Stay or Bail ?

[Savage1701]

That's an interesting notion.

I'm assuming you mean they will buy wholesale bandwidth from ISP's such as telco's and cable co.'s?

If you mean a total buildout of Google hardware, wow. U-Verse rollout is slipping and depending on who you read, Verizon is done with FIOS or going so slowly it does not matter.

The weirdest thing to me is, you can buy a Sony with GTV anywhere, but you can't necessarily use the GTV portion of it without hi-speed internet.

The oddness of making this all work is that short of a national ISP equivalent of the TVA of the 1930's, how are you going to get data rates and QoS and prices where there is enough critical mass for the studios to take the risks with content, people to have enough high-quality bandwidth and speed and such, and then have the appliance converge?

If you think of Satellite TV, it's sort of like 1-way the one-way version of GTV or any of these guys. But when you see the decades Dish and DirecTV spent launching satellites to basically cover the ENTIRE continental US and then other areas, adding channels, fighting fierce legal battles for content, and then getting their hardware to HD level, it's pretty daunting.

I remember watching a demo of a first generation DirecTV receiver in a department store. The picture was awful. Macroblocked, noisy and grainy. But it caught on because so few, even in modest cities, had decent cable and because EVERYONE got the same "bandwidth" who subscribed to DirecTV, so DirecTV and then Dish could control quality and such, let alone availability.

Personally, I doubt Wall Street cares to wait for Google to build out to that degree, and I doubt Google has the expertise to do a national rollout, if I am reading you correctly, of what they are intending to do with controlling the "pipe". Maybe to ultra-high-density areas like major metropolitan areas.

Interesting notions on your part. If they could capture the bandwidth the rest would be easy.

[pjwerdna]

Originally Posted by Narflex

And for those complaining about lack of tech support...I'm not sure what you're complaining about...we still offer support for SageTV like we always did. Just click on the link on the forums home page and it'll get you to the page in our site that still works for requesting support.

In my experience SageTV tech support works as well as normal. i.e. Fill in the support webpage and click to send it off...
...
and when you get fed up of waiting for any reply, you post the issue on this forum and if its a known problem someone will assist. If its a new issue then your in trouble! (Well OK , my support reply rate is actually about 50%)

This is why my answer to the poll has to be "bail as soon as practical". As my HD300 now spends about 3 minutes at the "Loading..." progress bar. (Two weeks ago it was about 2 minutes so its getting worse!) I suspect Ill be replacing the extender real soon, probably with a small PC as I happen to have a client licence Im not using.

Of course, once the client is a PC I will start looking at replacing the SageTV software with something thats being actively developed.
Google may be doing something with SageTV, but I doubt well see anything for at least a year and I doubt it wil be compatible with any of our existing kit

[scoful]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

That's an interesting notion.

I'm assuming you mean they will buy wholesale bandwidth from ISP's such as telco's and cable co.'s?

If you mean a total buildout of Google hardware, wow. U-Verse rollout is slipping and depending on who you read, Verizon is done with FIOS or going so slowly it does not matter.

Personally, I doubt Wall Street cares to wait for Google to build out to that degree, and I doubt Google has the expertise to do a national rollout, if I am reading you correctly, of what they are intending to do with controlling the "pipe". Maybe to ultra-high-density areas like major metropolitan areas.

Interesting notions on your part. If they could capture the bandwidth the rest would be easy.

Google IS rolling it out in my area (although I'm not quite close enough - yet):

http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascity/index.html

It would be interesting if AT&T was embedding U-Verse into new TV's (at least as an option). I would expect at some point sooner than later TV's will have a customizable firmware - flash it with U-Verse, GTV or whatever. Of course they'll all argue about how to go about it...

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by scoful

Google IS rolling it out in my area (although I'm not quite close enough - yet):

http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascity/index.html

It would be interesting if AT&T was embedding U-Verse into new TV's (at least as an option). I would expect at some point sooner than later TV's will have a customizable firmware - flash it with U-Verse, GTV or whatever. Of course they'll all argue about how to go about it...

LOL, that means in my area I should have it in 10-15+ years !

My brother-in-law works for AT&T as a tech for about 10+ years now. He has watched DSL and then U-Verse deployment slow to a crawl. DSL is worthless in a lot of neighborhoods not only due to distance limits, but because each home now must have 2 good pairs, and their are not enough spares on a lot of the pedestals for that.

The copper is so old and leaky (he literally is guaranteed overtime every single time it thunderstorms) it can't take the DSL specs, and the municipalities, content providers, and cable companies and FCC and such have hamstrung U-Verse so much that it's barely worth the hassle to deploy it.

For example, we live right on the WI. & IL border. Rockford, IL wants to claim us as their own, but so does Beloit, WI. Each one has different football markets and such. Net result - no DSL in the interim, and no U-Verse either, because they can't make up their mind whose market we and several other communities beside us should be on.

Throw in disincentives from the FCC and cable company whining, and we have no real alternative to cable modems. At least we don't have throttling or caps yet, although those are in place in communities very close by.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

LOL, that means in my area I should have it in 10-15+ years !

I suppose that all depends on how lucrative it all proves (or disproves) to be. I live in a relatively small community about 20 miles from Kansas City. I guess I've been spoiled here. High speed cable has been here for a long time - the cable company here was pretty early in adopting it. Many of my neighbors have U-Verse and are very happy with it. Cable has a GB cap for some plans but the one I'm on is unlimited. The sacrifice for unlimited is variable speed. It's up to 50Mb but it's usually at about 12Mb. I've never had any issues with any streaming content. I don't think U-Verse has any data caps and I think I clocked my neighbor's at about 10Mb. It's only available here in certain areas - mostly newer construction.

We also have wireless service that is currently undergoing a major upgrade. I clocked it at an apartment complex and it had 8Mb upload speed and download of almost 20Mb.

Google's project is supposed to be 1 Gb symmetrical I believe. It is supposed to be a pay service that is competitive with Cable and DSL (although I'm not sure if they're thinking that if you get ten times the speed for ten times the cost its 'comparable'?).

I think it's pretty clear that data isn't the future - it's the present. It's really just a question of who gets the next wave of market share first. It really should be cellular services, but they seem to be pretty bogged down (or just missing the boat?). Won't be too far in the future and your cell phone will be your primary telephone, television and your computer that you just dock at work (or home).

[Savage1701]

Yeah, you are fortunate where you live. Enjoy !

[simfreak]

I just got word back from someone with contacts inside google (its good to be in the SiV);
Anyway, most rumors are true; Google bought Sage for the IP in its PVR technology; They are already starting to port it into the next version of google TV.
Google has no plans to do anything with sage and will let it die after the 1 year period.
They are also not considering selling any more licenses at this point or giving it away.

So sagetv is (unofficially) officially dead at this point.

I started to look at myth, but they need to get VAPPI before i can move over to that; Im also going to miss place shifting which came in handy for watching my NFL games while sitting in a bar in St. Petersburg Russia at 2AM);

I'm probably going to hold on to sage until myth gets the above in place; Maybe check out beyond (even though its dead too) since i have about 2 more clients that are literally not doing anything now because of lack of licenses.

[IVB]

Take it back, take it back! You meanie!

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by simfreak

I just got word back from someone with contacts inside google (its good to be in the SiV);
Anyway, most rumors are true; Google bought Sage for the IP in its PVR technology; They are already starting to port it into the next version of google TV.
Google has no plans to do anything with sage and will let it die after the 1 year period.
They are also not considering selling any more licenses at this point or giving it away.

So sagetv is (unofficially) officially dead at this point.

I started to look at myth, but they need to get VAPPI before i can move over to that; Im also going to miss place shifting which came in handy for watching my NFL games while sitting in a bar in St. Petersburg Russia at 2AM);

I'm probably going to hold on to sage until myth gets the above in place; Maybe check out beyond (even though its dead too) since i have about 2 more clients that are literally not doing anything now because of lack of licenses.

My contact in google would like your contact(s) name. They want to have a little talk...

[doncote0]

Google has no plans to do anything with sage and will let it die after the 1 year period.

Wow. All of that from your 16th post in 3 years.

Sorry, but that doesn't make a lot of sense from a business perspective. Think about it, you can alienate and make enemies of thousands of customers, or you can provide them an upgrade path to an "improved" product and have thousands of satisfied customers.

Since many of us have above average IT skills and speak to many other technical people, that could directly affect how well the technology is adopted. They might get rid of SageTV (and I expect them to), but I also expect that they will phase it out while providing a new vehicle for doing most everything we do now if not more.

When people are forced to adopt a new and incompatible technology without thought to how they would migrate from their current solution, most will not buy the new product. The basic idea is this--if you force me to change 100% then I am more inclined to either choose one of your competitors or to choose to make no changes at all. See BETAMAX for more information.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by simfreak

I'm probably going to hold on to sage until myth gets the above in place; Maybe check out beyond (even though its dead too) since i have about 2 more clients that are literally not doing anything now because of lack of licenses.

Since the client license is not for sale, is it possible to use the 21-day trial clients and roll them back with an image every 21 days forever? Another option might be to clone the SageTV server and set them up only to playback video library recorded content for your clients?

Dave

[tmiranda]

My opinion.

Sage 7 will no longer be developed or sold. GoogleTV2/Sage 8 (or whatever Google calls it) will be very different and users of Sage 7 may or may not get a discount to purchase it.

So my position remains the same. I'll continue to use Sage 7 until it becomes obsolete or no longer meets my needs. After that I'll upgrade to the best option available which hopefully will be whatever Jeff and Google comes out with.

I've looked at a bunch of other things out there and none of them do what Sage does for me today. I see no reason to bail today because (for me) there is nothing to bail from or to.

Tom

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

My opinion.

Sage 7 will no longer be developed or sold. GoogleTV2/Sage 8 (or whatever Google calls it) will be very different and users of Sage 7 may or may not get a discount to purchase it.

So my position remains the same. I'll continue to use Sage 7 until it becomes obsolete or no longer meets my needs. After that I'll upgrade to the best option available which hopefully will be whatever Jeff and Google comes out with.

I've looked at a bunch of other things out there and none of them do what Sage does for me today. I see no reason to bail today because (for me) there is nothing to bail from or to.

Tom

+1. Thanks for saying what us "normies" are thinking.

[speck55]

Originally Posted by simfreak

I just got word back from someone with contacts inside google (its good to be in the SiV);
Anyway, most rumors are true; Google bought Sage for the IP in its PVR technology; They are already starting to port it into the next version of google TV.
Google has no plans to do anything with sage and will let it die after the 1 year period.
They are also not considering selling any more licenses at this point or giving it away.

So sagetv is (unofficially) officially dead at this point.

I started to look at myth, but they need to get VAPPI before i can move over to that; Im also going to miss place shifting which came in handy for watching my NFL games while sitting in a bar in St. Petersburg Russia at 2AM);

I'm probably going to hold on to sage until myth gets the above in place; Maybe check out beyond (even though its dead too) since i have about 2 more clients that are literally not doing anything now because of lack of licenses.

Originally Posted by panteragstk

My contact in google would like your contact(s) name. They want to have a little talk...

Yeah, and while you're at it, could you have your contact at the US Mint send me about $50k in uncut $100's? I doubt anyone is disclosing anything - I certainly wouldn't want to throw down with Google.

I just bought an HD200. It's not like we're back a few years, and on the verge of the switch from NTSC ("analog") to ATSC ("digital") and Sage doesn't have core support. There's no emerging technologies that are unsupported, and there's an almost unprecedented plugin system -- so as long as we can keep the community alive in some fashion, I believe we can make the system last quite a long time. I just hope people like Plucky will stick around as MyMovies is making some serious updates/upgrades (for example, 4.0 and its TV Episode functionalty) and some of these plugins are as valuable as the core system.

I think an alternate "hangout" (forums) may be key to keeping the devs and the remaining userbase united beyond the short term -- surely these forums are not going to stay up forever (few months at most is my highly uneducated guess), so I think I'm going to register a domain and setup vBulletin in the next day or two. I'm not looking to "pull away" traffic from these forums, but have something in place if/when these forums go away. I wish there were an easy way to mirror all the guides, howto's, and community provided answers to questions that come up all the time and people will search for. Anyone care to help copy over pertinent howtos?

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by speck55

Yeah, and while you're at it, could you have your contact at the US Mint send me about $50k in uncut $100's? I doubt anyone is disclosing anything - I certainly wouldn't want to throw down with Google.

I just bought an HD200. It's not like we're back a few years, and on the verge of the switch from NTSC ("analog") to ATSC ("digital") and Sage doesn't have core support. There's no emerging technologies that are unsupported, and there's an almost unprecedented plugin system -- so as long as we can keep the community alive in some fashion, I believe we can make the system last quite a long time. I just hope people like Plucky will stick around as MyMovies is making some serious updates/upgrades (for example, 4.0 and its TV Episode functionalty) and some of these plugins are as valuable as the core system.

I think an alternate "hangout" (forums) may be key to keeping the devs and the remaining userbase united beyond the short term -- surely these forums are not going to stay up forever (few months at most is my highly uneducated guess), so I think I'm going to register a domain and setup vBulletin in the next day or two. I'm not looking to "pull away" traffic from these forums, but have something in place if/when these forums go away. I wish there were an easy way to mirror all the guides, howto's, and community provided answers to questions that come up all the time and people will search for. Anyone care to help copy over pertinent howtos?

I was kidding?

[speck55]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I was kidding?

Panter -

Sorry - I wasn't aiming that at you Sorry if taken that way. It was aimed at the original person who had the guy who had the guy (simfreak) in the "SiV" (presuming Silicon Valley), who had the guy inside Google.

We all have our speculations and opinions (myself included, heavily), and I think a lot of the speculation and rumor is why we are all still here and subscribed to half these threads, and while what he says may well in the end be the reality, I don't think anyone besides Jeff or another actual google employee themselves should be posting things as gospel. I think we all figured out by now that we won't be seeing Sage 7.2, and a number of other fairly lowest-common-denominator inferences, but the whole "they are porting the stuff into GTV as we speak" along with the cabbage patch kid death certificate is a bit much.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by Narflex

(I do understand the other complaints about no client licenses or extenders....and we are still trying to work on potential solutions to those problems)

That's great and all but you really took the deal having no idea what was going to happen here (not already working out "potential solutions to these problems")? I'm guessing that the buyout didn't happen overnight and there was time to figure this stuff out before you dropped the bomb on all of us...

[speck55]

Originally Posted by cncb

That's great and all but you really took the deal having no idea what was going to happen here (not already working out "potential solutions to these problems")? I'm guessing that the buyout didn't happen overnight and there was time to figure this stuff out before you dropped the bomb on all of us...

+1, same form and statement I've made on several posts in several threads on several occassions. Wanted to get told to "move along" if that was their intention. Fell on deaf ears. Every time. Start a thread about wine or bourbon connoisseuring, you may get their attention that way.

But don't expect anything but a good micro-brew recommendation - google has this poor guy so tight lipped, I'm starting to think there were surgical staples involved.

Probably by "working out potential solutions", it may be meant to say working out how to best craft the end-all of posts, roughly "All your base are belong to us, resistance is futile; for we are large corporation now. Good night, and good luck [with that Colossus tuner]".

The terms of the sale were on the signed papers. Nobody on either end of that transaction should be unclear on/"working out" what is to happen, IMHO.

[simfreak]

I too am a sage user, have been sine 08' so its not like i wanted to hear this news, I just have the contacts to find out the truth, it took a few weeks, but today he came back with a answer.

If you dont want to belive me then so be it. I have nothing to gain or lose. I thought i would just post what i found out. At this point im thinking i should have just kept my mouth shut and walked away.

As far as contacts go; sorry they dont want their name plasterd on the forum since they really shouldnt be speaking of the topic to begin with and no; its not really top secret in the company.

As for why google is doing this? simple its all about IP. IP= Intelectual Property; Google has cash and its cheaper to buy then it is to create.

I'm not saying its impossible, anyone can have a change of heart. But the word it right now that SageTv is dead, it's code will be merged with the googletv tree and used to enhance its abilities.

If you want speculation, GoogleTV is being implanted into a set top box for googles FTTH project so they can offer a tripple play service. After all, whats the return on a FTTH connection if all you get is $35/m for it?

Sorry if this post sounds harsh; it wrote both in a hurry. I also didnt run spell check. :P

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by speck55

+1, same form and statement I've made on several posts in several threads on several occassions. Wanted to get told to "move along" if that was their intention. Fell on deaf ears. Every time. Start a thread about wine or bourbon connoisseuring, you may get their attention that way.

But don't expect anything but a good micro-brew recommendation - google has this poor guy so tight lipped, I'm starting to think there were surgical staples involved.

Probably by "working out potential solutions", it may be meant to say working out how to best craft the end-all of posts, roughly "All your base are belong to us, resistance is futile; for we are large corporation now. Good night, and good luck [with that Colossus tuner]".

The terms of the sale were on the signed papers. Nobody on either end of that transaction should be unclear on/"working out" what is to happen, IMHO.

No kidding on that one. I doubt anyone above the custodian at Google takes a leak without checking with the legal department first. And I doubt anyone on the Sage end was going to torpedo a sale to satisfy us on clients and extenders...