the UI and plugins, both by SageTV themselves and plugin developers.
2. The Music library needs a major interface overhaul. There's no reason that we should even be considering something like Sonos or Airplay to supplement SageTV.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by trallyus

P.S. Alot of users that just set up sage tv and have no problems with it tend not to check the forums when everything is working right or they tend to lurk like I used to and just read without registering I would think so the numbers will probably be skewered toward more advanced user suggestions then what most general users would want.

It is true that the community here would be at the high end of the Geek scale, just using a PC as a PVR, especially when it does not come with your OS (like Win MC does) puts you at least midway on that scale. If you just wanted a very simple PVR solution without all of the bells and whistles then one would just use a cable/satellite company PVR.

Speaking of that...

Why don't you use Sage for HBO, Showtime, etc? All you need is an HD-PVR to connect to your Sage PC and cable box.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

1. The disparity between a full client PC and the HD Theater. This has serious impact on design decisions for the UI and plugins, both by SageTV themselves and plugin developers.

SageClients present problems for Plugin development. Extenders are much easier to deal with IMHO.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

2. The Music library needs a major interface overhaul. There's no reason that we should even be considering something like Sonos or Airplay to supplement SageTV.

I agree that the Music library needs an overhaul, but doesn't Sonos give you synchronized playback in mulitple rooms? That would be very hard to do in Sage, wouldn't it?

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

SageClients present problems for Plugin development. Extenders are much easier to deal with IMHO.

If anyone would know, you sure would. I don't want to get into a technical discussion I probably wouldn't understand (never used an extender and know nothing about Studio), but if you wouldn't mind explaining a little bit at a high level, it might help others, as well. Maybe SageTV would be able to do something about whatever you mention, as well.

Originally Posted by wayner

I agree that the Music library needs an overhaul, but doesn't Sonos give you synchronized playback in mulitple rooms? That would be very hard to do in Sage, wouldn't it?

Would it? I'm certainly no tech wizard, but if Sonos could figure out how to do it, why couldn't SageTV? They have a server and clients, just like Sonos does, so, theoretically, it should be doable. Technically? I have no clue. That's also just one of the numerous nice features of Sonos. There are many others which really drive home the value of Sonos.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Would it? I'm certainly no tech wizard, but if Sonos could figure out how to do it, why couldn't SageTV? They have a server and clients, just like Sonos does, so, theoretically, it should be doable. Technically? I have no clue. That's also just one of the numerous nice features of Sonos. There are many others which really drive home the value of Sonos.

You're probably right that it should be doable. I don't have a Sonos so I am not an expert on that product, but I believe it was designed from the ground up to be able to facilitate synchronous playback from multiple devices. Sage's model is to be able to playback to individual devices and these devices could be an extender, a Placeshifter Client, a SageTV client or the SageTV server itself. Keeping all of these disparate devices in synch is a challeng.

And as we all know, the Music functionality in Sage is more of an afterthought that doesn't get too much developer time. I am fine with that since I rarely use it myself.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

If anyone would know, you sure would. I don't want to get into a technical discussion I probably wouldn't understand (never used an extender and know nothing about Studio), but if you wouldn't mind explaining a little bit at a high level, it might help others, as well. Maybe SageTV would be able to do something about whatever you mention, as well.

Extenders don't have near the graphics processing power that a client does. That is one reason they are so different.

[wayner]

I am sure some of the developers will respond but the thing with extenders, or PS clients, is that everything resides on the server. That way you make the change once and it is easily applied to all extenders, even if you have five ot them - which I do.

But with SageTV client many of the files, etc. are stored on the client. For example - to install a plugin you would have to install it on all clients. For Fanart you would need to install all Fanart on all clients, or else link to a central network share on your server. When installing something like SageAlert you have to install it and configure it for each client since the server doesn't necessarily know what a client is doing.

[davidjames]

I would like to see integration of SageTV and Internet streaming. One possibility would be integration between GoogleTV and SageTV.

A GoogleTV app which would link the two might be a solution.

[OneOfMany]

Originally Posted by wayner

But with SageTV client many of the files, etc. are stored on the client. For example - to install a plugin you would have to install it on all clients. For Fanart you would need to install all Fanart on all clients, or else link to a central network share on your server. When installing something like SageAlert you have to install it and configure it for each client since the server doesn't necessarily know what a client is doing.

This is true, however, my goal is always to have all of my PC Clients display the exact same interface.

As long as the local Sage.Client.properties file ONLY contains information that is not system specific, then there should be no problem in simply having a master file that changes are made to, and then simply updated to the individual clients once tested and approved for the house.

I haven't tried with v7 yet, but with v6, I would simply overwrite the entire Sage directory, and all systems worked fine.

Grant

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by wayner

I am sure some of the developers will respond but the thing with extenders, or PS clients, is that everything resides on the server. That way you make the change once and it is easily applied to all extenders, even if you have five ot them - which I do.

But with SageTV client many of the files, etc. are stored on the client. For example - to install a plugin you would have to install it on all clients. For Fanart you would need to install all Fanart on all clients, or else link to a central network share on your server. When installing something like SageAlert you have to install it and configure it for each client since the server doesn't necessarily know what a client is doing.

I was more getting at what the difficulties are for developing a plugin. I believe that's what tmiranda was alluding to and what I was looking to get a little more clarity on.

Speaking of what you're referring to, though, I only have a single client PC at the moment, but I couldn't imagine it being difficult to keep multiple ones in sync. I don't modify my client very frequently, so when I do, it'd be pretty easy to apply the same changes to another one, especially with the plugin system. Also, there's no setup at all for fanart on my clients, since it's all on the server. Lastly, I don't even see a need for SageAlert on a client (is that even possible?). All the tuners would (should) be on the server, so there's really nothing to monitor.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I don't want to get into a technical discussion I probably wouldn't understand (never used an extender and know nothing about Studio), but if you wouldn't mind explaining a little bit at a high level, it might help others, as well.

Lesser graphics capability is certainly one issue. The other is that all extenders and placeshifters share the same JVM while each SageClient has its own JVM. Placeshifters and extenders also "run" on the Sage server while SageClients run on a totally separate machine. This means that all custom data needed (i.e. data your plugin needs and is not native to the Sage core) must be sent over the network. There are lots of "developer" plugins out there that help (that's why there are all of those library plugins out there that say "no need to install this directly") but it's still a PITA.

Consider this simple example. Let's say you want to create a music plugin that displays lyrics while a song is playing. Assume the lyrics are either embedded in the MP3 or are stored in a .lyrics file. All of this data is stored on the Sage server, not on the SageClient so you need to create a way (probably a java method) to get those lyrics so you can display them in the STV. Your java code (which is called from within the STV) needs to look like this:

if (running on a SageClient) {
  use some other method to get the lyrics from the Sage server
} else {
  get the lyrics from the machine you're running on (which will be the Sage server)
}

None of this is news to Sage or to any Plugin developers, it's just the way it is.