Can SageTV do what I want?

[MondayTuesday]

I am considering purchasing a Sage solution, would appreciate any feedback if Sage can achieve what I want.

My Current setup is recording all OTA HD TV with an HDHR 3 Tuner and windows media center. I then watch back through an x-box. What I want to accomplish is:

1. Record content (or convert afterwards) in a more portable format (H.264 MP4, MKV, etc)
2. Name and store recorded content in a more standard format that other media players recognize. eg TV subfolders Season1, season2, file naming S01E01, etc

After searching around there are ways to do this with WMC7 but it involves stringing together multiple solutions and the end result does not sync windows media center since the post possessing is done outside of WMC7.

In the end I would like to view recorded content with my current extenders , a Boxee box and X-box and possibly the Sage Extender as I also need another extender for another room.

Thanks

[panteragstk]

Sage will be able to transcode the content for you and sjq (sage job queue) should be able to move them into folders for you. You may want to check the sjq thread for specifics.

[wayner]

Depending on your definition of portability you may be better off sticking with your original OTA file format which is MPEG-2. It produces larger file sizes but it is probably the most widely supported file type there is, although you may not be able to play it on an iDevice.

If by portability you mean the capability to play in the widest number of devices without encoding then MPEG-2 is ideal. If you mean being able to carry it with you on portable devices then you may want another format.

[MondayTuesday]

Originally Posted by wayner

Depending on your definition of portability you may be better off sticking with your original OTA file format which is MPEG-2. It produces larger file sizes but it is probably the most widely supported file type there is, although you may not be able to play it on an iDevice.

If by portability you mean the capability to play in the widest number of devices without encoding then MPEG-2 is ideal. If you mean being able to carry it with you on portable devices then you may want another format.

WMC7 saves the files with .wtv extension. From what I gather Boxee can play this file type but can't fast forward, resume, etc. They are also really big in size.

I'll take a look at the queue thing. Thanks

[MondayTuesday]

I found this in a post about the beta. Sounds like this will do what I need. Does anyone know, can I install the beta as a trial?

-EPG data enhancements (season/epsiode numbers, improved detection of 'unique' airings, more than 2 levels of categories, additional flags for various Airing properties such as Live, Dolby5.1, Letterbox, etc.)

[dgeezer]

Check out this thread http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ht=XBMC+script it may do all you need.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by MondayTuesday

I found this in a post about the beta. Sounds like this will do what I need. Does anyone know, can I install the beta as a trial?

Yes you can install it as a trial. Sage doesn't use proprietary file names/containers so you will be able to play their recordings on anything that supports mpeg-2 (or h.264 if you use an HD-PVR/colossus).

[wayner]

You can just download from here: http://www.sagetv.com/download.html?bbidx

That should give you a 21 day free trial.

If you want to move shows to folders based on years and rename the episodes then you will need a plugin to do this. I would recommend SJQ - it involves a bit of programming and there is a bit of a learning curve but it is EXTREMELY flexible and useful once you get used to it.

If you will just be accessing the files from Sage or from Sage extenders then you won't need to do that. But using some of the other devices that you mentioned may require that you get a little more involved in the naming.

By default Sage stores all of the Recorded TV files in the same directory (or directories) without the ability to have "intelligent" directory names based on the shows. The Sage naming convention will have your files named something like:

30Rock-EverythingSunnyAlltheTimeAlways-2240069-0.mpg

That is enough to know the name of the show and episode name but it isn't exactly what you are looking for. With SJQ you could put all 30Rock Episodes in a folder called 30 Rock and rename with the Season and Episode number. therefore the above file would be:

\\TV Shows\30 Rock\S5E22 - Everything Sunny All the Time Always.mpg

Or something similar. You could also use SJQ to create a commercial skipping file and re-encode to another format if you so desire.

[davephan]

Before you install the trial software, take an image of your computer. If you don't have disk imaging software, and don't want to buy it, you can use Clonezilla, which is free. If you have any installation problems, you can easily recover back to the point in time before the installation.

Dave

[MondayTuesday]

Wow I have a few really good options. I am going to install the trial tonight. Thanks for the input, you all have been most helpful.