SageTV 7 beta starts on Thursday May 20, 2010!

[reggie14]

I don't have any idea what Sage will do this time, but I think you were able to buy the v6 upgrade during the public beta period. I think you had to if you wanted to keep using it after the trial expired. I could be remembering that wrong though.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by Brent

I don't think there is a difference. Did I misstate something on this?
PS: there isn't a Mac upgrade available - at least not thus far.

Brent,

The way you have it listed it sounds like Linux, Mac and Placeshifter are free cause it reads:
"All prior linux and mac and client and placeshifter and extender licenses will be valid for SageTV7"

You said client but I believe it would be clearer if you said Windows clients like:
"All prior linux, Mac and Windows client, placeshifter and extender licenses will be valid for SageTV7"

[David G]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

So please, instead of pointing out all of the things you think may be wrong why don't we instead thank the dev team for giving us what we have been asking for?

Well that's pretty much the point. If the new UI is just a coat of paint, they really haven't been giving us what we've been asking for.

Look: I'll be one of the first to fork out the $39.95. I love SageTV, and I want it to thrive for a long, long time. That's only possible if the product's audience keeps growing. And an intuitive, user-friendly GUI is the most important thing for that to happen (cf Apple). From what I'm seeing so far, we ain't nowhere close. I also punctuated my post with a "I'll reserve judgement until...". All I'm saying is, I'm not liking what I'm seeing so far. (And again, not touching on the new functionality such as embedded metadat, which sounds great.)

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by David G

Well that's pretty much the point. If the new UI is just a coat of paint, they really haven't been giving us what we've been asking for.

Look: I'll be one of the first to fork out the $39.95. I love SageTV, and I want it to thrive for a long, long time. That's only possible if the product's audience keeps growing. And an intuitive, user-friendly GUI is the most important thing for that to happen (cf Apple). From what I'm seeing so far, we ain't nowhere close. I also punctuated my post with a "I'll reserve judgement until...". All I'm saying is, I'm not liking what I'm seeing so far. (And again, not touching on the new functionality such as embedded metadat, which sounds great.)

It is not just paint I promise you that there is allot of new function. You think it was easy to get xbmc skins to work.

cheers

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by David G

I also punctuated my post with a "I'll reserve judgement until...". All I'm saying is, I'm not liking what I'm seeing so far.

That's not reserving judgement when you make a statement that you don't like it already when you haven't used it. As Brent wrote, the screenshots don't do it justice and you have to use it to see the difference.

Personally, I agree the screenshots aren't that amazing, but with XBMC skin support and the fact that they are working with the ortus and phoenix developers, this means there are lots of possibilities that we haven't seen. So reserving judgement is not saying anything until you test it out.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by David G

I also punctuated my post with a "I'll reserve judgement until...".

It might also be nice to reserve criticism until...

If I were SageTV, and proud of what I'm about to release, your post would have felt a bit like a dagger in the heart.

[Fuzzy]

So, here's the thing. Since this is MOSTLY ui changes, Would a Sage7 Client connect to a Sage6 server? I'd like to test this when it comes out, and at least see what's coming, but I'm not ready to move the production server over. however, already having a Client license on my desktop, would I be able to install sageclient7 and connect to my existing production server?

[trini0]

Thanks Brent for the write-up.
Sage will get my $40 plus a nice donation for the cause...

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

So, here's the thing. Since this is MOSTLY ui changes, Would a Sage7 Client connect to a Sage6 server? I'd like to test this when it comes out, and at least see what's coming, but I'm not ready to move the production server over. however, already having a Client license on my desktop, would I be able to install sageclient7 and connect to my existing production server?

No you can't and you also can't revert back to v6 without backing up your wiz.bin before upgrading.

Fuzzy it is more than ui. The plugin changes alone are worth the price IMHO.

Check mymovies thread on my signature for a video of what I have done with it already.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

No you can't and you also can't revert back to v6 without backing up your wiz.bin before upgrading.

Fuzzy it is more than ui. The plugin changes alone are worth the price IMHO.

Check mymovies thread on my signature for a video of what I have done with it already.

No, I understand it is more than UI... but the non-UI features are mostly non-issues to me, so all i really wanted to test was the new UI. That's why i was hoping to use the ver 7 client with my production system... Instead, I'll have to install a whole serve run my desktop, with no sources (guess I could use one of my R-5000's over the network).

[Fuzzy]

As for hose still needing something to complain about... heres an update I did in my survey thread that shows the major complaints with sage, and the ones that haven't been answered yet.. complain about those.. :-)

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...2&postcount=63

[bcjenkins]

SageTV has done it again. The new version offers some really compelling new features and awesome speed improvements. In particular the new plugin system makes it easy to install enhancements across a set of server based clients (extenders and placeshifter) and the speed on the extenders is much improved.

SageTV

[David G]

I'll try to do a quick critique of the following, as promised:



So unbelievably busy your eyes don't know where to go, and when they do they go to the wrong place.

The top part:
* "Program Guide" - it's pretty obvious what I'm looking at, you don't need to tell me.
* Blue strips - those are apparently part of a new UI element, so I'm not sure what they do, but here they're pretty visually jarring color-wise and draw attention to themselves. At a minimum, they should be visually subdued.
* The icons - the standby and maximize icons won't appear in an extender (the most user friendly scenario), but that leaves us two red icons that are again 1) distracting, 2) useless in this screen. Do I need to know that something's being recorded? Do I need to know that... well what is it anyway that I apparently need to know? If I can't tell what the icon means at a glance, it probably shouldn't be there.
* I'll give a pass to the date and time, but they're part of the problem to some extent - all that white text in the same font all over the screen. Could probably be placed where 'Program Guide' now resides.
* Program summary. Imagine this:
Doctor Who (Science fiction/Fantasy)
Sat 5/15 7:00PM - 8:00 PM
The category titles (aired on/category) are redundant when the user can categorize the data just by reading it.
* HD/1: again with the colors not matching the overall screen theme. I'm not sure why this info is iconized as opposed to the above, btw. Would it be so terrible to have something like this:
Doctor Who (HD, First Airing, Science fiction/Fantasy)
Sat 5/15 7:00PM - 8:00 PM
* Program grid: we don't need the arrow icons around the date and time. I know there is a 5/14 and a 5/16, and that there are times before 7pm and after 8:30pm. I'd even guess that SageTV might be able to show them to me. Remove the arrows.
* Right hand side scrollbar: again, who needs this? Remove it.
* Little pink and blue dots: no idea what those are - make it easy to understand at a glance, or remove. As it stands, it's just noise.
* left and right arrow on the programs: these are actually a useful indicator (program starts earlier or ends later) but they're a little imposing visually and look more like navigation icons. I would replace them with something like 3 little dots (...), semi transparent so they can be seen without drawing attentions to themselves.

[Brent]

Good feedback David. Again, some will like and others won't, but feedback positive & negative isn't a bad thing.

Remember, many things are customizable from what I've seen. And there will soon be many UI options beyond the default UI. I"m personally pretty happy with the UI as is. It's not perfect and I have a few things I'd change myself, but my toughest customer - MrsGeekTonic seems to really like it and that's a first...

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Brent

Good feedback David. Again, some will like and others won't, but feedback positive & negative isn't a bad thing.

Remember, many things are customizable from what I've seen. And there will soon be many UI options beyond the default UI. I"m personally pretty happy with the UI as is. It's not perfect and I have a few things I'd change myself, but my toughest customer - MrsGeekTonic seems to really like it and that's a first...

I will echo Brent comments on this one. I didn't like it at first but now me and the wife have dropped sagemc completely and are using it full time. It does have flaws but it a huge step up.

[wado1971]

So I just jumped over to the xbmc site and see to my surprise 10 different ui skins - wow. Now don't get me wrong, I like what I see from the SagTV7 shots and don't see myself wandering off anytime soon but....... If SageTV7 has just given us over 10 UI's to choose from - that's big news!

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by David G

I'll try to do a quick critique of the following, as promised:

So unbelievably busy your eyes don't know where to go, and when they do they go to the wrong place.
...

I don't think he's reserving judgement at all. You lied!

But since you are in the mood to rant, I mean, critic, here's more fuel to your fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbVW5JZFl10

[reggie14]

I agree that certain screens in the v6 page were very busy, with the recordings and music screens being among the worst, but the v7 guide screen doesn't seem that busy to me.

But I think its good that you provided some constructive feedback. I'm going to respond to some of your comments. Sometimes I agree with what you said, sometimes I disagree, and sometimes I think I have an idea why certain things were done the way they were.

Originally Posted by David G

The top part:
* "Program Guide" - it's pretty obvious what I'm looking at, you don't need to tell me.
* Blue strips - those are apparently part of a new UI element, so I'm not sure what they do, but here they're pretty visually jarring color-wise and draw attention to themselves. At a minimum, they should be visually subdued.
* The icons - the standby and maximize icons won't appear in an extender (the most user friendly scenario), but that leaves us two red icons that are again 1) distracting, 2) useless in this screen. Do I need to know that something's being recorded? Do I need to know that... well what is it anyway that I apparently need to know? If I can't tell what the icon means at a glance, it probably shouldn't be there.
* I'll give a pass to the date and time, but they're part of the problem to some extent - all that white text in the same font all over the screen. Could probably be placed where 'Program Guide' now resides.

It's a program guide. If you're going to stick with a fairly typical program guide layout, there's going to be quite a bit of text on the screen. I'm not sure how you'd avoid that.

I actually like having titles for pages on screens. It's helpful when you're trying to tell someone over the phone how to do something. But I agree the lighter blue strip looks out of place.

As for the icons, having a recording icon was really helpful to me when I only had one tuner. Now that I have bunch its not quite as important to me, but I think it should stay in. The other red icon was an indication of a warning message, and I think that needs to stay in.

Originally Posted by David G

* Program summary. Imagine this:
Doctor Who (Science fiction/Fantasy)
Sat 5/15 7:00PM - 8:00 PM
The category titles (aired on/category) are redundant when the user can categorize the data just by reading it.
* HD/1: again with the colors not matching the overall screen theme. I'm not sure why this info is iconized as opposed to the above, btw. Would it be so terrible to have something like this:
Doctor Who (HD, First Airing, Science fiction/Fantasy)
Sat 5/15 7:00PM - 8:00 PM

I think you'd very quickly run out of space on the line if you tried to put much more than just the title on it (particularly a 4:3 display). I think its better to keep the title on a line of its own. But I like the general notion of trying to clean up that part of the screen. As it stands, I think the "Aired on" and "Category" labels stand out, drawing attention to two pieces of information that probably aren't all that critical. I think it would be better to draw the eyes toward the TV show name.

I think you're right about the icons. The colors of the HD and first-run icons don't seem to match. They look a little too bright.

Originally Posted by David G

* Program grid: we don't need the arrow icons around the date and time. I know there is a 5/14 and a 5/16, and that there are times before 7pm and after 8:30pm. I'd even guess that SageTV might be able to show them to me. Remove the arrows.
* Right hand side scrollbar: again, who needs this? Remove it.

Those are probably mostly there so you can use the interface with a mouse. Some of us still do that occasionally, although I've mostly moved over to extenders.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I don't think he's reserving judgement at all. You lied!

But since you are in the mood to rant, I mean, critic, here's more fuel to your fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbVW5JZFl10

Hey my gas is all sold out no fuel here move along.

[CanadianEh]

Wow!! I think the new UI looks amazing compared to V6.x! Amazing job, Sage team, as always.... I can't wait to try V7 out later this weekend