What customisation do you suggest?

[voicu_n]

Hi everyone,

Due to some personal reasons I did not used my Sage in the last two years and did not got a chance to stop by here anymore...
I was sad to find out that Sage stopped existing the way I knew it before, but I wish them all the best in the exciting new challenges at Google.

So now that I am back I just set up my HTPC, and I upgraded to latest Sage7, which I must say it looks great .
I am about to install my HD200 in the other room.

I decided to write since I saw a lot of customizations got released (they were highly expected last time I was around). I am glad to see MyMovies out, Phoenix out and the new one I did not hear about before, but looking great Diamond. They all look amazing, so I just want to say great job and big thanks to all developers for their hard work!

Now my dilemma is which way to go... do you guys have any suggestions, which one is easier to set up, more stable, with easy/accessible artwork and still supported?

Looking forward to your suggestions.
Thank you!
Voicu.

[nyplayer]

I use the Default but use these Plugins.

ADM - Another Dynamic Menu
Automatic Aspect Ratio Mode Switcher
Batch Metadata Tools
MBDiamond theme
Blue Two (addon for MBDiamond)
Comskip Playback
CVF- Custom Video Folder
Google Weather
Jetty Web Server
MiniGuide
Multi Function Stop
No Default Action in Main Menu
One Time Favorite
Recently Watched
SJQ
SageTV Web Interface
Signal Strength on OSD


BTW Thanks to everyone that has made the above plugins possible.

[darcilicious]

I like Diamond + Batch Media Tools. A lot.

Can't live without:
SageTV Web Interface
SageTV Mobile Web Interface
SRE (Sage Recording Extender for live sports)
Multi-Function Stop
Save EPG channel selection on Exit (if you have 100s of channels, this is very nice)

Worth exploring/trying:
Enable/Disable Favorites
Intelligent Suggestions (if you're not using Intelligent Recordings)
Ortus Trailers (if you're a movie trailers freak )

[graywolf]

Diamond +
SJQ
BMT
AMD
Comskip playback
Sage TV Web Interface
No default action

[Fluffdaddy]

Default Sage7

Comskip playback

[crusing]

Diamond
BMT
Comskip

These are the must haves in my opinion. Phoenix is very cool, but incomplete as a full UI replacement.

Had to edit my post to add Automatic Aspect Ratio Mode Switcher, this works so well I forgot how much I depend on it now.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by crusing

Diamond..
Phoenix is very cool, but incomplete as a full UI replacement.

I noticed alot of people voting Diamond.

Can you expound on that and what you think is missing in Phoenix? (I haven't tried either of them.)

[rnadeau]

I like Pheonix best but I can't use the incontrol plugin, the playon plugin, the multispeed ff an rewind. I use Diamond because it supports all the plugins I prefer but if Pheonix allowed the use of these plugins I would switch in a heartbeat because it has a beautiful UI.

[pjpjpjpj]

I prefer the default STV with ADM, because it allows me to make all the menus contain exactly what I want, without having to do any programming of any sort. Plus I like customizing the backgrounds on every screen with my own personal pics.

Purely personal tastes, but I don't like the font in Diamond.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

Can you expound on that and what you think is missing in Phoenix? (I haven't tried either of them.)

Perhaps this has changed but Phoenix didn't support Online stuff like Playon (Netflix, Hulu) natively when I looked at it. With Diamond I am able to set up customized menus for both TV (with All Recordings and Kids TV as the two submenu items) and Movies (wall view with two submenus one for Kids and one for other movies) and have Netflix content be seemlessly integrated into Recorded TV and ripped content.

I moved from SageMC and I initially used SageMC w Sage7 until the newer UIs came out and settled down a wee bit. Now that I have used Diamond I don't want to change as that will cause issues with the WAF/FAF.

It took a while to get used to the new paradigm of having shows organized by metadata rather than by folder and this forces you to have proper metadata for all files. This generally isn't an issue with recorded TV but it is an issue with files ripped from DVDs or obtained from other sources - I have movies/shows recorded in the past by WinMC, BeyondTV and TiVo.

And the other plugins that are very useful are: SRE, SJQ, SageAlert, BMT, Sage Web, Sage Mobile Web, TiSageTV,

[asd]

I use Diamond and BMT. Like Wayne says, though, it takes getting used to metadata running on its own, rather than me stuffing folders. I took awhile to learn patience and let the fanart and data show up "magically." Playon integrates beautifully too.

[Dargason]

I use primarily:

Phoenix
BMT
Sage Web Server
Commercial Detector

I like Phoenix for the customizability. I've streamlined the menus considerably to simplify operation, and created new views (like partially watched movies, which I use a lot) to suit my purposes. I think it's also quite a bit faster on my HD200 than Diamond was when I tried it.

At first, I was concerned that I'd miss the UI plugins, but that hasn't really been an issue, as most of the ones I want are integrated into phoenix.

There are a few minor issues I have, but my understanding is that most of them are or will be resolved in the next release. I think this includes the online videos / playon integration. My main concern is that the developers are losing steam on this project...

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Dargason

My main concern is that the developers are losing steam on this project...

Unfotunately that has been the case with prretty much every plugin. I may be wrong but has Ortus ever been released other than screenshots? And there hasn't been much done in Diamond in about a year, except for some changes required for the new weather feed. Slugger's plugins have moved into maintenance mode, ...

[jorton]

Originally Posted by wayner

And there hasn't been much done in Diamond in about a year, except for some changes required for the new weather feed.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58277

[wayner]

I am very glad to stand corrected! Thanks for posting that Jeremy and I look forward to Gemstone.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by wayner

Unfotunately that has been the case with prretty much every plugin. I may be wrong but has Ortus ever been released other than screenshots? And there hasn't been much done in Diamond in about a year, except for some changes required for the new weather feed. Slugger's plugins have moved into maintenance mode, ...

Well, Ortus has been in private beta for a long, long time. I've been using it for well over a year, and it is awesome. Jeff and Ben are still slowly working on it, but they haven't updated things in a while. It's very VERY nice so once they decide to release the public beta you guys will have something new to play with.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by jorton

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58277

Well, that was fast.

[voicu_n]

Wow, great input everyone. Thank you very much!
Since my HTPC was so outdated, I decided to set up ESXi and and reinstall Win on an VM. I am then going to play with Sage, assuming I get all my hardware are playing nice virtual...


Thanks again,
Voicu.