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

[barney B.A.]

Originally Posted by broconne

#1) Cablecard support. This for me really is a must have. Just yesterday, I had to reboot my Sage box because the HDPVR just stopped recording.

Don't kid yourself. Cablecard isn't all it's cracked up to be. Believe me. I also have a Tivo HD box with 2 cablecards and I have to reboot that damn thing now and then to get the channels to work. I often get a gray screen on some hd channels and have to reboot to get them working again. Never mind the fact that you can't move files around from the tivo to the tivo desktop software thanks to the drm nonsense.

[Deacon Crusher]

Way to go Sage.

Sage 7 and the HD300 are awesome, but (yes, there's always a but) what comes next.

# 1 for me is support (as good as possible) of the Ceton and Prime cablecard products.

# 2 real support for netflix so we can watch the high quality streams. (on Extenders)

# 3 placeshifting to handhelds

# 3b (I think 3 happens easier/better/faster if this happens) get transcoding to use the power of the GPU on the server (new GPUs can do transcoding tons faster then CPUs.) Faster then real time transcoding of h264 and way faster of other formats.

# 4 User accounts. chose which sage user you are and different things are displayed, different shows and menus (including hiding config items and adult programming from a given account) and make sure favorites can be marked as belonging to multiple users so won't auto delete until all users have seen.

Thanks

[FriscoJohn]

A tremendous feature for me would be if the SageTV server could intercept and stream the video from a Netflix video playing on your web browser on your HTPC in the basement to your living room HD200 or HD300. This capability would get around the problems of integrating Netflix, Amazon, etc. with Sage. Apparently some of the screen copy programs can pick up the video from the display with little loss of quality. Is there any reason Sage couldn't emulate this? Apparently it is legal since there is no circumventing of CSS and thus no Millenium Copyright Act issue.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by FriscoJohn

A tremendous feature for me would be if the SageTV server could intercept and stream the video from a Netflix video playing on your web browser on your HTPC in the basement to your living room HD200 or HD300. This capability would get around the problems of integrating Netflix, Amazon, etc. with Sage. Apparently some of the screen copy programs can pick up the video from the display with little loss of quality. Is there any reason Sage couldn't emulate this? Apparently it is legal since there is no circumventing of CSS and thus no Millenium Copyright Act issue.

That's what PlayOn does.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

That's what PlayOn does.

Exactly and there's "an app for that" or more appropriately "there's a plugin for that"...

[pgman]

Regarding Netflix:

...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?

I may be doing it all wrong, but I just use my browser to watch Netflix in fullscreen and the HD content looks pretty good (I put SageTV in standby). If there was a way to do this from within the Sage interface, that would be great, but it really isn't a big deal to just switch windows. The Netflix HD streams do not look as good as OTA HDTV or Bluray (which are my only other HD sources - I don't have satellite or cable) but they're not too shabby. I have a 56" Samsung DLP set (an early 1080p model), so there may be some artifacts I am missing due to the television's optics - ignorance is bliss, I guess.

The convenience of instant play for most titles I want to watch more than outweighs any loss in quality. In reality, I'd say only 15% of the streams I watch are HD - most are older films that haven't exactly been meticulously transferred to video. Still, I think we're getting close enough for the cable / satellite and even terrestrial broadcasters to be getting rather nervous.

[Fuzzy]

I think the only real draw to PlayOn would be for those with extenders, where the 'switch to browser' setup won't work. One of the reasons I don't have an extender...

[HuntHunt]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Already mentioned but also would love
Built-in Netflix Streaming Support (must be able to record)
Built-in Amazon Streaming Support (must be able to record)
Dynamic Menus

Why do you need to record NetFlix streaming?

[appelm]

I would like support for 3D. Specifically, the ability for extenders to decode 3D blurays with proper handling of subtitles.

While were at it, might as well have a 3D theme to go along with it since when you're wearing your 3D glasses the SageTV interface might as well look 3D cool!

[JetreL]

Shipped with Sharks with Laser beams... Nuff said!

[Dargason]

I'd like to throw in my request for improved intelligent recordings. IR is what drew me to SageTV almost 8 years ago, but I found it pretty much unusable. Since then I don't think any attempt has ever been made to make it better. I think this is a huge opportunity that is being wasted -- really good IR is possible and would differentiate SageTV from the other options out there.

Here's my vision of how it could work. First off, improve the rating system in ways that have already been discussed many times. Make the algorythm look at a few more program properties than it does now (for example, the original air date).

But what would really make it shine is if it could make use of crowd-sourcing. My likes and dislikes could be uploaded (anonymously and optionally) to a SageTV server and used to populate a database that could then be queried to find connections between what I like and things that other people liked but which I haven't seen. We've all seen how this works -- netflix does it, amazon does it, etc.

Something like this would help IR stop recording "My little pony" simply because Sage thinks I like Sci-fi and fantasy genre and also animation (Family guy, futurama, etc).

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by drewg

Coming from MythTV, what I really, really miss is "timestretch". This is a MythTV feature that allows you to playback a recording anywhere from 0.5x to 2.0x speed. It adjusts the audio pitch so that voices are sped up (or slowed down), but don't sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks on speed. There are some video artifacts, but they are not as bad as you might imagine.

It is really handy to be able to watch the "boring parts" of shows at 1.5x. That way you can hear the dialog, and not miss anything, but can concentrate on the scenes you like. Most of the news is much better at 1.8x, then you slow down for the story you want to hear.

It can also be useful to slow down the speed. I mainly use this to untangle mumbled dialog (it is easier to drop the speed to 0.75x and rewind 10 seconds than it is to pull up CC, and rewind far enough back that the CC syncs).

Drew

Timestretch playback is a really cool idea. I can see myself using it often. I'll throw a vote in for it.
Other than that, I'd love to see some social aspects built into Sage. They don't need to compete with Boxee or XBOX, but there could be some huge benefits to "your friend has watched these shows that are similar to you". Dargason says it well in the post just before this one.
.

[wayner]

Timestretch would be really good - I wonder how hard it would be to implement this?

It may not go as far as you want but you can have your Sage Server Tweet your recordings, what you're watching, etc. See more here, this is a snippet:

Originally Posted by Twitter

kevins_sagetv: A recording has completed: Jungle Junction: The Missing Glasses; Dozer's Daisy #SageAlert 41 minutes ago via SageAlert

kevins_sagetv: File deleted (keep at most): Jungle Junction/MediaID: 5394383/AiringID: 5247570/ShowEID: EP011875490003 #SageAlert 41 minutes ago via SageAlert

harlequin_sage: A recording has completed: Bo On the Go! #SageAlert
41 minutes ago via SageAlert

MediaStorePC: A recording has completed: 9News Now at 6am #SageAlert about 2 hours ago via SageAlert

But you might want to be careful with this!

[Sharky112065]

#1: Record to two files using only one tuner when recording back to back programs using padding. Currently If I have 5 programs recording and I want 3 min before and after padding I need 10 tuners to accomplish this. I do know about the option to not do padding on back to back programs but I sometimes watch shows out of order and would miss parts of the programs (either deleted or not watched yet). This would save us the customer lots of money on additional tuners/hardware.

#2: Native Cable Card Support.

#3: This may be in already and I have not found it yet but it would be nice if you could set up custom program guides (so if I only wanted like 10 channels to show up in a particular guide that is all that would show) and could name them.

[gabrielcab]

As most people here agree, Netflix and others online content support plus cablecard. I think that with the integration of these 2 features, SageTV would give MCE its final blow and there could be an stampede of MCE using migrating to SageTV.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by briands

I know there is a lot of clamor for adding features, but it seems there are still a number of opportunities to improve the core since, after all, Sage is first and foremost a PVR application.

Following are recording features that have been requested for a LONG time - I've tried to find the first post for each... wow, some of these go back a ways...

Favorites -
New Favorite type / option - KEEP at LEAST - so you always have a few episodes to watch

New Favorite option - Always Record First Airing - this one will cause more conflicts, but it is apparent that some customers want this feature.

New Manual recording setting - Record within the next x days - one time favorite - this is for those times you see something you want to record (a movie for instance) that has multiple airings in the guide. I want to record it, but want to let the scheduler figure out how to prevent a conflict.

Improve intelligent recordings - , wouldn't it be GREAT to actually be able to use Intelligent Recordings? Does anyone use it or even remember that it's there? Brent's New Premiers is what reminded me of this. I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if Sage would just record the new series' that I will like instead of me searching the program guide vs. Brent's list??? Here's an OLD post on the topic (I'm sure there are others).

Other IR issues here and

here

"I HATE IT" - take aggressive negative profiling to an extreme - the anti favorite. I MAY OCCASIONALLY WATCH THE NEWS... i do not EVER want any news recorded via IR...

Babysitter/ guest mode - again, not a big deal if you don't use IR - a way to ignore live TV in determining IR...

I'm with you briands. While most people are chanting cablecard this and netflix that, I think the core features can be improved. And the ones you mentioned are very doable and I hope they attack those features first.

The "Always record first airing" would be great for sports, where you don't want it to pick up a re-airing instead of the absolute first airing. Another sport related feature would be the option to completely hide the OSD so it doesn't cover up the score or stats when you press FF/RW.

[gabrielcab]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I'm with you briands. While most people are chanting cablecard this and netflix that, I think the core features can be improved. And the ones you mentioned are very doable and I hope they attack those features first.

The "Always record first airing" would be great for sports, where you don't want it to pick up a re-airing instead of the absolute first airing. Another sport related feature would be the option to completely hide the OSD so it doesn't cover up the score or stats when you press FF/RW.

Agree. While the cablecard netflix and others could left for a next version, maybe SageTV 8. The features that briands gives are kind a must now that I hear them.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Another sport related feature would be the option to completely hide the OSD so it doesn't cover up the score or stats when you press FF/RW.

Another reason to hide the OSD is so that it doesn't clue you in as to what is going to happen in a game. If you are watching a PVRed game (and you are using SRE) and it is tied with 10 seconds left you can tell from the time scale whether the game goes into OT or not, especially for playoff hockey. This can somewhat kill the suspense.

[Dargason]

I think the challenges of supporting cablecard go way beyond technical. The content owners really don't want you to be able to record and store the content on a computer because it makes it too easy to steal. Microsoft is big enough and had enough leverage to make it work for MCE, but even then, you could only get MCE pre-installed on special media center PCs.

Maybe things have changed. Certainly you get MCE now as part of pretty much any Win7 installation, although I haven't checked to see if cablecard recordings are encrypted such that they can only be played via MCE.

This could all be a figment of my imagination... I haven't looked into cablecards for a very long time.

[sdsean]

OK 1st off agree with a couple others who said it. . .

1.) Dynamic / Customizeable menus. Using studio to do this is too much of a pain in the you know what. Heck I've been a software engineer for 15 years and I think its too much.
a.) And with this the abilty to launch programs with arguments, etc so I can put back my arcade like I had in beyond media.

2.) Mobile devices, android, ipad/phone/pod, windows

3.) Last.fm / Pandora (ipads pandora app is sweet)

4.) Better Music management / playback period. Where are decent vizulizations/ party mode? How come its so hard to get to the now playing playlist? Why can I skip to the next track easily? Where the heck is Fan Art? Why doesn't Sage save my last used/created playlist automatically? (C'mon man. . . ;-) )

5.) A freaking better remote control!! Kudos to sage with the HD200 and HD300. But the remotes suck. Surely someone could actually build a universal remote that's not as cumbersome as GoogleTV. The harmony is awesome, but no bluetooth, no RF, no PC mouse control (gyration or the wii is the best). I have some good thoughts about this as well. . . really think sage could build a winner. . .

6.) And yeah Netflix/Hulu/Amazon native would be cool. . .but I gotta say Playon works pretty darn well in SageTV (thanks evilpenguin). Just need to get around that one stream limit.


7.) Some sort of internet browser would be awesome. I love reading the news on the Wii just because it looks cool and is easy to use. . .but I don't turn on my Wii that much. . the proper UI might be touch. . .although 10 FT UIs (like sageTV) are very very similar to UIs found on IPhone/IPad. . .Always thought it could be cool to have some sort of EPG for the Net

8.) Oh and i know i'm old school on this one and will probably get flamed for it. . .but how about FM tuner / HD Radio support? I know there's know reliable guide, but I really like my radio stations in here in SD. And I'd love to be able to hit record.