Open Thread: Sage is Awesome - Next I hope they add.....

[Naylia]

In the world of computers, anything that lasts at least a few years isn't really a stop gap. By that time you've gotten a solid use out of the investment. I've had my HD PVR for 2 years now and it still runs well. It's been in use almost for as long as any of the other tuners I've owned.

[CanadianEh]

I still would like to see the ability to use playlists / favorites, or something with Youtube.

I find myself streaming music videos every now and then and hate having to search for another video every 3-4 minutes. I'd love a way to queue them up somehow. Seems like it wouldn't be an extremely difficult add-on?

[Deacon Crusher]

My top 5.

These 3 from Brent's list
[*]Built-in Netflix Streaming Support
[*]iPhone/iPad/Android/Windows Phone Placeshifter support w/official app
[*]CableCard or better solution (I fear the move of Cableco's shrinking unencrypted QAM to nearly nothing)

and these 2 mentioned by others.
Built in dynamic customizable main menu.
User accounts and per user favorites management.

And geez, props to sage as this list is so short now it's amazing.

Most of what I've been clamoring for over the years is now here. I think only 1 or 2 of the above items have been on my want list for any significant amount of time.

[Clift]

...I like the v7 UI look, but I don't like it's functionality. Too many clicks to do simple things. Went back to SageMC, even though it's nto as pretty

...Native Android APP

...CableCARD. I have Brighthouse Networks (Time Warner) so I should really not want CableCARD, but I do. Call me crazy

[jsonnabend]

My number 1 wish? For Sage to realize it would be more profitable to be exclusively a hardware company and open source the software (like Squeezebox).

- Jeff

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by jsonnabend

My number 1 wish? For Sage to realize it would be more profitable to be exclusively a hardware company and open source the software (like Squeezebox).

- Jeff

How in the world would that be more profitable? Based on the profit margins of the consumer electronics business, I'm fairly certain a bulk of their profits are from SageTV Media Center software. Also, what would they GAIN by open sourcing the software? They already have a large developer community. Just thinking you're WAY off on this one.

[jsonnabend]

I don't know, Fuzzy. How much are they spending on software development? How does Logitech make money on the Squeezebox product line?

I'm not saying I'm right, but neither can you say that about your suppositions either.

[aaronb]

I notice that almost everyone has Netflix support on their list, I'm curious what size TVs you guys are watching on. I've used Netflix streaming here and there through Plex, Boxee and directly in a browser, and I've been completely underwhelmed. The quality is terrible, noticeably worse than DVD, and this is with a 15Mbps connection. Is the convenience worth the trade-off for you guys, or are you watching on small TVs where the quality is not such an issue?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Brent

No official plugin is going to give you the ability to record online streaming content. Because it isn't allowed by those that provide the online content. That's just the way it is.

Can't you technically do this with a loopback setup?

Take component out from the video card on your PC (or HDMI using an HD Fury) and put it into an HD-PVR. It is a manual process to record but very doable. SD content is even easier as you can use any video card with an s-video input.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by wayner

Can't you technically do this with a loopback setup?

Yes. But it wouldn't be official of course.

[MacDaddy]

As long as we can wish....

Surveillance cameras as "smart" channels. (would be cool to have motion-triggers indicated or have motion-trigger override on screen for front door).

Have a citrix client (or similar) in extenders. Then I could still access PC apps hosted on an outboard system (via citrix server). Need the local wireless keyboard/mouse support in the extender USB (they got that mostly).

Zone support, at least for audio. Getting there with Squeezebox app, just need sync for the party mode.

Host an iPhone or android "virtual machine" in the extenders. Tap in to all those completely fluffly application libraries. More for that once in a while "wow" factor (recipe viewer on kitchen machine, starwalk on the outside pool display) than daily usage.

Allow the volume control to trigger a custom IR string for an outboard emitter. This will let us old school types who still use S/PDIF connections to our old surround amps to control the volume without swapping remotes (and on that topic - why not an RF remote in the first place).

Option to order pizza.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

Zone support, at least for audio. Getting there with Squeezebox app, just need sync for the party mode.

I'm with you on that one. A little dev time with music on that one and they could do a little Sonos number

Here's another thought I had on my wish list:
Universal Search

[MacDaddy]

Originally Posted by Brent

Here's another thought I had on my wish list:
Universal Search

Indeed. That was already a challenge when navigating music (even outboard of Sage, finding something in 80K+ tracks was a challenge). I'm finding that as my TV, DVD and video library escalate that I run into the same issue.

[KarylFStein]

My wishlist is simple: dynamic menus and a (non-IP-based) TV provider's DVR running (a non-crippled version of) SageTV .

[scanner95]

A few things that come to mind:
1. Torrent integration. Ideally, I'd like to browse/search a tracker, select a video to download, and start watching it when enough is downloaded (well, I'm dreaming now, but who cares?)
2. Imported videos - sort by date ("newest first"). This is one single thing that still stops me from migrating from SageMC/SageTVv6 to v7 w/default STV, and keeps me waiting for some new shiny interface like Ortus or smth similar.

[Moskus]

Originally Posted by Brent

Phone/iPad/Android/Windows Phone Placeshifter support w/official app

This is on top of my list. Except with Windows Phone first, Android second, and iProducts on the bottom...

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by Moskus

This is on top of my list. Except with Windows Phone first, Android second, and iProducts on the bottom...

Ditto

S

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Moskus

This is on top of my list. Except with Windows Phone first, Android second, and iProducts on the bottom...

What is this windows phone you speak of never seen one in my travels

Jk of course. Don't want to get into that sort of debate.

[Moskus]

Originally Posted by Brent

What is this windows phone you speak of never seen one in my travels

It's the best invention since SageTV!

[pjpjpjpj]

1) Dynamic Customizable Menus. Had it, lost it, miss it. Has to be #1 because we've gotten accustomed to it, and we need it back!

2) Echoing some above comments, I would love the native ability to get more online streaming content (and I'm not even talking about netflix and Amazon). While the PlayOn plugin is great, we are at the mercy of the plugin developers of PlayOn (we can't get what is not fed via PlayOn). I don't know how much is really feasibly accessible, but being able to grab videos embedded in various websites would be great. Being able to grab flash-based stuff would be great (I thought PlayOn was on the verge of releasing a new capture protocol that would open those doors, but I haven't heard anything in a while). And as was said above, the ability to grab torrent streams would be cool - I don't even care if I could record them or not (I'll take "not" if it would avoid legal issues). There are so many free video sources out there that are just plain inaccessible via Sage from a technology standpoint, not even a legality/contractual one (i.e., all the highlight clips from previous games on MLB.com). Perhaps the way to go about this would be more from michaeldjcox's "Web Feed Encoder" angle, where it would almost be a PlayOn-like function, except sent to a channel in your EPG. Meh, I'm just rambling now.

3) Someone above joked (I think) about ordering pizza. But, wait... Sage is connected to the internet... and anyone using the Caller ID plugin also is connected to the telephone. Why COULDN'T we have something like "Apps"? Is there a reason why we couldn't have the ability, if a store had an App where you could order food or whatnot, to do that in Sage? Sure, each app would have to be custom-written, but if it took advantage of a website where you ordered online (vs. stores that create apps themselves FOR Apple), could this happen?

4) Once again meandering from the above, could small "app" games be made for Sage? Even for the extenders, where you could use the remote as a "joystick" (directional pad, middle button... could function like an Atari joystick or even the old NES). I'm not thinking of WoW or something like that, maybe just Blackjack or Scrabble or Space Invaders (requires three buttons), or some such. Is that possible?

5) Oh, yeah - back to reality, another thing I miss from v6 - RSS feed headlines! And, to a lesser extent, nielm's web page reader. 95% of the time I didn't even read the story, I just had RSS feeds from several news sources that I enjoy, and I would scan the headlines. It allowed me to do things like check whether my high school football team won, or (via a local news channel's RSS), see "local breaking news alerts" - in other words, things that you couldn't quickly find anywhere on your TV, and would have to get on the internet to find, but with the ease of using Sage on my TV via extender. Actually, what would be really cool would be a "ticker" that would scroll headlines from your selected RSS feeds across the bottom of the screen - you could pick the feeds you wanted to seed it and maybe even limit it to the "first X number of headlines".