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

[waynedunham]

I just want to say thanks to Jeff, Google, and anyone else involved in getting the ability to release this under Open Source. This is the best news since the "worst news" when Google bought SageTV and effectively froze us non Google Fiber folks out, with a few minor exceptions to patch broken code.

Thanks Jeff, I think you have a few thousand beers owed to you by the SageTV community!

I can't wait to see what the community does with this new found ability to modify and create new code for SageTv.
I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of folks that said "goodbye" to SageTV in the last year or so coming back after their forays into the other vastly inferior (still after 3 years) options.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

#4 should be #1!! My Comcast has several spots where multiple networks are all on the same channel/sub-subchannel! It would make some nights much easier to deal with conflicts.

I'd put the ability to overlap same channel recordings with a single tuner right up there also. A much needed fix for stupid networks that can't tell time and you end up missing the final scene of show A or the beginning of show B as it starts recording show B on the same channel/tuner. Right now there is a few seconds dropout.

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 .

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Any development I'm involved in....

Are you volunteering to oversee the open source project or will that be left up to someone appointed from the community? I'd hate to see twenty different forks crop up as people become impatient for their favorite feature to be implemented/merged in.

[wayner]

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 .

I agree - depending on the time of year I have 8 or 9 extenders and this gets me. There are some preventatitive measures that I have found (you may already be doing these):

• Turn off your extenders when you finish using them.
• You should occasionally run the JVM Garbage Collection process by pressing the Delete key while on the Main Menu at the server.
• Run the JVM monitor so that you can see if you are using all of your JVM.
• Plug extenders into UPS' so that a power flash doesn't cause them all to turn on and connect to the server, thus causing it to crash.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by jm9843

Are you volunteering to oversee the open source project or will that be left up to someone appointed from the community? I'd hate to see twenty different forks crop up as people become impatient for their favorite feature to be implemented/merged in.

I would love to see 20 different forks

Single branch development with a single "ruler" is like inbreeding... You'll never really see any real advancements, and the pace of those advancements will be slow. The reason is because when you have a single "ruler" that person will decide to NOT accept things that is not important, to them. So, I could spend some time adding Fanart, for example, and someone could say, "no we don't like the way you did it, were going to wait"... The user base never gets it

By forking, people can add the feature they want... Other branches can pull those features back in, if they want, and if they don't then that's ok... another branch still has it. Teams can decide to take the product in other directions, creating new variations, etc... All of this good.

Consider, XBMC... It's a great Media Player... but imagine if Plex decided to NOT fork it... or Boxee, or MediaPortal... all of those were/are good specialized peices of media technology that we might have never seen, if people hadn't decided to fork it.

I can assure you that I'll have my fork of SageTV no matter who leads it... since I'll always play with things that may never make it back into a "production" stream. So, don't fear forking... it's the way the product will grow.

[wayner]

My wishlist:

1. Move to 64 bit Java so that you can run an unlimited number of extenders/clients (or move away from Java).
2. Fix Placeshifter so that it actually works properly for 1080i content.
3. Placeshifter clients for iOS, Android, RPi, etc.
4. Apple Watch SageTV remote app.
5. Integration of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc into SageTV.
6. Integrate some of the plugins into the core product - this would include the Web UI, SRE, SJQ, SageAlert, BMT, ADM, etc.
7. Support for new codecs like h.265 (don't know if this is possible for extenders)
8. Support for new capture devices like HD-PVR2, Colossus, etc (assuming that they aren't fully supported today) and future 4K encoders.
9. Built in support for other channel tuning types like firewire, IP, etc
10. Support for IP camera viewing within Sage.
11. Airplay receiver capability for extenders.

[bclenney]

Originally Posted by Enormous

Jeff, I don't have much to add right now except to say: I love you man.

Yes! Thank you so much, Jeff!

[pjpjpjpj]

Stuckless, call me immature, but since some people use "fork" in place of a certain other F word (especially on forums with built-in censors), I giggled when I read your post above.

You are right. Don't fear forking.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by jm9843

Are you volunteering to oversee the open source project or will that be left up to someone appointed from the community? I'd hate to see twenty different forks crop up as people become impatient for their favorite feature to be implemented/merged in.

I Agree we don't need a bunch clone's SageTV like linux is now days
Let keep it useful and easy to use Mouse and or Touch Screen support and long with reg Remote Control, Multi-Source, Multi-Tuner, Multi-MediaFolder, Multi-HardDrive, Media Sever, Network Encoders, PC Client Software, Intelligent Recording, Audio, DVD, Picture, Home Movie, Music Video, Integrated Search Capabilities, Channel TV Logo, Media Extender set-topa and this one that need major over haul update in SageTV Internet TV, Live Online Television, Web TV Channels .

Things SageTV needs
UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) / DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) for todays newest tech 3rdpraty device and clients app Android, iOS and Linux Mac or what ever else we dream up .

Maybe take UI to next level update add in some modern look features after all I kind of like Media Browser but it has some downside just like Kodi and other dose as we all know TV part sink.

Maybe add in GPU Transcoding in near future like Intel QuickSync or nVidia NVENC technology there nothing on AMD OpenCL BooHoo

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I would love to see 20 different forks
<snip>

Okay, "hate" was the wrong word. I absolutely agree with what you've said and think that it's essential for things not to stagnate as you describe. I was looking at it from the traditional "SageTV consumer" perspective. There are going to be users looking for a de facto project to use in their homes with all the latest/greatest features and bug fixes.

I was describing that project and trying to suss out Jeff's interest in possibly shepherding it (the Google to our Android); since he did mention the prospect of developing for it. But he may be too busy being an actual Googler to make that kind of a time commitment.

[n9cqs]

I have to say a big THANK YOU to Jeff and whomever else is involved in SageTV resurrection via the OpenSource route. This truly is great news.

In addition to the various wishlists that have been offered, I would like to add my hope that Michael Cox will now continue development of his "Web Feed Encoder". I use it every day as a "tuner" (software tuner) for internet streams as well as HD radio using an HD radio receiver connected via a sound card and controlled by an IR blaster. Others have fed IP camera feeds into sage using it. It also has an easy way to insert EPG for the "stations" that it "tunes". One primary source is "tunein.com" which has changed its website enough over the past years that I've had to modify the "scraping" ability (via a small webserver reprocessing requests using PHP scripts... but it works). At any rate, I'm real interested.

My brother recently switched back to Dish Network and their implementation of the "Sling" technology (i.e., "Hopper and Joey") and was talking about how great it was. My reply was, "SageTV has been doing that and far more for YEARS now!!" That it has been in "moth balls" for three years (at least as much as we continued users have had access to) and still has no equal speaks for the advanced technology.

YES to the Raspberry PI (or something similar) development of extender. While I have a spare at the moment, I've been worried about 'what happens when the extenders die?'

Such great news!!

Jeff

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by wayner

1. Support for new capture devices like HD-PVR2, Colossus, etc (assuming that they aren't fully supported today) and future 4K encoders.

That was one of the additionals I couldn't think of and I like your list as you have some others I hadn't thought of.

[gopher]

WOW. As a long time lurker this is incredible news. I used to check/read daily, but over the past months it has been moving to less and less frequently. I was disheartened when Slugger announced he was moving on, and have been considering alternatives for some time, always with dissatisfaction in the options.

(This gives me hope that although the commercial product) SageTV is dead, Long live SageTV (as an open source project).

[nyplayer]

I guess Jeff could answer if these are already implemented. As these are the main reasons I left SageTV.

Some of the below was snipped from other posts.

on current java version.
Allow recordings to overlap on same channel without using multiple tuners.
Allow recordings on multiple channels with single tuner. I.E. OTA main channel and sub channels can be recorded at same time as well as allowing all QAM channels on same main channel to be recorded from one tuner.
Built in Cable Card Tuner Support.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

If we're throwing ideas around ...

Would it be possible to make SageTV natively recognize the cablecard tuners (Prime, Ceton)? I understand that this would only function for cable stations that CCI flag everything as copy freely, but would still be handy if it were built it, and solved the 'not able to playback some recordings' situation.

I'm not really sure we ever figured out why this occurs, but it opens up a whole new world for those folks that have Charter or Comcast, and it's darn nice.

Nothing is preventing people from adding support for CableCard tuners with copy freely content. I'd expect that to be one of the first things done by the community.

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Any chance we could increase the reliability of the HDPVRs/Colossus/HDPVR2, for those of us whose cable providers copy-protect everything?

That's all on hauppauge...we did everything we could to make those things stable. The hardware itself was the problem...there's only so many software hacks you can do to make unstable hardware appear stable. BUT I haven't tried the HDPVR2....so maybe that one works better; and again that's something the community could add support for if it doesn't work already.

Originally Posted by briands

Welcome back Jeff - very exciting news.

Do you think there would be a way to do a builder version of an extender?

Not sure what you mean by 'builder' version...

Originally Posted by jreichen

Does this mean there's no more Wiz.bin?

What? Of course it's still there! Mine has recordings over 12 years old in it now.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Narflex

What? Of course it's still there! Mine has recordings over 12 years old in it now.

My guess is he was thinking it might be a standard database file now not proprietary. But I'm sure you knew that already.

[Skirge01]

As much as I'd love to see tons of new features come along, I'm thinking more along the lines some others are: Let's first fix what's broken. Some of that would also depend upon devs returning to support the plugins they made. That second one is still my biggest concern. I certainly appreciate the fact that Jeff said he's on board, but I simply don't think that's going to be enough. I have no idea how much time Jeff is going to have to dedicate to this. Clearly, this won't be what's paying the bills at his house.

I know this is still quite fresh, but I'll get much more excited when the devs start announcing that they're coming back to actively develop for Sage.

[matt91]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

but I'll get much more excited when the devs start announcing that they're coming back to actively develop for Sage.

yes, but there will hopefully be new folks who may not have tried sage before, or tried it years ago and then left. Maybe some of those folks will become interested in the product too/again.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I would love to see 20 different forks

Single branch development with a single "ruler" is like inbreeding... You'll never really see any real advancements, and the pace of those advancements will be slow. The reason is because when you have a single "ruler" that person will decide to NOT accept things that is not important, to them. So, I could spend some time adding Fanart, for example, and someone could say, "no we don't like the way you did it, were going to wait"... The user base never gets it

By forking, people can add the feature they want... Other branches can pull those features back in, if they want, and if they don't then that's ok... another branch still has it. Teams can decide to take the product in other directions, creating new variations, etc... All of this good.

Consider, XBMC... It's a great Media Player... but imagine if Plex decided to NOT fork it... or Boxee, or MediaPortal... all of those were/are good specialized peices of media technology that we might have never seen, if people hadn't decided to fork it.

I can assure you that I'll have my fork of SageTV no matter who leads it... since I'll always play with things that may never make it back into a "production" stream. So, don't fear forking... it's the way the product will grow.

Funny that what Plug-in are for to add in those more adv features that some people want where other don't.
That one main reason why Linux is on Desktop has not no gone any where and why still at or below market share 1.5%.
Look all diff number of diff installer which still need be re-compile just apps or case you got hunt the dll hell aka dependency hell hehe.
Look at all diff number of diff distribution and all diff ver UI even know there are all petty much the same with just a diff theme on top of them which so fragmented and inconsistent that we don't have even a semblance of a unified app with different degrees of brokenness.

Look at Android, Chrome OS which slow but surely make it way to Desktop PC world I even have old Dell 1440 Laptop with Android KitKat x86 install it.
We can just forget about OS X would be nice for x86/x64 port but as we all it pain and apple is just to stuck up.

[Oddity]

Such great news, I second the idea of developing a raspberry PI as an extender, we need a source of extenders and this seems the most logical platform.
I also see that there was a Cyclone box that was an exact copy of the HD300's except the firmware, maybe these could be flashed once the source is available.