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

[will]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I do want a better music interface (I use it a lot, playing tunes for my young kids), I do want maintenance (if not upgrade) of the weather, because we find ourselves referencing it a lot (unlike most, we don't keep our smartphones with us 24/7).

We use the weather all time and I would use the music if it had a remote control for your phone and/or could work like a Sonos (entire house music).

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

The other thing I want, and always have, is integration of everything within Sage.

I totally agree! I don't know how people find things to watch if 1/5 of the content is on Netflix, 1/5 on Hulu, 1/5 on Amazon, and 2/5 on cable. I want everything to be in one location - I don't care if the TV show I want to watch is on Netflix, Time Warner Cable, or Hulu - I don't want to have to think about the "channel."

One of the best things about Sage is that we don't have to really think about the channel anymore, just the content - we add a favorite show and then Sage gets it for us.

[will]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Everything I've heard about PlayOn and the SageTV plugin is that it's terrible quality, buggy, and unreliable. I'd rather just switch to another player than deal with screen-scraping and transcoding of the video.

When PlayOn was first released the content was low quality and it wasn't reliable. Now I use PlayLater more than PlayOn but the entire software package has improved significantly.

For example, just the other day a TV show I watch on USA didn't record right with SageTV (the cable box feed was messed up - not a SageTV problem). I was able to use PlayLater to download the episode from USA (I had to login with my cable subscription). The quality was really impressive - almost as good as HD cable TV (I'd say about 80%). The best part, I was able to fast forward through all the mandatory online ads.

PlayLater/PlayOn use the exact same technology, just one is for storing and the other is for streaming live.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SHS

stanger89 have look at Media Bowser 3?.

Not really, but since I've never really been happy with WMC for TV I've never had a motivation to do it.

[rnadeau]

I have been using EP's plugin for quite a while and now that playon has matured, it is very reliable for me. I use ota for recordings and at times the signal is weak and doesn't record properly. Next day I use playon plugin to go to Hulu and watch the show. The only problems are you have to click on playon menu item because clicking right and selecting netflix or hulu don't work. The timeline is also incorrect while playing. The show always finishes when it shows there is 10 or 15 min left. the quality at 720P is pretty good. I do have the HD upgrade for playon but we need someone "Hello EP?" to update the plugin.

[cron]

I tried playon with playlater just recently and it had very little for me. I live in Canada and i'm sure there are others like myself who live outside the US and get very frustrated with the Geo limitations. When some of these options are considered for the future of Sage I hope that there is a bit of thought put towards who can use them. Not saying that things like cablecards shouldn't be supported, but other countries still have to resort to set top boxes with IR blasters, playon is broken, hulu isn't available and amazon TV is not outside the US.

[calypsocowboy]

Media Browser 3 (MB3) soon to be Emby, has moved well beyond WMC, it now basically competes with Plex.

[matterofrecord]

From reading the comments there are many ideas wanting to pull Sagetv in many different directions and there are already some fundamental questions about what Sagetv is going to become.

Is Sagetv going to become an all in one home media center OR a backend dvr/pvr for recording tele on a kodi-esque platform?

Is streaming media with sagetv a priority? If sagetv is going to a backend pvr or just one "app" on a flexible extender then probably not but if it's going to be a server client arrangement as an "all-in-one" media center then streaming media will probably be necessary for sagetv to gain widespread popularity.

The future of extenders is another question. The pi, roku, popcornhour/openhour, cubox/hummingbird, and others etc all have different strengths in cost or quality. Intel might release an atom based board that works well although I doubt it. Android based extenders might be a good option as the code base could be shared with an android tablet client.

Then there's the question of whether Sagetv needs to be prettier? I personally like the simplicity and clarity of the default theme but some people like the eye candy that kodi brings to the scene.

I don't code so I guess I don't really get a say but one thing I do know is that many users of Sagetv are quite technically skilled and enjoy new tech so maybe don't appreciate what it's like for people who aren't tech competent. This whole "use plugin A as a backend for plugin B and then change the config file in the command prompt" is way beyond a lot of peoples comfort zone. Streamlined simplicity, "works out of the box", "capable but simple", "easy to learn" are important factors if "Free" sagetv is going to become popular and draw in new users and developers. Complex, flexible yet easy to use is not always possible but it can be something to aim for. What i'm saying is I've no right to ask anything from anyone but I think it would be good if people thought about he WAF/newbie factor when they were designing their code additions.

If I had to guess I think we'll see everyone who can code will work away on their own little bit and we'll see what comes out at the end. These will then probably be worked back into the some form of unifying mainstream code with plugin base. The truth is kodi,nextpvr has got a lot of interest and a fair amount of momentum. It'll be interesting to see how much community development there is for Sagetv. Hopefully Sagetv will grow into the leading light in the pvr/media center scene. I thinks that's where we all think it should be.

[Fuzzy]

UI work has always been easy for the userbase to do, that doesn't change with the opensourcing. in that regard, all open source will really accomplish is possibly bring in some fresh blood to tweak the UI.

Streaming could be greatly improved by leveraging the PlayOn connection, just needs that plugin to be tweaked in whatever way is required to allow PlayOn to send HD streams. I honestly don't know what PlayOn is using to determine the capabilities of the client, but whatever it is, isn't allowing the HD to be sent. I've no doubt sage could render it quite well, and would be a great step forward in that regard. The PlayOn interface could use some improvements, but it is functional as is. Not bad considering EvilPenguin stopped working on it in 2011 I think. (I have looked through his code, and honestly, I'm at a complete loss - it seems like it is simply asking for the URL that the PlayOn server is providing for the stream, so no idea what PlayOn needs to improve the quality).

My focus going forward when it is available is to improve what sage currently is. A DVR, with a pretty good, and Very customizable UI. If we want to get some fresh blood in here to code up some of the more comprehensive improvements, I think the first step is to bring the configuration up to the level of other options out there. The most popular sources need to be rolled into the main product (HDHR, Colossus, etc), with some smoother configuration steps to get there.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

UI work has always been easy for the userbase to do

To reiterate matterofrecord's point above your post, this is not true for all of us. I use ADM because it's similar in function to nielm's old Dynamic Customizable Menus (which took me a while to figure out). But when I saw that Phoenix (or is it Diamond?) required writing your own code for "views", it scared me away and I never even tried it/them. I suspect that most people who made the wholesale UI switch to one of those are people with some programming knowledge. It would be great to have a more-customizable menu like ADM that was completely menu driven.

[FriscoJohn]

CRON:

Check out www.unblock-us.com. It will open up a lot more options for you using PlayOn.

[trk2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Streaming could be greatly improved by leveraging the PlayOn connection, just needs that plugin to be tweaked in whatever way is required to allow PlayOn to send HD streams.

Streaming can be done quite well by feeding Chromecast or FireTV Stick into a Colossus or HDPVR-2. I know some have issues with Hauppauge devices and live tv, so maybe I am just lucky. This method gives HD resolution and 5.1 audio. The downside is the delay (not really a problem if you give up the Fire TV Stick remote and use only a mobile device) and the shuffling between remotes and mobile devices for browsing. Once the program has buffered and started playback through Sage however, this becomes my favorite streaming method since it essentially is time shifting live tv and the sage response is much better than streaming device.

[cron]

FriscoJohn: I'm aware of these "hacks" to make it redirect either your traffic through a VPN or using a DNS server.. it may work for some people but it's still a kludge and has other side effects like latency and security issues. On top of all that we have to pay for another service that may not work for everything.

My point is more to say please don't forget that people outside the U.S. Who want to use sage without a bunch of hacks to get US only stuff to work (playon, Hulu, amazon fire tv, etc).

[miloj]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Unfortunately I think you can give up on that. I'm not aware of a single open source product/project that offers Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.

Agreed. Even assuming Sage did catch up, online content will continue to evolve and Sage support will lag. In my mind, the choices are:

1) Dedicated STB or HDMI dongle for online streaming, plus separate Sage STB for TV (HDx00 or client like Intel's forthcoming HDMI stick). Use a universal remote for seamless switching between online and TV. Other than the switching lag between devices, there's no need for them to be the same device when the content/interface isn't unified anyway.

2) Single streamer device with Sage app. This comes with some compromises in the Sage experience and possibly A/V quality, but makes it accessible to more screens where additional HW investment is undesirable.

I agree that PlayOn has come a long way and provides a 3rd option to bring in streaming content to Sage, but the UI is painful vs. a native streamer. Therefore I only use it where I only have a Sage STB, or for the PlayLater functionality (great for travel).

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by miloj

I agree that PlayOn has come a long way and provides a 3rd option to bring in streaming content to Sage, but the UI is painful vs. a native streamer.

Once Sage is open source, I would expect someone will create a nicer interface. Whether that be old devs coming back and resuming work or new devs joining the fray... I'm hoping someone does.

[asd]

Originally Posted by cron

FriscoJohn: I'm aware of these "hacks" to make it redirect either your traffic through a VPN or using a DNS server.. it may work for some people but it's still a kludge and has other side effects like latency and security issues. On top of all that we have to pay for another service that may not work for everything.

My point is more to say please don't forget that people outside the U.S. Who want to use sage without a bunch of hacks to get US only stuff to work (playon, Hulu, amazon fire tv, etc).

Unblock-us can't be characterized as a hacked or jury-rigged solution for Canadians. Nor is it an unwarranted expense; rather, it's a great investment for getting Canadians Netflix libraries from every country, where available libraries exist. Moreover, without a legal, effective solution like Unblock-us, a Roku streamer, for instance, is mostly useless to us.

With Unblock-us, I use Rokus to watch Amazon VOD, Netflix libraries, regardless of country, Acorn TV, and I used to watch HULU plus before I realized I was paying to watch commericals -- the cost of Hulu is greater than that of Unblock-us too. I'm reluctant to buy VUDU movies, besides MGO, but the service runs great on Roku, with Unblock-us.

Unblock-us also allows me to watch UHD Netflix and UHD Amazon VOD, via my local internet provider, without a glitch on my UHD smart TV.

I agree buying an Amazon Fire TV might be a questionable for Canucks, though -- not the channels that Roku offers, yet it does run KODI well, and it has great processing capability.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Once Sage is open source, I would expect someone will create a nicer interface. Whether that be old devs coming back and resuming work or new devs joining the fray... I'm hoping someone does.

The problem is that people have vastly different ideas of what "nicer" is One of the great strengths of SageTV is that the UI can be changed and customized. I hope dozens of people create new UIs!

[wayner]

Originally Posted by cron

I tried playon with playlater just recently and it had very little for me. I live in Canada and i'm sure there are others like myself who live outside the US and get very frustrated with the Geo limitations. When some of these options are considered for the future of Sage I hope that there is a bit of thought put towards who can use them. Not saying that things like cablecards shouldn't be supported, but other countries still have to resort to set top boxes with IR blasters, playon is broken, hulu isn't available and amazon TV is not outside the US.

many of the geo limitations can be defeated with Unblockus or similar services.

[asd]

Originally Posted by wayner

many of the geo limitations can be defeated with Unblockus or similar services.

Unblockus? Never heard of it. Does it work?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

To reiterate matterofrecord's point above your post, this is not true for all of us. I use ADM because it's similar in function to nielm's old Dynamic Customizable Menus (which took me a while to figure out). But when I saw that Phoenix (or is it Diamond?) required writing your own code for "views", it scared me away and I never even tried it/them. I suspect that most people who made the wholesale UI switch to one of those are people with some programming knowledge. It would be great to have a more-customizable menu like ADM that was completely menu driven.

My point wasn't really to the ease of customizing the UI, it was to the fact that the ability to do so is already there, and is not changing when the software is made open source. The UI is still going to be based on the XML .stv file, and made primarily in the SageTV Studio.
Regarding simple things like changing menu arrangements, GemStone, the UI mod most likely used by people not using the default, does use an updated version of ADM for its menus, and we actually did quite a bit of work improving the Menu Manager. There's no coding requirement to making views, or menus, it is all done within the sage ui.

[cron]

I think some people are missing my point... There was a discussion about using things like the Amazon FireTV, Hulu, playon, etc. My point was that if a feature has to be hacked to work outside the U.S. Then it should be reconsidered in favor of devices like the raspberry Pi, roku, Netflix which work most places. Using 3rd party solutions lik unblock-us are not something everyone is comfortable and willing to do.