Just in case- Alternatives to SageTV

[camTexas]

I just started looking at Plex with the Roku release the other day but had not loaded it up yet to actually look at usability. Did I miss something? Even with the Sage plugin you still can't view the guide, watch live TV, schedule recordings, or manage favorites... correct? Maybe I just misread the comment above wrt XBMC-PVR vs. Plex

[wayner]

That's very true that you can't view the guide, schedule recordings, manage faves, etc. All you can do is watch TV recordings and they have the full metadata. It isn't a full replacement but if that is all you care about then you are fine.

Whether this is a viable alternative depends on a bunch of things. Do you want to be able to watch Sage recordings in another room in your house occasionally, say your bedroom? If so then Plex may be a good solution and not being able to use the guide, etc may not matter. Especially if you get other benefits like Netflix, etc.

Personally I rarely use the guide and I usually schedule my recordings either directly on my server or via the Sage web client rather than on pone of my many extenders. But even that is done fairly rarely since the bulk of my recordings are Favorites that have been around for years and don't change on a freqeuent basis.

Plex also has a very nice looking UI and they have front ends for iPads, etc. Personally I have very little need for other optoins since I have enough extenders to last me a decade or so. But having other options is always a good thing.

[camTexas]

OK Thanks. I'm looking at Plex for a use case just like you describe. Like many people I'm also starting to look at other backups for when my extenders die. Too bad Plex can't do that as well. I'll have to watch the XBMC-PVR work and see what else crops up.

[panteragstk]

I'm board so I decided to get XBMC-PVR and see how things are progressing. I'm going to use mediaportal as the back end. Not planning on leaving sage any time soon, just want to see what they've come up with.

I wonder what will happen running mediaportal along side sage?

[dgeezer]

I ran GbPvr along side sagetv on my server for a couple months with no problems. I think that as long as you don't schedule any conflicts with shared tuners you will probably be fine.

I keep messing about with options like XBMC and plex mostly because there aren't as many new SageTV plugins to try out.

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by wayner

Plex also has a very nice looking UI and they have front ends for iPads, etc.

And that front end for iOS includes a remote control to any active Plex client (running on a computer, maybe others?), full access to the media library and Plex plug-ins, and the ability stream remotely from your PMS (and more depending on the plug-ins).

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

I ran GbPvr along side sagetv on my server for a couple months with no problems. I think that as long as you don't schedule any conflicts with shared tuners you will probably be fine.

I keep messing about with options like XBMC and plex mostly because there aren't as many new SageTV plugins to try out.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I got everything up and running yesterday and I now realize why I love sage so much. XBMC is really "pretty", but without knowing more about how it works it doesn't seem to have the functionality that sage does. Media portal is OK, but the way the tv server is set up is a little odd. XMLTV works, but isn't all that easy to set up (it's not hard, just not as easy as sage).

Media portal and XBMC talk to each other just fine, but getting to guide information requires quite a few clicks. Honestly, EVERYTHING in XBMC requires more clicks than I'd like. A friend assures me this is because of the theme, but with it being a beta pvr build I'm stuck with one theme.

I'll play around with it some more, but I can tell getting the colossus to work with mediaportal won't be all that easy. No HTTP tuning either so I may not even mess with it.

[Dargason]

I like my SageTV setup more these days than every before, but the uncertain future (isn't it always uncertain?) has me thinking about why.

A lot of what I like about sage can be found in the many alternative products. But do any of them distinguish between first run and re-run in the favorites? And do any of them remember what I've watched? Intelligent recordings is what drew me to Sage originally (and was a sad disappointment) but it could still be fixed.

I'm curious if anyone has compiled a table of features comparing the various options.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Dargason

Intelligent recordings is what drew me to Sage originally (and was a sad disappointment) but it could still be fixed.

Having IR was a big factor for me as well. I've found that after some "training" it works really well and I am very happy with it. What do you find disappointing?

[Dargason]

Well, the heuristic it uses didn't seem to work very well to me... it was almost entirely based on show category and who the actors were and not much else. As a result, it would decide that since I watch Family Guy, Simpsons, Stargate SG1, and Merlin that I will also like My Little Pony. Or that because I watch the Office, that I will also like every other sitcom ever made.

In retrospect I realized that there really isn't much to go on in the basic metadata, so I gave up (perhaps too soon). But it could be made much better using crowdsharing methods like what netflix uses... and it would be awesome because then I wouldn't have to monitor the epg for upcoming new shows. It would know that because I liked Battlestar Galactica, I'd probably be interested in Caprica, for example.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Dargason

Well, the heuristic it uses didn't seem to work very well to me... it was almost entirely based on show category and who the actors were and not much else. As a result, it would decide that since I watch Family Guy, Simpsons, Stargate SG1, and Merlin that I will also like My Little Pony. Or that because I watch the Office, that I will also like every other sitcom ever made.

In retrospect I realized that there really isn't much to go on in the basic metadata, so I gave up (perhaps too soon). But it could be made much better using crowdsharing methods like what netflix uses... and it would be awesome because then I wouldn't have to monitor the epg for upcoming new shows. It would know that because I liked Battlestar Galactica, I'd probably be interested in Caprica, for example.

That's where the training comes in. Initially, yes, sage will record very broad strokes - and if you don't use the Don't Like flag, it will not really stop (not watching something DOES give it an edge towards the negative, but don't like gives it a huge push that way). Still, it is limited by the EPG data, but given time, it seems to do really well for us. (and that's with multiple people with different tastes using it).

[Dargason]

Well, I've got a few years of "watched" data now, so maybe I should spend some time flagging stuff "don't like" and seeing if I can make it a bit smarter.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Dargason

Well, the heuristic it uses didn't seem to work very well to me... it was almost entirely based on show category and who the actors were and not much else. As a result, it would decide that since I watch Family Guy, Simpsons, Stargate SG1, and Merlin that I will also like My Little Pony. Or that because I watch the Office, that I will also like every other sitcom ever made.

In retrospect I realized that there really isn't much to go on in the basic metadata, so I gave up (perhaps too soon). But it could be made much better using crowdsharing methods like what netflix uses... and it would be awesome because then I wouldn't have to monitor the epg for upcoming new shows. It would know that because I liked Battlestar Galactica, I'd probably be interested in Caprica, for example.

The biggest problem with IR is that initially it's not very accurate and, as you stated, records everything under the sun that remotely matches what you've watched. My experience is that after about a month of training it works MUCH better. What I did was monitor the upcoming recordings on a daily basis and mark all the shows I wasn't interested in as "Don't Like". I was also very careful to make sure that all shows marked Don't Like were also not marked as "Watched".

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The biggest problem with IR is that initially it's not very accurate and, as you stated, records everything under the sun that remotely matches what you've watched. My experience is that after about a month of training it works MUCH better. What I did was monitor the upcoming recordings on a daily basis and mark all the shows I wasn't interested in as "Don't Like". I was also very careful to make sure that all shows marked Don't Like were also not marked as "Watched".

I believe I've used the intelligent suggestions plugin to do something similar. Look through it for things I don't like and flag them appropriately.

[Dargason]

Yes. I plan to comb through the intelligent suggestions and "watch" things I've already seen (old sitcoms and such) and "don't like" things I don't like. The web interface is great for this.

I'll do this for a few weeks and hopefully it'll get smarter. Thanks!

[simonen]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The biggest problem with IR is that initially it's not very accurate and, as you stated, records everything under the sun that remotely matches what you've watched. My experience is that after about a month of training it works MUCH better.

Seems to me like you were the intelligence behind the IR feature.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by simonen

Seems to me like you were the intelligence behind the IR feature.

Just the teacher

[drewg]

Originally Posted by Dargason

But do any of them distinguish between first run and re-run in the favorites? And do any of them remember what I've watched?

From memory, MythTV does both those things. I always thought the MythTV recording engine / scheduler was much more robust than SageTV's, since it would actually let you see the stuff it had considered recording but rejected.

One handy example is that with SageTV, I've had to omit the "first run" designation from This Old House, since new episodes are often delayed for months by the local PBS station's "festival" fundraising & that tends to be long enough for SageTV to no longer call them "first runs". With Mythtv, I could see these delayed being rejected because they were not "first runs", and it was easy to override.

Bare in mind that I haven't used MythTV since coming to Sage years ago, so it might not be that flexible any longer.

Drew

[jerryt]

Really cool option which I discovered today.

Remote potato addin
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/....php?f=9&t=523

This add in allows you to share the Windows Media Center Guide with other computers on your network.

If the "Local" computer can tune the channel in the guide, then WMC tunes that channel. If the program is in the future it set the program to be recorded by WMC on the Server (Not the local or client computer). Since my ATSC tuners are HDhomerun, it tunes all those channel for live tv as if the tuner were local.

Here is the best part. I have DVBlogic installed and it also allows live TV as if those tuners were local.

Very sweet

[texneus]

Was curious if anyone has given JRiver Media Center 17 a look? I know I looked at this in the past when I moved from WMC to SageTV, but back then it lacked any sort of TV functionality. Looks like they have added some sort of DVR functionality a rev or two back, but they're pretty quiet about it on the home page, saying only "You can use the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) to watch live TV or to record or subscribe to your favorite programs."

Glancing through their forums, they appear to have HDPVR and Colossus working, but maybe in a beta state, and it appears adding DVR/PVR functionality is their priority for the short term. Just wondering if anyone knows how far this feature has come???