Changes in entertainment technology

[SteveD]

I have a question. With the new Ethernet ready televisions with built-in netflix ,googletv and directv whole house dvr; what is the justification for a sagetv system anymore. Just seeking information for conversational purposes. An associate of mine has a receiver that is Ethernet ready. What is sagetv place in this new mix of technology? Let me be clear " I like my sagetv".

[Fuzzy]

My first thought would be recording more than 2 things at a time. I'mnot sure if DirecTV's setup will work with more than a single DVR on the network, but if not, you'll be limited to the two tuners in the unit... Kind of silly for them to brag about '15 rooms at a time', when you can still only record 2 programs at a time...

[blade]

For me the main reasons I still use Sage are:

1 - I want more tuners than what the other solutions can reasonably provide. I currently have 7 and will likely go down to 5 once analog is cut off here. I think I can make do with 5, but anything less and some of the shows I watch couldn't be recorded due to conflicts.

2 - I currently have 4 TB of recording drives and many of the other solutions only have a fraction of that. I think some allow the use of networked storage, but I'm not sure how well 5-6 tuners (one of my requirements for switching) writing to a NAS would work.

3 - Sage's UI and features. It's not perfect, but it's light years ahead of anything my cable company offers. Honestly I don't know how it stacks up against some of the other offerings though.

[fidget]

For me, I have DishNetwork and the DVR can only record one OTA program and two satellite feeds. On Thursday nights, I have three of me OTA tuners running. My wife and I also have our entire DVD library ripped, which is over 1100 disks.

[SteveD]

I agree with all of the assessments mentioned above. Besides the number of tunnels you can have, what are some of the capabilities of sagetv that eclipse the above mentioned integrated technologies within the televisions such as netflix and googletv.

[ldw58]

Although I primarily use Sage my family has four DirecTV DVRs linked together in the whole-home system. All four are DVRs and we can, should we so choose, have all eight tuners recording simultaneously on the DirecTV boxes. It's a jury-rigged system in my opinion because although a remote DirecTV box can watch the content of another box it's a peer-to-peer relationship and you cannot have multiple DirecTV boxes simultaneously watching content off of a single DVR.

Their cost is interesting. They charge $99 for an HD box without DVR and $199 for a box with and then an extra $3/month for the entire house to link them all together.

I prefer a client-server model but DirecTV's solution is an interesting notion.

[bits]

I have three tuners and routinely record 2-3 shows at a time but for my family the #1 reason for Sage is commercial skip and #2 is having our DVD/BD library archived and at our finger tips. Fast forwarding does not cut it. I agree that Netflix is quite useful and since we started using it the number of BDs ripped to HDD is down significantly. BTW we do not use the PlayOn plugin for Netflix but use the native support from our BD player and or our TV.

There are other reasons we continue to use STV/HD200/300 but those are the main ones.

[Fuzzy]

Another big plus for sage is the totally confounded look on my mother in law's face when she tries to watch tv.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Another big plus for sage is the totally confounded look on my mother in law's face when she tries to watch tv.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Another big plus for sage is the totally confounded look on my mother in law's face when she tries to watch tv.

Harware to run SageTV $800
SageTV siftware license $80
HD-300 Extender $150

Lokk on you Mother in Law's face when she tries to watch TV - priceless!

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

Harware to run SageTV $800
SageTV siftware license $80
HD-300 Extender $150

Lokk on you Mother in Law's face when she tries to watch TV - priceless!

I also like to point out to my wife that our 4 year old has no trouble at all with it... ;-)

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by ldw58

All four are DVRs..
They charge.. $199 for a box with [DVR]

Can you clarify, you spent $800 one time or per month or ????

[Ken C]

The battle is between locally stored content and 'streaming' video ("cloud" content ?).

Even assuming all content is available in the cloud, and it's not, I still prefer locally stored content. The primary reason, com skip. To paraphrase Heston, they'll have to pry it out of my media server !!

Sometime in 2011, the local cable company will be dropping all the analog channels and going all digital. No idea what, if any, channels will be unencrypted. Assuming worst case, everything encrypted, it will be time to re-evaluate.

The idea of giving up Sage and going to multiple STB-DVR's is totally repugnant to me. Not sure what other realistic options are available.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Ken C

The battle is between locally stored content and 'streaming' video ("cloud" content ?).

Even assuming all content is available in the cloud, and it's not, I still prefer locally stored content. The primary reason, com skip. To paraphrase Heston, they'll have to pry it out of my media server !!

Sometime in 2011, the local cable company will be dropping all the analog channels and going all digital. No idea what, if any, channels will be unencrypted. Assuming worst case, everything encrypted, it will be time to re-evaluate.

The idea of giving up Sage and going to multiple STB-DVR's is totally repugnant to me. Not sure what other realistic options are available.

HD-PVR?

[barney B.A.]

Interesting that no one has brought up the DRM issues that you get with all the other "commercial" solutions. I also have a Tivo HD box and after putting up with the severely limited recording space and copy protections, I still get privilege of paying them 15 dollars a month to be told how to watch tv.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Sometime in 2011, the local cable company will be dropping all the analog channels and going all digital. No idea what, if any, channels will be unencrypted. Assuming worst case, everything encrypted, it will be time to re-evaluate.

It is pretty simple to use tuners with an s-video input, such as a PVR-150, PVR-2250, etc connected to an SD digital cable box. You just need a USB-UIRT (or other method) to change channels on the STB. The added benefit is that the video quality will likely be a bit better.

And for HD-video there is the HD-PVR as Fuzzy mentioned - but that really has nothing to do with your cable company switching from analog to digital cable as all HD channels are now, and always have been, digital.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Even assuming all content is available in the cloud, and it's not, I still prefer locally stored content. The primary reason, com skip. To paraphrase Heston, they'll have to pry it out of my media server !!

I agree that having locally stored content is preferrable. Not just for comskipping purposes, but you never know when content that you watch will become more expensive, or no longer be available. And Netflix, et al, don't work so well for live sports.

[Ken C]

Currently, I have 5 TV's, 3 digital and 2 analog. The Sage system contains 4 analog tuners (150's) and 4 digital tuners (two HDHR's). To duplicate the current system would require 4 SD STB's to work with the s-video inputs on the 150's. Replace the HDHR's with 4 HD STB's and 4 HD-PVR's. Plus, each of the digital TV's need their own HD STB, the analog TV's each need a SD STB.

So, that's 7 HD STB's and 6 SD STB's from the provider. Plus the cost of 4 HD-PVR's, about $750, and the USB-UIRT's, about $50 each (?).

Maybe I really don't need the capability to record 8 videos simultaneously !

How about three HD and two SD, a bit more reasonable. Still totals up to six HD STB's, 3 HD-PVR's, and four SD STB's. No idea what the monthly 'rental' fees would be, certainly a lot more than I'm currently paying.

Ah, the days of clear QAM ...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Ah, the days of clear QAM ...

... Are gone. Adapt.. =D

[wayner]

Depending on how your family watches TV you may not need an STB at each (or even any) of your TVs, assuming that you have a Sage extender at those TVs. But you still need a bunch of tuners if many people are going to be watching live TV simultaneously. I never watch live TV and my kids don't even understand the concept of live Tv. The problem is that the wife is a channel surfer.

I do have about 8 cable boxes - 3 hooked up to my Sage server - two HD and one SD, plus a few OTA tuners. Luckily there is one advantage in Canada when it comes to cable TV (and it really is the only one) and it is that you can buy STBs. I have bought my boxes in the past when they were very cheap as my cable company was trying to get people to switch to digital TV - two years ago I bought three HD boxes (SA4250HDs) for $100 each.