Alternative but questions..

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I find it surprising that so many people are willing to go from Sage to a closed system like WMC or their cable/satellite provider's solution. I can't even consider that because of:

1. Lack of storage expandability
2. DRM
3. Lack of control over reliability (backups, RAID, hardware choices, etc.)

You can have several hard drives in a WMC system, though it is pretty annoying it will only record to a single folder. You could always move recordings to archive them, or record to a RAID.

If DRM is really that troubling to you, you could continue using HD-PVRs. Or, if you're willing to tolerate a little DRM (and your cable provider is comcast or FiOS), you could still use a cablecard tuner knowing that only copy protected channels will record to DRM protected files.

[rrhorer]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

AFAIK the recorded TV files with DRM are related to the product ID of the pc (I may be thinking of something else) so even if the product key is the same, whenever you activate windows the product id changes.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't really know the answer; but years ago, I used WMC (xp version) for a short time before upgrading to SageTV. As I recall, I experienced this problem at one point (motherboard crash, upgrade -- don't remember for sure) and; there was a complicated software fix to account for the product id change. I believe that I finally recovered from the change; but it was a big PITA. The whole system seemed confused and it affected not just the old recordings but I believe new recordings as well. So, I see DRM as workable until it doesn't; and I doubt that DRM will ever be trouble free over an extended period, being susceptible to either/both hardware and software changes.

[reggie14]

Out of curiosity, is there a good way to import SageTV recordings into Media Center and keep at least some of the metadata?

[reggie14]

Ceton is accepting applications for their Echo extender beta. However, Engadget is reporting that Ceton may not even inform people selected for the beta until July 15. So, we've got a while before that's going to be available at retail.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Out of curiosity, is there a good way to import SageTV recordings into Media Center and keep at least some of the metadata?

I don't know that there is anything current but you can rename all of your SageTV files to have S&E numbers and presumably MC should be smart enough to assign metadata to them.

[wayner]

Except that you never know when/if Netflix will lose streaming rights to Pirates of the Caribbean.

My kids like using Netflix and the kids' shows collection on Netflix is very good. But try to explain to a 5 year old why they can no longer find Go Diego, Go! on Netflix? This isn't just a hypothetical issue as on Feb 29 Netflix lost the streaming rights to over 1000 movies as there contract with Starz! expired.

[pat_smith1969]

Moved to Hopper, figured I would do a short report on how well it compares to Sage.

While I am generally happy with my choice to move to Dish, leaving SageTV is a sad thing for me. Sage did everything I wanted it to except On Demand. In the end the issues with the Fios STBs just drove me to the brink of sanity. This was not Sage's fault, but the overall experience was degraded because of the STBs.

Now that I have been on the Hopper for a few days i can say I am generally happy. i can record up to 3 tings at a time (I could add another Hopper if I wished I think). All content is centerally located and can be streamed to any "extender" (called a Joey). I can stream from BlockBuster Online, they say they are adding Hulu soon too. With the $30 sling adapter I can watch my DVR stuff on my phone/ipad/laptop/any other thing I want. This works pretty darned well over 3g too (once I turned off HD resolution).

I can watch all my home video and ripped DVDs, but this required setting up a TVersity transcoder PC. It works OK but not as well as Sage did in this department.

Hopper is not without it's bugs. They are releasing updates about every week to fix the myriad of bugs. Some features are currently turned off (like Hulu). But I think in the long run it will get there and be a viable alternative to Sage.

[pat_smith1969]

Originally Posted by wayner

Except that you never know when/if Netflix will lose streaming rights to Pirates of the Caribbean.

My kids like using Netflix and the kids' shows collection on Netflix is very good. But try to explain to a 5 year old why they can no longer find Go Diego, Go! on Netflix? This isn't just a hypothetical issue as on Feb 29 Netflix lost the streaming rights to over 1000 movies as there contract with Starz! expired.

VERY good point.

I think we have a bit of a ways to go to get to where the consumers want to be.. but like the Music industry.. the movie industry will have to realise that they must provide there content for people, for a small charge, over the internet. They will find a way to make a profit with the Online streaming. If they don't people will just continue to download it illeagally.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by pat_smith1969

3. The lack of control may be a good thing. If something dies it is not my problem to troubleshoot it until 2 am (did this a couple times with Sage). Dish will just ship me a replacement. Also due to the fact that I have a NAS with my DRM free shows on it too... I can still manage my redundancey for stuff I care about.

Yeah...that replacement when things break SOUNDS like a great idea until you have to actually do it. I had dish back when the first HD-DVR came out. It was pretty fantastic for the time. In two years we had at least 8 replaced boxes because the hard drive would die or something else would happen. Sure, you can record your missing shows, but having no box for a week really sucks. The fact that the last time it happened we asked to be upgraded to the new hd-dvr and they told us we had to pay $200 and sign a contract. They lost my business for good when they did that. I was an early adopter for their HD-DVR. You are an early adopter for the Hopper system. Let's hope you don't have the same experience I did.

[pat_smith1969]

That sounds like a terrible experience. Thus far the customer support has been great.. of course I have just had some tech questions.. nothing broken. I do fear for that 2t drive in the hopper.. it gets kind of hot in my entertainment center.

I think that Sage is still superior (by a good margin) to the hopper so far. Most of my issues are UI related, things like the stupid way they list recorded shows (they dont group them by show but just dump them into a folder). And a few other things.

For ME the win with hopper is I am no longer a verizion customer and I dont have set top boxes anymore. Both myself and my wife miss Sage, just not verizion.

[PiX64]

Not sure if u all know is or not but I just got word from my buddy that dish has rolled out something called auto hop which is commercial skip!

I don't know any of the details or restrictions other than they have it :-)

[PiX64]

As expected .... Restrictions but cool nonetheless

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...ls-easier.html

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Not sure if u all know is or not but I just got word from my buddy that dish has rolled out something called auto hop which is commercial skip!

I'm not sure rolling out commercial skip to the mass market is a great idea. The networks and Dish Network need to get their revenue from somewhere, and if nobody's watching the commercials, won't they have to raise prices to get their revenue? Since Sage has been such a niche market, comskip probably never (noticeably) cut into anyone's profits, and likely flew under the radar. I guess another way to look at it is the poor slobs that have had to suffer watching commercials have been subsidizing those of us that have been able to skip the commercials.

Either that, or the networks will start looking for ways to defeat auto hop from working on their shows. Maybe stealth commercials???

[drewg]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

I'm not sure rolling out commercial skip to the mass market is a great idea. The networks and Dish Network need to get their revenue from somewhere, and if nobody's watching the commercials, won't they have to raise prices to get their revenue?
<...>
Either that, or the networks will start looking for ways to defeat auto hop from working on their shows. Maybe stealth commercials???

Given how they do it (only locals in primetime, cutpoints only available after primetime), I'll bet it is some sort of "mechanical turk" type project, where they are paying people to cut the commercials (or looking at users' 30-second skip patterns). Eg, I doubt they are using comskip.exe.. So other than subliminal ads that last only a frame or so, it is not clear how they can defeat this.

I'm actually wondering if this might be a bargaining chip for the next round of negotiations with the networks. They can say to the broadcaster "if you reduce your rates, we'll make your channel immune from comskip". Kinda like an old fashioned protection racket..

Drew

[pzukowski]

All,

I also migrated from Sage to Hopper/Joey's and wanted to share some thoughts. First - nothing available on the market today will replace the Sage experience and it is a shame that Google killed the project and did not let it continue as open source or something to that effect. Anyway, here is my setup:

1 Hopper
3 Joey's
1 Synology NAS server to serve (through dlna) 2TB worth of ripped content that I had from the Sage days.

My biggest issue is with the dlna part. I have to say that the entire dlna effort is terrible and the whole consortium should be eliminated as it is worthless! There is a lot they could learn from how Sage presented content from a file server with thumbnails and a beautiful UI - hopper/joeys and all the other dlna TV's and boxes I have show it in menus that look like they were coded in the 80's - it is a terrible experience. This is not a way to access digital media content and unfortunately we are stuck with it.

Now to the streaming part - 70% of my files do not stream at all through any of my dlna clients including the hooper/joeys. 1080p MP4 content is jerky and most of the mpeg2 stuff is unplayable - I don't get it because the hooper/joeys have to have a decent mpeg decoder to show the content from the hopper's hard drive. Anyway - I miss Sage!

By the way, you do not need the MOCA HIC from Dish if you connect the hooper and joeys via thernet. The system seems to work well without the HIC.