Question on V9

[jaydub]

I just installed SageTV V9 on top of V7 with Colossus II. Everything works great and was an easy install. Thank God. Many thanks to all that worked on this version.

A couple of questions:

Was V9 built around LAV decoders? In reading the forum, they seem to be used fairly frequently. Are they the preferred choice for some reason?

I want to do a clean install of V9 on a clean install of Win10. In this case:
- is there anything else special I need to do other than install LAV filters and sign up for Schedules Direct?
- do I still need to copy my old V7 Wiz.bin into the SageTV folder post installation?

[Tiki]

No, v9 was not built around LAV.
The problem is that MPEG decoders are not open source, so can't be distributed with the open source version of Sage.

Sage v7 and older included an MPEG decoder, but that was because it was a commercial product and they could pay the required royalties to use it. If you install Sage v9 over top of v7, you can continue to use that MPEG decoder if you wish.

Windows 7 also included a very good decoder, but Microsoft removed it from Windows 10 - most likely so they wouldn't have to pay the royalties for it.

So, if you do a clean install of Sage v9 on Windows 10, you probably won't have any usable decoders installed and will have to get them somewhere else. LAV is a popular choice, but there are many others. NVIDIA Pure Video and ATI Avivo come to mind, but these either aren't free, aren't sold anymore, or may require you to purchase something else.

[jaydub]

Thanks for the reply, Tiki. Other than installing the LAV filters, anything I need to do to install V9 without the benefit of a prior V7 install?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by jaydub

Thanks for the reply, Tiki. Other than installing the LAV filters, anything I need to do to install V9 without the benefit of a prior V7 install?

You'll need an EPG source, probably Schedules Direct.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

You'll need an EPG source, probably Schedules Direct.

Well the original Sage EPG source is still supported in V9, however it will stop working in all versions in July, when Google turns off the servers. Then your best alternative is to use Schedules Direct for EPG data. Sage v9 has built-in support for Schedules Direct, but you do need to got to the SD website and sign up for an account first (cost is currently $25/yr IIRC). One nice thing is that SD now has EPG data for many countries, so global users of Sage should have a better experience.