SageTV acquired by Google

[Eternal]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

I suspect Google bought them to add a open DVR backend to GoogleTV. I would expect to see that first. What they do with the rest of the technology who knows. I have trouble seeing them supporting it as we know it since they have invested in GoogleTV. I think our best hope is they open source the rest of it.

They will have to support DRM at some level under the Google umbrella they may become a real alternative to Media Center once they are integrated with GoogleTV. I would expect to see cable card support. Maybe we will still be able to get a centrally managed DVR and Movie sever with decent Extender support. We can only hope.

I will be getting my HD300 on Tuesday and I can't decide if I am happy about that or not. I somehow doubt they will be supported under GoogleTV. Maybe they will have a lite version that can run on something like that the HD300 but I am thinking they have seen their last updates.

Can't blame SageTV for taking a deal regardless of what happens to the users. If you could you would. Hopefully it works our for all the employees.

I hope we hear something soon about the future of SageTV support. Having been through a few mergers myself I suspect they don't really know themselves at this point. Not all of those decisions have even been made.

what would be the point of this?

of the only 2 products that exist for googletv, both would get the shaft

they had crap like this 10 years ago called webtv

and whats stopping tivo or any cableco from adding youtube and facebook to their dvrs, which is essentially what googletv would be with dvr

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I think we should all stop the FUD and just wait a few days to see what statements are made.

Awww c'mon, what fun is THAT? Just kidding, I am hoping for good things once the SageTv team can start to say what's coming. But I can also still fear the worst.

That being said, I am the doomsday buyer of technology. It seems that the surest way to kill some form of technology is for me to buy into it. Hmmm, maybe I SHOULD buy an iPhone.

[graywolf]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Can't believe there are so many people crying over potential halt of EPG. You can set up XMLTV in less than an hour, it's very simple...

I'm less concerned about the EPG than the PlugIn repository.

[wbarber69]

Wellone thing is for certain and that is that they can't break what I already have going. But it would be nice if we could get a rolled up download for the forum db so we don't lose 10 years of support for third party setups. I still have to refer back to posts from 2005 every now and again for things like fwchannel proxy. Which I am glad I just got working again. That reminds me I really need to do a hd backup

[najames]

It would have been nice if there was some sort of transitional period instead of just pulling the plug and walking away. They could've redirected it to a new "Google store" or something so I could've continued.

I have a bad feeling about this...

That makes two of us. The wife and I love our old SagetV server.

This is my new SaageTV theme song....Stuck in the middle with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DohRa9lsx0Q

[wbarber69]

Also if anyone has links to the last few v6 installers I'd like to get hands on them again GO SageMC

[SteveD]

Originally Posted by graywolf

I'm less concerned about the EPG than the PlugIn repository.

For us that don't know how to setup the XMLTV, would the experts post a guide.

Thanks.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by peternm22

I think it's BS that they announce this without telling us what will happen to existing users at the same time. People have spent hundreds of dollars on SageTV products and developers have spent hundreds (if not more) of hours making free plugins. Without these 2 groups of people, SageTV could not have been successful and ultimately purchased by Google. The fact that we are essentially ignored in the announcement really bothers me.

I agree. Any announcement should have waited until more information could be divulged on the future of SageTV, and what effect it will have on current customers.

The position we are in currently (No idea if the EPG will continue working, etc.) speaks volumes on Google's stance towards SageTV's existing customers and the level of support we'll see going forward.

[graywolf]

Originally Posted by wbarber69

Also if anyone has links to the last few v6 installers I'd like to get hands on them again GO SageMC

http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V6_6_2Setup.exe

[Mitch G]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Why are you afraid to say it? Everyone else is saying it. In fact people seem to be positively eager to say that this is the end of life as we know it.

Personally, I'll wait a few days to see how things shake out before jumping on the Chicken Little bandwagon. Plenty of time to slit my wrists later, once we know the actual facts.

Heck I'm gonna wait a few months if not years before freaking out
I hope the sage team is required to stay on for at least a year to help guide things along.
But mostly I hope they made out like bandits and are putting in their orders for Veyrons as we speak.

There was a similar outcry when logitech bought Slimdevices but my squeezebox is still working just fine


Mitch

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Can't believe there are so many people crying over potential halt of EPG. You can set up XMLTV in less than an hour, it's very simple...

Quite possibly things have changed since 2003, but I used to have to use XMLTV to use Sage. I hated it. I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have stuck with Sage for more than a year if they had not gotten guide data for the entire US. XMLTV was buggy, difficult to set up, and would occasionally break because (I assume) of changes to the source web sites. The quality and accuracy of the data was also noticeably worse than the SageTV data. I ran into many more cases where the episode name of TV shows did not appear.

Originally Posted by brainbone

I agree. Any announcement should have waited until more information could be divulged on the future of SageTV, and what effect it will have on current customers.

The position we are in currently (No idea if the EPG will continue working, etc.) speaks volumes on Google's stance towards SageTV's existing customers and the level of support we'll see going forward.

Well, I agree that the signs are not good. But, I think Sage probably had to take down the store page, which probably also means they had to announce the deal. It seems like they should have been able to say something about EPG data and plugin repository moving forward though. Hopefully we'll hear something soon about that, but I kind of doubt it. Google is calling the shots now, and I don't see why they would have a strong motivation to make any quick decisions.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by brainbone

I agree. Any announcement should have waited until more information could be divulged on the future of SageTV, and what effect it will have on current customers.

The position we are in currently (No idea if the EPG will continue working, if client PCs will be supported going forward, etc.) speaks volumes on Google's stance towards SageTV's existing customers and the level of support we'll see going forward.

Has it all stopped working? With the nature of buyouts, both companies, Google and SageTV don't have all the answers...and it may take months before the details are finally worked out out. (I've seen it take even longer before people know exactly what's going to happen)

Personally, we should be happy for SageTV as a company, since professional and personally this is going to be another interesting chapter in their lives... and you have to look at this from another perspective. Since SageTV was sold, then there's the possibility that SageTV may have been close to closing its doors (I don't know this), but it's one reason a person sells their company. If that were the case, then the news this morning could have very well read, "SageTV closes shop"... Being bought out may have breathed a little more life into the product surviving, even if no new releases are coming.

Until stuff stops working... There's no point in complaining.

[limiter]

This is disappointing. Considering many of the links have been shut down this is clearly not going to end well for the SageTV users.

I have a tip for companies: The day you announce what amounts to the end of a product that people loved and invested a lot of time and money into, don't use the *big grin* smiley. You may have a big grin cashing your big check, but your customers just feel like you've kicked us while we were down.

[ghost5]

I love google products and I love my android so in an ideal world I should be more than happy with this take over

But I'm not.

For all of Sage TVs flaws nearly all of my problems have been answered thanks to the awesome plugin developers. It is only right that these developers will stop making tools for a product that is dead as we know it.
I see that there is a google email address for developers to get in contact with them so maybe we will see the likes of Plucky on the android app store in the future
Who know's maybe some of the developers will get employed by google to write specifically for google TV

Google likes everything to be in the cloud.
It took me a very long time to trust my phone contacts being stored in the cloud rather than in outlook on my laptop (with a backup of that).
The good thing with this is that it works and works well.
I am now warming to the idea of putting my music in the cloud when it arrives to the UK. Being able to sit at any computer and listen to my music collection via a web browser seems like a good idea.
But uploading and downloading a mp3 file is one thing. Doing the same for a movie, even a DVD rip, is another.

Speaking of the cloud. Google makes very few programs that you can download on to your computer. On my laptop right now there is Chrome and Earth. This will more than likely mean no google TV server software will be released.

I love my HD300 extender. It plays files better than my over spec'd PC, but if I was to move to another piece of software it means that I will loose the use of it. I could build another PC to replace it but the main reason I bought sage was so I could easily buy these extenders as and when I needed them.

I think we will have another year with limited support from these forums and as people start moving away this will lesson.
As someone already mentioned we do have a good stable product at the moment but it now means we can't want / expect / hope for new features and we have to make do with what we've got. As long as there are no major bugs uncovered in the software it will do us well for years to come.

Hopefully in a years time google will start releasing products with sagetv built into them. Ideally they will release google tv extenders and google tv server software. My HD300 will get a google firmware update and I will be able to stream all my movies to my android phone and log into my server from any browser to record that show I forgot about and I will be able to download the latest diamond theme from the market place.
If this happens I will be very happy.

[valnar]

However, the acquisition means that SageTV's traditional software and hardware offerings have gone the way of the Laserdisc: The company has pulled its online store from its Website and only offers the aforementioned announcement in its place. An email announcement sent yesterday to the company's user base confirms that existing SageTV customers will still receive support for their products. As well, users will be able to interact with the company via community forums that will be left online throughout the Google transitioning.

So does this mean Sage is dead as it stands? No finished beta?

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by graywolf

I'm less concerned about the EPG than the PlugIn repository.

Many plugins are already hosted elsewhere... Technically it's just a matter of replacing an XML file in the SageTV folder, which someone could easily keep updated if it ever came to that.

[osburnfamily]

Man I'm torn about this! Over the years I've gone back & forth between Sage & MediaCenter. I'm fully back onboard with WMC right now but I always keep tabs with & respect this community.

I've always thought they pushed each other in innovation and hope that doesn't change in anyway but for the better.

What will it be called, btw? SaggleTV?

Fingers crossed for the future guys!

[metzz71]

I do NOT see this being good for us. Beta will probably die, software is no longer downloadable, and we will have to PAY (again) for the new stuff labeled GOOGLE. Just another example of a large company playing the big bully.

I see a Ferrari 458 in Jeff's future!

I hope everyone is happy with 7.1.9 (still downloadable BTW)!

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Until stuff stops working... There's no point in complaining.

I don't know about that... I mean, the distinct possibly of demise of a product, potentially rendering hundreds, if not thousands in some cases, of dollars of Sage-specific infrastructure costs useless seems like a reason to complain. It might not be productive, mind you, but it does seem like a perfectly good reason.

I never liked the idea of Sage-specific extenders. I always thought Sage should have worked with Hauppauge, the WDTV Live, or Popcorn Hour to release extenders that could potentially live without SageTV.

People have sunk a lot of money into their SageTV systems. Maybe they can find alternative uses for some components, like their server computer and possibly the tuners, but maybe not. The extenders are largely useless without a server, unless you can actually tolerate standalone mode.

Sure, we have versions 6.6, 7 and 7.1 to play with. Presumably they won't fully stop working, except perhaps for the plugin repository and the EPG data. But, I don't feel comfortable using that for long. Sage is by no means a perfect product, and we're going to continue to find bugs, which likely will not get patched. I really hope they'll close out Sage v7.1, but I don't expect them to do anything beyond that.

There's no reason we can't be happy for Jeff and the SageTV team while still finding the overall situation pretty crappy for ourselves.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Until stuff stops working... There's no point in complaining.

I was planning on purchasing another client license (parts arrived for the PC yesterday) -- cant get one now. That part has stopped working.

Happy for Jeff? Sure. Should I be clinking glasses with him? I think he can afford to do that without me. Could it have been worse for us? Probably, but then that could be said about nearly anything.

Could everything work out great for us, the users? Possibly -- a GoogleTV system with a SageTV PVR back-end and Android/GoogleTV Apps for handling ripped DVDs and other media, along with official Netflix support, etc., may not be bad at all, and is the likely scenario -- but, I think a little concern is warranted.