Note to Recent BTV Converts

[ranger]

I switched from BTV to SageTV last November, about 2 weeks before the Dec 1st "free upgrade to version 7 cutoff". No dig to Sage there. I tested for a few days and gladly paid for my upgrade to version 7. The thing is that even after converting to SageTV, I still went back to the BTV forums regularly just to see if I had made the right decision in switching over. Well 3 things really stand out for me today.

The first is that BTV has truly abandoned the consumer market and has no intention of changing that decision. This is self evident in a post today on the BTV forums. In the post, BTV candidly states that they are glad to have left the consumer market. For details click here.

The second point is SageTV version 7. While BTV thinks the market is dead and has abandoned their customers, Sage is committed to developing and improving their product. Trust me, paying for an upgrade is no big deal compared to an abandoned software product. I too still think there is lots of room to grow this product. There are a few challenges coming to this market thanks to how cable companies are switching to encrypted QAM, but as with any technological challenge, I feel confident there will be new products and technologies developed to meet the challenge. Sage in their petition to the FCC has demonstrated that are involved in advocating on behalf of their customers, as well as their company.

The third item is something I can't even get started on. It is the SageTV community and the developers that spend their personal time adding features and benefits to an already great platform. This really the proverbial "icing on the cake". Thanks to all the developers, testers, and contributers!!

After six months on SageTV, all I can say is I am glad to be here.

[mistergq]

Wow, is all I can say to that post by Rakesh. I am extremely disappointed in how he did it. I couldn't believe the arrogance of the post. First he makes it sound like that it is well known fact that BTV is dead. Well, that has only been known for about a year or less. Then to the current users, it was like, hey, keep using the product as long as you, but don't expect us to support it...or even you using it.

I also like how he slaps SageTV developers in the face that they are wasting time here when they should be working on something as cool as GoogleTV. And the 4 things that he mentions (dvd library, caller id, internet radio, and stocks) have been party of or available as plugin for a long time.

Oh well, it is clear that Rakesh thinks he reached the only possible decision about the consumer market and the only conclusions is conceding that Microsoft, Apple, and Google are the only ones that can develop a consumer product. With HD200 and STV7, Sage is going to be here for awhile.

[stanger89]

Semi-OT, but, am I the only one who doesn't "get" GoogleTV? I mean I just don't see how it's an alternative or replacement to an HTPC, or more specifically a SageTV-type system.

Seriously, I've got Dish (so theoretically a good "upgrade path" to GoogleTV), and this holds zero interest for me. I don't care to get web apps on my TV. PC apps, and web apps are NOT what I built or use and HTPC for. I use an HTPC for TV, DVDs, I use it for media. Nothing jumps out at me WRT GoogleTV that says it's going to make that any different or even easier.

I used to think that's what most of us running "HTPCs" were looking for, a way to get PC based/housed media to our displays and a "better" TV solution. GoogleTV seems to be going somewhere completely different, more of a "standardized interface/platform" for "widgets".

I suppose there could be some overlap, like a Netflix app or something, but beyond that I just don't get it.

[medwynd]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Semi-OT, but, am I the only one who doesn't "get" GoogleTV? I mean I just don't see how it's an alternative or replacement to an HTPC, or more specifically a SageTV-type system.

I'm with ya, but I've already posted in the google tv thread about my feelings on it :P

[Suntan]

I confess, after reading the initial blurb about googleTV, I too found it rather pointless (although a lot of things that have rabidly cought on seem pointless to me... ...Facebook I'm looking right at you...) so I have decided to hold off on making a judgement about GoogleTV until I see it in action.

As for the topic at hand, yeah the way he said it was totally unprofessional, and quite honestly if I fell in the demographic of users that Snapstream is now targeting (commercial use I assume?) I would have very little desire to do business with him after seeing how quickly he tends to cut bait and run, not to mention all the while pissin on his former clients.

(But I say the following with much enjoyment from having Sage on 4 different screens throughout my house)

He does have *some* truth to it though. Even on the verge of their 7th revision, SageTV is still practically unknown in the world of computers. Look at other media forums and most everybody "just knows" that Windows media center is the only option on the block. Heck more "average people" know about the abortion that Steve Jobs keeps trying to hide (read: AppleTV) than they do about SageTV (or BeyondTV.)

Further, for people that don't have any intention of hooking a computer to their TVs, Sage (even with their extenders) is not known at all. Most people now are just clamoring to have an electronic device that will hold all their disc rips and illegal downloads, complete with pretty "fanart" than they are having a system like Sage or Beyond. They rent a DVR from their cable company and think that is as good as it gets for TV shows.

Long story short, 5 or 6 years ago (when I switched from Beyond to Sage) Sage was pulling away from Beyond when it was just a two man race. Now that MS is on its second or third iteration, and others like Google are champing at the bit to get into the sector, it would make sense to me that Beyond would drop out holding its side and sucking wind profusely. Hopefully, Sage can afford to continue running its own race and not get steamrolled by the "big guys."

...and give us full DTS support on the extenders for goodness sakes...

-Suntan

[Brent]

Originally Posted by mistergq

Wow, is all I can say to that post by Rakesh. I am extremely disappointed in how he did it. I couldn't believe the arrogance of the post. First he makes it sound like that it is well known fact that BTV is dead. Well, that has only been known for about a year or less. Then to the current users, it was like, hey, keep using the product as long as you, but don't expect us to support it...or even you using it.

Outside of actually blogging this, I tried to tell the die-hards this since I quit using BTV but most just didn't want to listen or just didn't want to switch regardless. What Rakesh said is along the lines of what his staffers have already said on the forums in the past 2 years - and even Rakesh a few years ago. Difference is he's 99% confident enterprise is THE future of Snapstream now compared to more uncertainty in the past. So I don't personally think he meant it to be arrogant - he was just trying to emphasize the fact that BTV is what it is today so updates will be very unlikely. They are doing quite will with Enterprise so they could just close up shop on the consumer side but keep it around (with free EPG updates I'm guessing are supported by Enterprise business) for those that rely on it.

I also like how he slaps SageTV developers in the face that they are wasting time here when they should be working on something as cool as GoogleTV.

There does seem to still be some bad blood between the two companies... And I think Rakesh has been facinated by Google (and search) for a long time. In a way he's right that HTPC is not a mainstream thing. I don't of course think SageTV or SageTV devs are wasting their time. I do think MS Media Center devs are wasting their time as MS has pretty much stopped work on MediaCenter since W7 was finished from what I've been hearing - a big disappointment imo.

With HD200 and STV7, Sage is going to be here for awhile.

Jeff & the SageTV team continue to innovate like a good start-up company without trying to grow so fast that they have hungry investors clamoring for more income which would mean looking for ads or other revenue streams like Boxee is undoubtedly facing today. And while they continue to do their best to address their customers needs & wants, they also are doing the things I think will be important to move SageTV to a larger audience albeit still somewhat a "techy" crowd:

• Easier installation & customizing
• Plugin Manager - so easier to add in the cool stuff (think app-store like)
• Extender - The model that even most enthusiasts have realized make the most sense - especially for multiple TV homes. But at the same time answer the desire to have a true, computer-based extender (softsled aka client) also.
• Developer friendly - they continue to support the 3rd party devs and answer their requests as much as possible
• Getting in on the discussion with FCC - great move by SageTV
• More for this bullet-point later...

I think SageTV is doing the right things - especially given the very small company size.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Brent

In a way he's right that HTPC is not a mainstream thing.

It's not, I agree completely with that. And you know what, I really don't think Sage should be, and I don't think Sage should try to be. Why? Because look at Tivo and Moxi, both are (AFAIK) rather struggling because the "mainstream" is happy with the DVR from their cable or sat provider.

You just can't compete with a "free" option from your provider (or "low" monthly cost). The "mainstream" will gasp at $400, $500, $1000 and run for the hills sooner than they'll think far enough ahead to realize they'll make that up within a year with a solution with no monthly fee.

I don't of course think SageTV or SageTV devs are wasting their time.

Also agreed, there's a relatively small, but IMO strong market for the type of solution that Sage is offering.

I do think MS Media Center devs are wasting their time as MS has pretty much stopped work on MediaCenter since W7 was finished from what I've been hearing - a big disappointment imo.

FWIW, I think they (MS) had really the only chance of coming up with a truly "mainstream" solution. If they'd have built WMC's backend into WHS and sold WHS "DVR" machines, and if they'd not killed their extenders, I think that, tied with their knack for getting things bundled into TVs and the like could have really gone mainstream, especially with a CableCard solution. But even with CC today, nobody in the "mainstream" wants a PC doing their TV recording.

[SomeWhatLost]

as a long time BTV user I don't get what the big deal is... Rakesh is just stating the facts as he sees them, I am sure other people may see them differently... but I felt no anomosity from his post...

it's not like your BTV install will stop working or anything... you wont even loose your EPG data... as for no more updates, so what? BTV works and it works well... you want updates, move to sage... still no big deal...

besides, BTV couldn't compete on the consumer side with the HD200 (or maybe hd300 now? its been long enough!!! need more HP) why not quit and focus on something they can compete with?

[eric3a]

BTV works and it works well...

Well I'd unfortunately disagree with you now.

After years of working well, no amount of tweaking got BTV to work well with my HDPVRs. Moving to SageTV immediately improved the stability with the HDPVRs and further tweaking got it to be 100% stable.

Considering SageTV is still well alive and BTV is basically moribond, I too am a convert.

Eric

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by eric3a

Well I'd unfortunately disagree with you now.

After years of working well, no amount of tweaking got BTV to work well with my HDPVRs. Moving to SageTV immediately improved the stability with the HDPVRs and further tweaking got it to be 100% stable.

Considering SageTV is still well alive and BTV is basically moribond, I too am a convert.

Eric

there is your problem... you shouldn't of tried to use the new fangled hdpvr's... if you would of stuck with the tried & true pvr-150's & pvr500's you would still be fine & happy with BTV...

but since you illogically insisted on the HDPVR's, then Sage is a wonderful choice...

BTW: have you tried the HD200? its a wonderful little underrated box... sage's marketing just doesn't do it justice though... they could sell millions if they just found they right way to get the word out about how good it really is...

[eric3a]

but since you illogically insisted on the HDPVR's, then Sage is a wonderful choice...

BTW: have you tried the HD200? its a wonderful little underrated box... sage's marketing just doesn't do it justice though... they could sell millions if they just found they right way to get the word out about how good it really is...

What can I say, I illogically prefer HD over SD!

I've got a few HD200s around the house now, and have to agree with your assessment. It's probably one of the best boxes out there, but is very rarely mentioned in reviews.

Eric

[limiter]

SageTV is king in a tiny market, the enthusiast non-Microsoft Media Center HTPC market. Because this market is so small it's hard to be successful if you are not SageTV. SageTV was either extremely forward minded or sick of waiting for someone to make an HD extender and made one themselves. This was simultaneously the savior of SageTV and the final nail in BTV's coffin.

GB-PVR, Media Portal, and MythTV are still around, but only because they are all free. People work on them when they feel like it. None of them are a threat to SageTV anymore. If you add in SageTV's Mac and Linux support, Windows Home Server support, you start to see why BTV gave up. It's like racing against someone who has lapped you 4 times; why bother competing, especially when you are trying to make money off your product?

I'm not trying to be rude, I think BTV did some things right, but if you stop innovating you are going to lose. Anyone who is upset or surprised about BTV ditching the consumer market in the last 2-3 years needs to get a grip. I've used GB-PVR, MythTV, tried Media Portal, and of course SageTV but BTV was never appealing. I saw the writing on the wall when the media center portion was ditched. That was the point where BTV really stopped competing in the enthusiast HTPC market.

[limiter]

On a side note, GoogleTV is just jumping into an overflowing pile that is the media device market. This pile is filled with Xbox 360s, Vudus, AppleTVs, PS3s, Roku boxes, and a hundred media boxes all fighting for basically a market that doesn't exist, but one that it seems everyone thinks might exist one day. The good news is SageTV has their box sitting in that pile if it ever takes off. SageTV's disadvantage is no connectivity to a content store (AppleTV, Xbox market place, PSN etc), but really who cares when it is so scattered and disjointed in the first place.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by limiter

SageTV was either extremely forward minded or sick of waiting for someone to make an HD extender and made one themselves. This was simultaneously the savior of SageTV and the final nail in BTV's coffin.

Agreed. SageTV had a head start on the extender concept because they started Linux-friendly. Then took the old, Hauppauge MVP's and made their own firmware to make it SageTV supported. It was a great move to build from that with the HD100 and HD200 and hopefully more in the future. I like many other HTPC enthusiasts didn't realize how much the extenders would improve my HTPC world.

I actually reviewed SageTV just before the extenders came around and was convinced to make the switch after finishing my review of the HD100. I could see a major shift with advantage going to:
1. SageTV for the extenders and constant improvements/updates
2. Microsoft - they had money to throw down the hole at the time
3. Freeware - mostly XBMC.

I also still don't see Boxee surviving. It's my opinion that they will slowly sink as their investors grow wary. This is my personal guess, but check with me in 18 months and lets see how things are at that point.

If you add in SageTV's Mac and Linux support, Windows Home Server support, you start to see why BTV gave up.

SS knew it would involve a major rewrite to get the UI to be more of a front-end like their Beyond Media product and then they would need to move to something they could inject into extender clients (Linux) and that involved even more of a re-do. Take that, with a small amount of available income & cash and I agree it was extremely smart for them to take what they already had and find a different, more profitable market without having to change the software all that much. Trying to compete with the freeware, SageTV and Microsoft (Rakesh guessed wrong that MS would win out with MC) just wasn't a smart direction with the limited resources.

I saw the writing on the wall when the media center portion was ditched. That was the point where BTV really stopped competing in the enthusiast HTPC market.

Me too. There are certainly those who were still fine with just a software DVR, but most of us that worked that hard on a HTPC wanted a full-blown media-centric HTPC. Not just a me-too TiVo without subscription fees. The market was already too small to ignore the wants/needs of a large number of your niche market.

I'm still "chewing" on the GoogleTV thing. I think they are probably on to something there, but I'm not sold yet...

[ranger]

While the tone and attitude of Rakesh's comments bothered me, there are some challenges in this marketplace for Sage and anybody else as well. The biggest in my mind is the loss of clear QAM with the cable companies. This pushes all of us on cable to look at more expensive tuners to do the same thing we were doing last year, frequently along with renting additional STB's from the provider. That just means a loss of options and more money being poured into the HTPC.

Unless the FCC really relaxes the cable card regulations this year and makes it cost effective for companies like Sage to support the CC tuner cards coming in the next few months, it will make it even harder to justify the HTPC investment in comparison to just renting the DVR from the cable company. That means it will be just a bit harder to attract new customers.

I really hope something can be worked out with cc tuners for a product other than Windows MC. The other option that could help is getting somebody to update the STB fire wire drivers for Win 7 32 bit and 64 bit and adding formal support for them in Sage.

I may be overly optimistic, but I think that a technological solution will come along sooner or later. I really hope it is soon so that Sage won't have to make any hard choices about future development.

[Suntan]

Originally Posted by limiter

GB-PVR, Media Portal, and MythTV are still around, but only because they are all free.

Plus XBMS, Boxee, YAMJ, PS3MS etc. etc. etc. Insert any of the umpteen bajillion different free programs that, to one extent or another, are designed to move video/audio around a LAN (and ultimately to a TV.)

No, I do not think any of the above mentioned can do all of what Sage does with its integrated extenders together with a PC running Sage server, but at the same time the popularity of PCHs, and TVIXs, and Dunes, and Woosies, and Hoopits (yeah I made the last two up) has shown, a lot of people are more than happy buying a media player and then chimping some free program together. These are undoubtedly competitors to Sage, even though they don't offer TV recording. (Heck, we don't really watch much broadcast TV in the basement, just movie rips, and a Dune Base is looking awfully tempting for its ability to do all the audio and full menus - namely for TV season BRs.)

I remember how a lot of people went bat-**** crazy when the first PCH (and the WD Live) were first released. I remember thinking, "Why is everyone claiming this as a game changing event when you could do all these things and more with a Sage HD100 extender." But obviously that market has taken off, and Sage still sits as relatively unnoticed to a large market of people that eat up the NMT-type products.

-Suntan

[Suntan]

Originally Posted by ranger

I may be overly optimistic, but I think that a technological solution will come along sooner or later. I really hope it is soon so that Sage won't have to make any hard choices about future development.

Personally, I think your solution will be to download/stream your videos via the interweb before you see traditional cable companies loosen their grip and give their customers choices on how they access content.

I think they see the writing on the wall and they are circling the wagons. Their business model seems to be:

1) make getting TV easy for the people that just want to fork over a monthly bill and let the "Cable-guy" fix all the problems (witness the huge push to scare the general public when OTA went digital)

2) force the people like you to their system by locking up every stream and lobbying to keep it locked.

-Suntan

[limiter]

Originally Posted by Suntan

Plus XBMS, Boxee, YAMJ, PS3MS etc. etc. etc. Insert any of the umpteen bajillion different free programs that, to one extent or another, are designed to move video/audio around a LAN (and ultimately to a TV.)

I was specifically talking about HTPCs that record TV. Even though SageTV is a part of the second big group, my post was really about the tiny tiny section that is HTPC software that can record TV that isn't Microsoft Media Center.

[Suntan]

Originally Posted by limiter

I was specifically talking about HTPCs that record TV. Even though SageTV is a part of the second big group, my post was really about the tiny tiny section that is HTPC software that can record TV that isn't Microsoft Media Center.

Well, I agree that "HTPC software that can record TV that isn't Microsoft Media Center" is a very small field. But the reality is that people's eyeballs can only spend so many hours in front of a TV per day, and all those other programs/boxes are competing with sage for that time too.

It is sort of academic to artifically limit the discussion to just a (small) fraction of potential customers in the overall business segment of home media distribution.

-Suntan

[limiter]

Originally Posted by Suntan

It is sort of academic to artifically limit the discussion to just a (small) fraction of potential customers in the overall business segment of home media distribution.

It's not artificial to limit the discussion. HTPCs that record TV are very different than devices that just play back media. If you want to watch and record live TV you aren't going to use Boxee, or Ruku, or even the Sage HD200 by itself. Those other devices are in a different group because they don't do what SageTV does. Perhaps you noticed the first menu item in SageTV says "TV". There is a reason for that.

WMC is in it's own category because Microsoft is dumping money into something that probably makes them no money. Microsoft has the money to stay in the HTPC game, and I often wonder why they bother. You can't really call them a competitor because its hard to figure out what they're hoping to gain by being in the HTPC business. They would much rather you buy your TV shows in Xbox Marketplace. I don't expect WMC in its current form to be around much longer (I give it maybe 1 more release of Windows).