Google Fiber

[Brent]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Man, sounds like Google made a mistake picking KC People in my neighborhood have been dropping the big (crappy) cable company and satellite like a bad habit when the small, local "cable" company rolled FTTH into our area. I talked to the installer and he said they were doing 3-4 installs a day.

People around here really hate the "big" cable company and would switch to just about anything else given the opportunity. I can't imagine how big Google fiber would be if it were rolled out here.

From what you say I wouldn't be surprised if despite the metro area here being significantly smaller than the KC's metros, if we would actually have had more people sign up.

Too bad the FTTH isn't really being utilized yet, they're still just offering their regular "cable" services, just over fiber so far....

Um nice try but no
What I showed you above was just one tiny piece of the pie. I live in a fiberhood (see what I just did there?) that is probably 85-90% rentals so that pulls it down a bit I'm guessing. Remember that Google is focusing on urban areas of Kansas City - some (not all) with much lower income bases than the suburbs so that skews the early numbers. I was told they actually expected the numbers in the first rollout to be lower than they are today and I think that was intentional to give them time to test on us guinea pigs. here's the top several fiberhoods that are anywhere from 23 - 36% registered already.


You know one of the funny things about all of this is how little people understand how good the TV part of this thing is. I have a definite advantage having used SageTV, but most in KC were at first focused on the faster internet connection and not the TV stuff. I fear some are waiting to register because ESPN and HBO (and a few others) haven't been officially added to the lineups yet because the agreements with those nets haven't been finalized. Some of the media have jumped on that saying "No ESPN!?!" without knowing what they are talking about.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by samgreco

Small world. I lived less than a mile from there, just on the other side of I35. And the first time I ever played live in a band, was in a banquet hall in your neighborhood

Pretty cool. So was that the Columbus Park neighborhood or Old Northeast neighborhood you lived in at that time?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Rob

The only concern I have is HD300/HD200's failing.

Which as it stands means you would have to find a way to fix them or switch to PC clients to continue using SageTV as a front end. That was why I retired all but one of my HD200s so that I can have 2 replacements if the currently being used one dies on me. The 2 HD200's that were retired became PC clients since I have the licenses to do this. You could switch to another app as the front end and just use the server to record. There is at least one option like this now.

[samgreco]

Originally Posted by Brent

Pretty cool. So was that the Columbus Park neighborhood or Old Northeast neighborhood you lived in at that time?

Just north of Independence on Garfield. Well that was the last place anyway

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by sleonard

You gotta have one in order to see if it's hackable. So far Google has taken a wonderful product that most everyone in the world had access to and made it even more wonderful but available to only those people that live in Kansas City.

It may be the best thing since sliced bread but it doesn't do a thing for any of the thousands of Sage users who aren't lucky enough to live in the one city in the entire world that has access.

I want an announcement telling us what the F* they are planning for the rest of us. A lot of us are in limbo with our EOL Sage systems and are well into our second year of waiting for news about how we are going to be affected.

We are some of the most loyal customers a company has ever had. EVER. I think that gives us the right to SOME news about what is going to happen for us.

Jeff, Google, I am calling you out. You've had more than enough time to let us know something. Spill some beans!

S

Damn, this is turning into that other thread. After more than a year, I still don't understand these type of posts. SageTV is still working just fine. EPG still works and there's a way to continue getting it if it's discontinued by SageTV/Google. Licenses are available to be bought and sold, as are HDx00's.

What does your system not do? What's this "limbo" you're referring to? That implies you have at least 2 things you can't decide between. What are you actually waiting on? It seems like you're searching for a solution to a nonexistent problem.

[cncb]

It will be interesting to see if they allow commercial skipping. I know they don't control the tv ads (at least not yet ) but advertising is Google's bread and butter after all and it seems like they wouldn't allow skipping (at least make it as painful/difficult as possible) as a matter of "principle"...

[Brent]

Originally Posted by cncb

It will be interesting to see if they allow commercial skipping. I know they don't control the tv ads (at least not yet ) but advertising is Google's bread and butter after all and it seems like they wouldn't allow skipping (at least make it as painful/difficult as possible) as a matter of "principle"...

Excellent question. I suspect some if not all of the plugins might work - just too early to be sure at this point.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Brent

Excellent question. I suspect some if not all of the plugins might work - just too early to be sure at this point.

Are you suggesting that the "engine" under the hood is basically so similar to SageTV that it will share the same plugin technology and is written in Java? So basically GF TV is just a complete brand new STV.xml? If so then there are big hopes on the client/server protocol being the same as SageTV...which kind of make sense, why reinvent the wheel if you have something that works so well...

[Brent]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Are you suggesting ...

That's what I'm saying. I'm expecting some differences, but they are not reinventing the wheel here.

Disclaimer: I don't know this for certain. But I am basing this on an educated "guess"

Further: At the Google Fiber demo space they have set up for Kansas Citians to take the Google Fiber stuff for a test run, they were demoing the TV stuff and on the settings there was this very familiar SageTV Logo there. SageTV seems to be very much under the hood. I stand by my "Why Google Bought SageTV" article I wrote up when Google purchased. I didn't have it all right, but I was closer than the so called experts like Rakesh from BeyondTV.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Brent

That's what I'm saying. I'm expecting some differences, but they are not reinventing the wheel here.

Disclaimer: I don't know this for certain. But I am basing this on an educated "guess"

Further: At the Google Fiber demo space they have set up for Kansas Citians to take the Google Fiber stuff for a test run, they were demoing the TV stuff and on the settings there was this very familiar SageTV Logo there. SageTV seems to be very much under the hood. I stand by my "Why Google Bought SageTV" article I wrote up when Google purchased. I didn't have all right, but I was closer than the so called experts like Rakesh from BeyondTV.

Well, this make sense a lot...

May I dream on a license option which will allow to use the new GF TV extender with the existing SageTV server? If is the case it could be an explosive selling feature...and possibly the only viable solution to sell outside the US.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Damn, this is turning into that other thread. After more than a year, I still don't understand these type of posts. SageTV is still working just fine. EPG still works and there's a way to continue getting it if it's discontinued by SageTV/Google. Licenses are available to be bought and sold, as are HDx00's.

What does your system not do? What's this "limbo" you're referring to? That implies you have at least 2 things you can't decide between. What are you actually waiting on? It seems like you're searching for a solution to a nonexistent problem.

"Hi, my name's Jeff, and I work for Google, one of the most powerful companies in the world. I'm gonna leak to you all about the what's going on behind the scenes with regards to what may be one of Google's largest undertakings to date, because a guy on the chat forum of my old company CALLED ME OUT."

Seriously, though, I don't understand why people don't get the whole "contractually not allowed to say anything" aspect. No amount of anyone "calling out" Jeff can make him violate his contract with Google and tell us what he's working on and the future of SageTV. From the little that he's leaked, we know he's apparently on this Kansas City fiber thing and that a non-fiber version may be in the works. Frankly, I'm surprised he said that much (and for all we know, he might have gotten called into the bosses' office and berated for that "wink wink" post on Google+). But it's pretty clear from the way he said even those things, that anything he could tell us will have to wait until Google makes the "full" announcement (meaning, Kansas City testing is done and it's rolled out completely nationwide).

Y'all can be as negative and conspiracy-theorish as you want, I prefer to believe that Jeff wants to tell us but just plain can't. And it takes a pretty negative slant to not see that in Jeff's previous posts.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Y'all can be as negative and conspiracy-theorish as you want, I prefer to believe that Jeff wants to tell us but just plain can't. And it takes a pretty negative slant to not see that in Jeff's previous posts.

Just so you know it's conspiracy-theorishy.

[ckewinjones]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Just so you know it's conspiracy-theorishy.

I've really had it with online-forum-illiteracy. Every educated person knows that the adjectival form of "conspiracy theory" is "conspiracy-theoretical."

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Brent

Excellent question. I suspect some if not all of the plugins might work - just too early to be sure at this point.

Originally Posted by routerunner

Are you suggesting that the "engine" under the hood is basically so similar to SageTV that it will share the same plugin technology and is written in Java? So basically GF TV is just a complete brand new STV.xml? If so then there are big hopes on the client/server protocol being the same as SageTV...which kind of make sense, why reinvent the wheel if you have something that works so well...

I have a hard time believing, a year after the fact and in a Google hardware product, that it would still be Java at the heart of the TV box.

It is interesting though that Jeff still refers to it as SageTV... so who knows.

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by phelme

I have a hard time believing, a year after the fact and in a Google hardware product, that it would still be Java at the heart of the TV box.

It is interesting though that Jeff still refers to it as SageTV... so who knows.

Why not Java? Android is totally Java based as well. Java would seem to me to be the language of choice here. Not to mention the 10+ years of SageTV code that Google purchased.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Why not Java? Android is totally Java based as well. Java would seem to me to be the language of choice here. Not to mention the 10+ years of SageTV code that Google purchased.

It's actually because they are similar I'm assuming they've ported it to Andriod. But I'm probably wrong.

[Brent]

I don't honestly know for sure, but if I had to put money on it, I would guess they are just working with the Java framework that was already there for SageTV instead of wasting time to make it Android. The bigger question to me is what are they doing with the Plugin stuff.

Me wondering out loud: If the FiberTV(SageTV) stuff does well, I wonder if they would junk the GoogleTV thing, bring a few of the things GoogleTV does into the FiberTV product and re-brand it all as the new GoogleTV. Hmm.

[dgeezer]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

"
Y'all can be as negative and conspiracy-theorish as you want, I prefer to believe that Jeff wants to tell us but just plain can't. And it takes a pretty negative slant to not see that in Jeff's previous posts.

I have to agree with you here.

Here is Section 4 Paragraph 4 of the Google Code of Conduct:

"You probably know that our policy is to be extremely careful about disclosing company information, and never to disclose any confidential information without authorization. It’s also a bad idea to post your opinions or information about Google on the Internet, even if not confidential, unless you’re authorized to do so as part of your job. Your comments may be attributed to Google, even though you didn’t mean it that way. And never discuss the company with the press unless you’ve been explicitly authorized to do so by Corporate Communications. Finally, check with your manager and Corporate Communications before accepting any public speaking engagement. In general, before making any external communication or disclosure, you should consult our Employee Communications Policy and our Communications and Disclosure Policy."

It's pretty hard to misinterpret this. We (Google) don't want you talking to anybody about anything.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Brent

I don't honestly know for sure, but if I had to put money on it, I would guess they are just working with the Java framework that was already there for SageTV instead of wasting time to make it Android. The bigger question to me is what are they doing with the Plugin stuff.

Absolutely agree with you on this, however regarding the plugin question, it is a third party thing anyway and never officially supported by SageTV.

Everybody remembers the disclaimer popping out after a fresh SageTV installation the very first time you were going in the Setup plugins menu? It is true that V7 did put a big effort on encouraging developers to implement plugins, but on the other hand with that disclaimer SageTV is not obliged to do anything with it, including "porting" any part of the V7 framework into the new product to ease the work of plugin developers, however I can still dream about it

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

"Hi, my name's Jeff, and I work for Google, one of the most powerful companies in the world. I'm gonna leak to you all about the what's going on behind the scenes with regards to what may be one of Google's largest undertakings to date, because a guy on the chat forum of my old company CALLED ME OUT."