Stay or Bail ?

[martin]

I went to web.archive.org to see what promises were made about the free EPG service, and here is the fine print at the bottom of the page from Dec 2009:

**Currently, SageTV provides electronic programming guide service (the "EPG Service") to End Users in the U.S. and Canada at no charge. SageTV reserves the right to discontinue provision of the EPG Service or to separately charge End Users for provision of the EPG Service.

Looks like Google isn't doing anything dishonest, but it's still annoying.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by martin

I went to web.archive.org to see what promises were made about the free EPG service, and here is the fine print at the bottom of the page from Dec 2009:



Looks like Google isn't doing anything dishonest, but it's still annoying.

Even if you DID feel cutting off the EPG was dishonest/immoral/unethical/whatever.. they have not done so, and have NOT said that they would.

[martin]

I haven't been on these forums for over a year because my SageTV has been working great. Last week my SageTV stopped working because my cable amplifier failed, so I came here to share my experience only to be surprised to find the website closed.

It felt like having a door slammed in your face; it's not unethical, it just feels rude.

I'm aware no computer server system can be expected to run indefinitely, including SageTV. I realize it requires periodic maintenance, and in fact I have had the same box running since 2006. That's longer than any commercial PVR I know of; friends and family that bought Motorola PVRs at that time have had to replace them already.

It's disappointing to know they are ending support. It's a great product and I would love to see it keep working for another five years, and I hope I can do that without a lot of effort. I'm worried they will shut down these forums before I figure that out.


.

[wayner]

People really have to stop worrying about replacing the guide data as that will be fairly simple to do and will be the least of our worries.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by wayner

Failing that then perhaps XBMC... Moving to something that is alive and vibrant, like XBMC....

It sounds like the XMBC team is working on a TV component, but I don't know if the deveopment version is available: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=106118

[whobday]

I'll likely be moving to Media Portal 2 when the time comes if the deliver what they are promising. It's currently approaching alpha, but it's looking to have most of the functionality of SageTV and then some. Add to that it's opensource and there is a large team of developers working it. More info here: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/2_MEDIAPORTAL_2

[Localhorst]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

• The demo is so crippled that a meaningful evaluation is not possible.
  Among other things, the demo does not allow any recording at all - which seems to me tb the heart and soul of such an application
  [br]
  
• As far as I could determine, there was no provision for OTA - or at least it's scan of my four HD HomeRun tuners only listed "Cable" for each one.
  Could OTA be obsolete in Europe?

Or am I missing something?

Hi there, over the air is quite popular outside us of a, also in europe. If your HD homerun is detected as cable box, the device is listed as such thing in your system. Cable and Terrestrial is (according to the VHF/UHF frequencies) equal - the rest (modulation for instance is only required for cable) should be handled by the driver - if this one tries to present the adapter as cable i'm quite sure that it will behave like a cable adapter.
Concerning the lack of recording abilities: I don't think it is really necessary to be inside the demoversion. If the demo is able to show a signal, the regular version will run fine as well. In my case i have 4 dvb-s devices connected to my pc and 2 dvb-t sticks plugged in. They all run fine without any problems parallel inside the DVBViewer. Anyway compared to the satellites i receive (with ~3000 channels) the ammount of 8 terrestrial channels is quite uninteresting in germany..

Cheers
Horst

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Localhorst

...inside the DVBViewer....

I'm feeling a little stupid right now - having just noted that the price of DBVViewer is only about $15 USD....

Seems like a no-brainer to just pop for the $15 and have a look.

Also, XMBC looks to me like it has possibilities: it runs *really* fast on my PC.

[speck55]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

I'm feeling a little stupid right now - having just noted that the price of DBVViewer is only about $15 USD....

Seems like a no-brainer to just pop for the $15 and have a look.

Also, XMBC looks to me like it has possibilities: it runs *really* fast on my PC.

I use XBMC on a couple of Mac Minis purely as a uPNP client for play on that is normally used for my Sage setup. (You know, where there were supposed to be HD300's but there won't be now.). It is a very slick product. If there were streaming ("extender mode" as in a client/server setup), a MyMovies integration, and a TV/PVR functionality, it would be perfect. I think they are starting to look at/work on the TV portion. I am not familiar enough with XBMC to know if there is a plugin system that we could easily add that depth of functionality.

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by whobday

I'll likely be moving to Media Portal 2 when the time comes if the deliver what they are promising. It's currently approaching alpha, but it's looking to have most of the functionality of SageTV and then some. Add to that it's opensource and there is a large team of developers working it. More info here: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/2_MEDIAPORTAL_2

I tried that alpha about 3 years ago, fwiw. "Alpha" would have been charitable back then. Pre-heiroglyphic symbols would have been more accurate in respect to their state of development.

I'm figuring about another 12-18 months for a beta of MP2, and 24-30 months for a quasi-stable release.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by speck55

I use XBMC on a couple of Mac Minis

Have you ever put a power meter on the Minis?

Specs say something like "Up to 89 watts...." but that seems excessive for something that small/quiet.

I'm wondering how they stack up against the 5-6 watts that HD200/300's draw.

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by wayner

People really have to stop worrying about replacing the guide data as that will be fairly simple to do and will be the least of our worries.

Those of us outside the US never did have the guide data in the first place & as there are several methods for populating the guide that work extremely well the loss of the EPG data need be no worry for anyone.

[hockeyfan]

Regarding this whole purchase deal, I (like many others) am not happy with it. I'm glad they gave me a heads up. It gives me 10 months to replace it. I'm already spec'ing out 4 replacement mythtv front ends to use in our house (hard to compete against a fanless client). Overall I'm not upset about going to Sage. It's a great product, love the Sageclient! But, things happen. They probably did the right thing and a lot of new, future, users will benefit. However, towards the MythTV frontier I go...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by hockeyfan

Regarding this whole purchase deal, I (like many others) am not happy with it. I'm glad they gave me a heads up. It gives me 10 months to replace it. I'm already spec'ing out 4 replacement mythtv front ends to use in our house (hard to compete against a fanless client). Overall I'm not upset about going to Sage. It's a great product, love the Sageclient! But, things happen. They probably did the right thing and a lot of new, future, users will benefit. However, towards the MythTV frontier I go...

In your move plans though, have you considered what MythTV will offer you over your existing SageTV system? I, for one, see it as a step down, and as such, have no reason to go there.

[hockeyfan]

Well your saying Sage today vs Myth today. I would be interested in what your argument would be in 1.5 years. And with that logic, why would I stay with something obsolete? Really I wouldn't. Like I said, I love Sage, but I am not going to wait around for the light switch to be turned off. I don't want to be the person stocking up for the up coming crises either. There are too many unknowns that are outside of Sage itself.

This is not what I wanted to do, but more of a reasonable desicion based on the facts presented in front of me.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by hockeyfan

Well your saying Sage today vs Myth today. I would be interested in what your argument would be in 1.5 years. And with that logic, why would I stay with something obsolete? Really I wouldn't. Like I said, I love Sage, but I am not going to wait around for the light switch to be turned off. I don't want to be the person stocking up for the up coming crises either. There are too many unknowns that are outside of Sage itself.

This is not what I wanted to do, but more of a reasonable desicion based on the facts presented in front of me.

1.5 years from now, for me, sage will still be at least what it is today. Who knows if Myth will be something better then, but in my opinion it is not today. SageTV is only obsolete if something better makes it obsolete. The only 'light switch' there might be is the sage EPG server shutting down, but there are alternatives to that in place (and have been in place for most of sage's existence, as the EPG data is only provided for US and Canada). Even so, it may be that they don't shut off the EPG data for 5 years. That has not been said yet. They HAVE said it will be it for at least a year.

[MCE-Refugee]

I have tried almost every other computer based PVR available over the last 10 years & only SageTV provides Viewing & Recording TV & Hardware Extenders & Software Extenders & runs on Windows, Linux & Mac. I don't believe that there is any other software that provides this combination. There are applications that play back media very well (XBMC, Boxee, Plex etc) some of them work better than SageTV in this respect. There are hardware extenders that play Live TV e.g. Xbox 360 for MCE. There are software extenders (Clients) that play Live TV e.g. DVBViewer has a neat client/server implementation. SageTV is the only application that does it all & was perfect for my uses.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by hockeyfan

I'm already spec'ing out 4 replacement mythtv front ends to use in our house (hard to compete against a fanless client).

What have you come up with so far client-hardware-wise? Something like this: http://tinyurl.com/3b244zr ?

Do you have experience with Myth? Before finding out about SageTV, I fooled around with MythTV for several months and never managed to get it working reliably. Others love it and report no problems. For me it was like a part-time job. I suspect most of my problems were security-related.

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by hockeyfan

Well your saying Sage today vs Myth today. I would be interested in what your argument would be in 1.5 years. And with that logic, why would I stay with something obsolete? Really I wouldn't. Like I said, I love Sage, but I am not going to wait around for the light switch to be turned off. I don't want to be the person stocking up for the up coming crises either. There are too many unknowns that are outside of Sage itself.

This is not what I wanted to do, but more of a reasonable desicion based on the facts presented in front of me.

in 1.5 years, will myth actually be any better than Sage currently is today? will they have real hardware extenders?

since when did Sage magically become obsolete? when did this happen? why doesn't anyone tell me about these things?

so, if Sage is obsolete, that means there is something better out there right now... any chance someone will tell me what it is? I actually am eager to jump ship, but so far it looks like if I jump ship the only option is to drown in the sea of mediocre, at best, Sage replacements?

my take on what is currently available:
DVBViewer - not an option for me
MCE - so crippled as to be useless
BTV - dead
MediaPortal - looks like if they ever finished it it could be great someday... (note this is pretty much the same opinion I had when I looked at MP last... like 5-10 years ago when I was looking for a myHTPC replacement... when was myHTPC last active?) will MP ever be finished? will they ever release something that isn't still under construction? seems they just like to add new stuff without ever actually finishing the old stuff... is MP the Duke Nukem Forever of PVR's?
nPVR - maybe someday... has possibilities... needs up to date (preferably purpose built for nPVR) hardware extenders...
JRiver - don't think they are doing much in the PVR realm, but they could be great... they came out with their own music extender, hopefully that's going good for them, maybe they can come out with a good video extender and a PVR back end?
mythTV - my brain explodes every time I think of trying to setup myth... no hardware extenders...
xbmc - (see MP, just not quite as bad)

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

...BTV - dead...

Was BeyondTV the one that phoned home every time it was started to authenticate the application license - and which application could not be run if the authentication server was down or the user's internet connection was down?

Was it also the one that created it's recording files with a proprietary suffix?

I'm pretty sure I demo'd a product that was guilty on both counts...