Come Back to SageTV - Open Source in "Near" Future

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Why I "said not necessarily in this order" it was just the order I thought of them. For me #2 would be first as I have to restart one server often since I connect to it with my extenders more than the others and I start getting spinning circles alot more after a couple of days and the Java Heap get close to the 1038 heap max I have set. #3 & #4 are next for me. There are a few more items I would add to my list if I could think of them again .

Absolutely, each user probably has different priorities to match up with their own specific needs or glitches they see on a frequent basis.
Why I would want #4 as the top one is I have issues with running out of tuners on a too frequent basis. Right now Tuesday evenings are a big problem. I SageTV could just grab an entire channel/sub-channel using a single tuner these problems would virtually disappear for me.

[KryptoNyte]

SHS, I just purchased an Amazon FireTV, the full-on $99 version, and it wasn't capable of feeding my AVR a DTS signal, which was the entire reason that I purchase it over the FireTV Stick. The very same videos, that I purchased via Amazon Prime, played perfect audio via the Xbox 360 Amazon app. I got the run-around at Amazon support of course.

Are any of those devices fully capable of feeding trouble-free media to my AVR, including any SageTV media, with 5.1 channel audio, or HD audio?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

Absolutely, each user probably has different priorities to match up with their own specific needs or glitches they see on a frequent basis.
Why I would want #4 as the top one is I have issues with running out of tuners on a too frequent basis. Right now Tuesday evenings are a big problem. I SageTV could just grab an entire channel/sub-channel using a single tuner these problems would virtually disappear for me.

That is my priority too as I watch TV on a big screen and record TV ... do not really care about streaming etc... On my NEXPVR client I can also do Picture In Picture that is another thing on my wish list. NEXTPVR does both so that is what I am using mainly.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Are any of those devices fully capable of feeding trouble-free media to my AVR, including any SageTV media, with 5.1 channel audio, or HD audio?

My NUC can. It's the primary method for viewing TV in our house. I have both Sage and Kodi installed on it; works with 1080P, 3D (obviously, not in Sage), HD audio, bitstreaming over HDMI, etc., feeding a Pioneer receiver. I admit I did have some issues with codecs at first, but the LAV codecs fixed everything right up. I currently use LAV for video and ffdshow for audio.

[nebulink]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

SHS, I just purchased an Amazon FireTV, the full-on $99 version, and it wasn't capable of feeding my AVR a DTS signal, which was the entire reason that I purchase it over the FireTV Stick. The very same videos, that I purchased via Amazon Prime, played perfect audio via the Xbox 360 Amazon app. I got the run-around at Amazon support of course.

Are any of those devices fully capable of feeding trouble-free media to my AVR, including any SageTV media, with 5.1 channel audio, or HD audio?

I have a FireTV and use Kodi. It has pass through audio and works quite well with my AVR.

[Taddeusz]

I believe one of the goals should be to upgrade the archaic Placeshifter MPEG2 encoding to H.264 or even H.265 and allow increasing the resolution to 720p or 1080p.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by rkulagow

(I work for Schedules Direct)

slugger has created an EPG grabber that interfaces with our JSON service; the grabber is an approved application and Gracenote (new name for Tribune Media Services) gave us permission to provide data to SageTV even before it was Open Source.

The API under development will have at least 14 days of data for most stations, and up to 30 for some; it all depends on how fixed a schedule is.

If Google can't provide EPG then there's a backup plan for people that wish to remain on SageTV.

hopefully someone will be able to continue Slugger's work, as he seems destined to leave the community. it remains to be seen

[tvmaster2]

also, 64 bit 1394 channel changing would be super, as well as another multiple IR solution (another Raspberry project?)

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by trk2

Most of these are non-issues now, but the extenders showed me a better way. Just as important, it wasn't until the extenders that my wife felt confidant that she could use Sage without experiencing, or inadvertently creating, issues. The extenders made her a believer too.

This++, until we got some HD300s everyone in my house didn't want to touch the HTPC in case it broke again. Getting the HD300s finally meant I could ditch the Sky box and go all in on Sage.

Anyway, like everyone else I'm really excited about what this means for Sage (first time in a long while), though I expect if I told my family, they'll start dreading me tinkering with everything again!

Might even have to dust off those Java skills though it's been a loooong time since I did any Java, .NET and C# have been paying the bills for a number of years now.

[pjpjpjpj]

The merits of extenders vs. clients have been debated for years here (especially the past 3 ) but if extenders aren't that important, look at how many people have left simply because they could no longer get them and know the ones they already have will die. The number of posts saying "if someone came up with an equal replacement, I'd stay..." are too many to count.

The good news is that with open sourcing and all of the devices available today, it's very likely someone will come up with an equal. But if it's a computer (vs. a dedicated Sage device), it's still unlikely to meet the WAF/FAF (family) that the extender provides, as mentioned by several above.

Along with my initial question to Narflex about whether extenders could be resurrected (which started this subtopic), maybe he could share some info about numbers sold in the past, so we'd know whether it was legit that there'd be enough demand if, say, the minimum batch size from overseas was 10,000 units.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

... if, say, the minimum batch size from overseas was 10,000 units.

I don't know how many of us are left, but where are these 10,000 HD300's now? Sitting in a dumpster? Sitting unused in people's basements who left the Sage ecosystem? You'd think there were plenty available for those of us who remain.
(Yes, I remember hearing that 10K number being thrown about years ago too)

[dgeezer]

Most everyone seems focused on the front end improvements. I am hoping for some substantial back end improvement possibilities. I would love to install SageTV on my homebuilt Linux server. It draws a max of 20 watts with 3 HDDs running. I occasionally see linux licenses for sale but I've been hesitant to try setting up 3 year old software on a current distro. My linux skillset is pretty limited....

I also think that to bring new users in, someting like a flashable backend image for a raspberry pi or Chromebox would be ideal. Attach a a big USB drive and you have an open source Tablo competitor. You would be able to serve up recordings to most any front end out there. Since all the configuration of the tuners, channel lineups, plugins etc. is done on the client, SageTV is ideal as a headless backend server. If someone builds a client add-on for Kodi similar to Martin's excellent X-newa plugin for Npvr which is basically a full client with the full windows interface. Then you could basically flash the backend, attach an HDhomerun to your antenna and scan for channels and set up the epg in the Kodi plugin.

[nlkelly]

Great news - still using SageTV to record (Plex for streaming) and i just bought an HD PVR2 to begin the jump from SD to HD.

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

My NUC can. It's the primary method for viewing TV in our house. I have both Sage and Kodi installed on it; works with 1080P, 3D (obviously, not in Sage), HD audio, bitstreaming over HDMI, etc., feeding a Pioneer receiver. I admit I did have some issues with codecs at first, but the LAV codecs fixed everything right up. I currently use LAV for video and ffdshow for audio.

I wonder if you and I have different versions of the NUC. I still can't get mine to bitstream and I tried on Kodi as well to eliminate my ffdshow config being the problem and still no go. I have a Denon AVR connected not Pioneer so there's one difference. I ended up adding a USB based Creative labs audio card that has an optical audio port to get HD audio out of it.

[stanger89]

My chromebox (nearly a Celeron NUC), bitstreams fine with OpenELEC.

I ended up adding a USB based Creative labs audio card that has an optical audio port to get HD audio out of it.

To be clear, you can't get HD audio over optical, only HDMI.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

Most everyone seems focused on the front end improvements. I am hoping for some substantial back end improvement possibilities. I would love to install SageTV on my homebuilt Linux server ... I've been hesitant to try setting up 3 year old software on a current distro. My linux skillset is pretty limited....

I also think that to bring new users in, someting like a flashable backend image for a raspberry pi or Chromebox would be ideal. Attach a a big USB drive and you have an open source Tablo competitor. You would be able to serve up recordings to most any front end out there ...

These are my thoughts, as well. Though I do have a Linux (Ubuntu Precise) SageTV server, that set up pretty easily. I'd like a simple encode-only backend that can run on low-power systems and have the front end handled by a Raspberry Pi with a system-specific image. I've streamed live TV (OTA HD and 720p with 5.1 audio via HD-PVR) on a Pi from the Linux box using an NFS share and the playback was flawless ...

[autoboy]

Originally Posted by valnar

I don't know how many of us are left, but where are these 10,000 HD300's now? Sitting in a dumpster? Sitting unused in people's basements who left the Sage ecosystem? You'd think there were plenty available for those of us who remain.
(Yes, I remember hearing that 10K number being thrown about years ago too)

I don't know about 10,000 units, but I've got a backup HD200 for every HD300 in my house plus a HD100 that's actually in service still. And I had considered selling the extra units since I only use them for local media now, but now that Sage is alive again you'll pry them from my cold dead hands. None of the mobile chipsets that the RPi and FireTV are based on feature hardware mpeg2 deinterlacing which is the vast majority of television these days from cable card or OTA. So unless this open source program really takes off and someone releases a SageTV HD400 box based on a chipset with good 1080i support then you're looking at having to re-encode a 1080i stream to h.264 progressive on the server or live with the poor picture quality. I've got an 80" TV and picture quality matters for me.

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by stanger89

My chromebox (nearly a Celeron NUC), bitstreams fine with OpenELEC.



To be clear, you can't get HD audio over optical, only HDMI.

I intended to replace my HD300 with the NUC but because the audio coming out of my HD300 is better than what I can get from the NUC I haven't been able to make that transition.

On the plus side I've found other uses for the NUC, just set up SickRage with Newsbin on it and so far so good.

[Narflex]

For the questions about how many devices of this nature you'd need to order at once; we did them in as small of quantities as 500 (but had to agree to buy at least 1000) as part of it. We used 3 different manufacturers (one for each extender), and some of them had 1000 unit minimums, others were 2000.

Originally Posted by baudfather

Just curious, would SageTV (the company, if it still exists outside Google?) be permitted to make/sell hardware (e.g. new extenders)? Or would that be up to a third party? Would that even be possible?

SageTV as a company no longer exists. There's nothing stopping a 3rd party from taking the open sourced software and trying to recreate another extender. No one will be prevented from making money off SageTV...but they would need to follow the rules of the open source license we use. They can't just load the HD300 firmware on another device though...there was licensing to prevent that...although I'd have no problem disclosing how to disable that if I can remember how we did it and if we came up with some kind of back door or not.

Originally Posted by 7up

I sold my HD300s a while back but I have to think that a near equally as stable extender could be done using a Chromebox or RPi2 loaded with OpenELEC.

Jeff, Can you share if you ever played around with or attempted to use an ADT-1 as an SageTV extender?

Nope, never tried as I haven't heard of ADT-1 before.

Originally Posted by traker1001

Narflex,

Oh ok, that's sad. But hey maybe now going open sourced someone can work something out. Do you see any possibilities for that or is sage coded in such a way that it just not possible? We love sage, this would be awesome to see some day.

Im curious, And in reading this thread over I hope I didn't overlook it, Once it is released as Open source will you still developing on the Open source version at all or just be leaving it to the community as a whole?

Also, Just in case I haven't said, Thank you.

I don't see anything stopping the open source community from adding a text to speech feature; you'd just need to find someone willing. I personally don't plan to do much development on the open source version; as I'm pretty busy with my full time job and SageTV has all the features I want....but I'll definitely be there to help out with questions regarding how things function and what changes may or may not be a good/bad idea.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I believe one of the goals should be to upgrade the archaic Placeshifter MPEG2 encoding to H.264 or even H.265 and allow increasing the resolution to 720p or 1080p.

Lol...it never used MPEG2 encoding..it was always MPEG4. The main reason we didn't use H264 was the CPU power required to encode that...but that may no longer be an issue. I also had to modify the MPEG4 codecs in FFMPEG to do adaptive bitrate control...so that same work would need to be done for h264 unless the codec already supports it.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

I intended to replace my HD300 with the NUC but because the audio coming out of my HD300 is better than what I can get from the NUC I haven't been able to make that transition.

Are you referring to the audio via USB->Creative or the audio from the NUC itself being worse? The former would make sense, but I'm not so sure about the latter.