Ad supported EPG?

[49studebaker]

An ad bar could be displayed on the SageTV EPG screen. If SchedulesDirect has a google Adwords account, ads could be displayed and the ad revenue could be used to pay for the EPG.

[BobPhoenix]

Personally I would rather pay for my EPG and skip the adds. But I can see where this would be valuable to many.

[davidk21770]

I am so tired of filtering ads and keeping ads from collecting data that I'd rather not share on "free" apps that I'd happily pay for - but am not given the choice. I no longer even test an app or program that is ad supported. The ads are designed to get your attention and they do - they are very distracting and they take screen realestate. If not, they have another revenue source - your use patterns and other data - that are not truly anonymous.

Please don't open the door even a crack. Once started, it will open. I really like sage and would be very unhappy for it to join the heap of apps that I can no longer use.

[Fuzzy]

hell, skipping commercials is still one of the main drivers for USING sagetv in the first place...

[graywolf]

Choice ad supported "free" epg vs. $25/yr ad free?
I would pay the $25 anytime
If I don't want to watch commercials, why would I want to subject myself to either random or worse yet targeted ads (tracking)?

[will]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Choice ad supported "free" epg vs. $25/yr ad free?
I would pay the $25 anytime

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

hell, skipping commercials is still one of the main drivers for USING sagetv in the first place...

Originally Posted by davidk21770

I am so tired of filtering ads and keeping ads from collecting data that I'd rather not share on "free" apps that I'd happily pay for

+++++++1

Also, I use the EPG mainly through my HD300s - so even if you could display ads I couldn't click on them and make any money for Schedules Direct. They are doing it at cost as it is.

Finally, I don't think SD gets enough EPG traffic to make $25 a user per month


I get a lot from the EPG service for only $25/year.

Consider this, where I live I would need to give up ANY of the following to pay for the EPG service for one year:

• 2.75 packs of cigarettes or 55 cigarettes (I don't smoke so I'll do this one )
• 5 Grande Starbucks Lattes
• 2 cocktails at the bar
• 2 lunches for myself at Chipotle
• 2 tickets to the movies
• 1 nice car wash

My point is, this EPG service is already pretty cheap. I don't think Schedules Direct is trying to run a business as much as provide a service for the home theater community. Also, I question if Schedules Direct could make $25/year in ad revenue - that is pretty hard to do.

[jchiso]

At this point I would pay $50 a year for an EPG that worked with v7 ...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by jchiso

At this point I would pay $50 a year for an EPG that worked with v7 ...

That sounds... wasteful.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by will

+++++++1

Also, I use the EPG mainly through my HD300s - so even if you could display ads I couldn't click on them and make any money for Schedules Direct. They are doing it at cost as it is.

Finally, I don't think SD gets enough EPG traffic to make $25 a user per month

My point is, this EPG service is already pretty cheap. I don't think Schedules Direct is trying to run a business as much as provide a service for the home theater community. Also, I question if Schedules Direct could make $25/year in ad revenue - that is pretty hard to do.

The challenges to do this would be steep (as you noted HD300s, etc), but, if they could do it, they might make 25/month against all uses, which would be far less than the 25/year per 1 user. (I make about 15-25/month on 1 app with about 5k active users).

But to your point, the $25 is cheap. It's literally the cheapest part of my entire setup. When I factor in the costs for hardware, extenders, android boxes, supporting software like plex, netflix, amazon prime, bell tv subscription, etc, this 25/year doesn't even make a blip. For some things that I don't use often, I couldn't care if it's ad supported. But for something that I have to use every day I'll pay the extra to remove the ads.

I can't imagine anyone built their own PVR because it was the cheaper solution. I had a couple people that I met at conference talk to me about setting up a PVR solution. The first thing I told them was expect to pay a lot of money, up front, for the privilege of managing your own TV library and having comskip, and the benefit of being able to what it where you want, when you want. But if you looking to saving money shouldn't be the primary goal (yeah you might save money over the course of a few years, but, I think we all do it because we love the freedom of it... at least that's why I do it... since this "hobby" is expensive to maintain )

Originally Posted by jchiso

At this point I would pay $50 a year for an EPG that worked with v7 ...

I'm guessing it could be possible for someone to take Sluggers's original code and make it work. You'd likely need to add another 0 or two to that 50, but, given enough money, someone would likely do it. The bigger challenge is that no-one that works on sagetv is going to invest time into this (freely). Not when V9 is free, and it's the ONLY path forward. Asking someone to build for V7 would be like asking someone to write apps for Windows Mobile.

[wayner]

At first my response was - I will pay the $25 per year.

But now that I think about it for a second - I almost never use the EPG through the SageTV UI so I would almost never see the ads. When I think of it that way I wouldn't care about the ads if they were only displayed in the EPG on the UI.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by wayner

At first my response was - I will pay the $25 per year.

But now that I think about it for a second - I almost never use the EPG through the SageTV UI so I would almost never see the ads. When I think of it that way I wouldn't care about the ads if they were only displayed in the EPG on the UI.

We would just plaster the ads all over the web interface.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

We would just plaster the ads all over the web interface.

That would be more problematic but I usually set up my recordings via Favorites or the Search EPG function of the Web UI.

[49studebaker]

It is definitely important to have an option to enable/disabled ads. The ads would not need to be clickable. Ads on TV are not clickable. I do not mind advertising, became it is how I find out about new products, sales and discounts.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by 49studebaker

It is definitely important to have an option to enable/disabled ads. The ads would not need to be clickable. Ads on TV are not clickable. I do not mind advertising, became it is how I find out about new products, sales and discounts.

I just think it's pretty obvious that most don't mind the $25/year, so I don't think schedules direct, who is a non-profit organization, has much interest in increasing revenue through advertising. The $25/year seems to be adequate for paying their expenses, so I'm thinking they are comfortable with that.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by 49studebaker

It is definitely important to have an option to enable/disabled ads. The ads would not need to be clickable. Ads on TV are not clickable. I do not mind advertising, became it is how I find out about new products, sales and discounts.

Maybe someone could just a write an Ad plugin for those that want the SageTV UI to come with ads, so they can find out about new things. (ie, this has nothing to with SD, just a simple plugin that downloads images and plasters them in the UI -- they might be able to hook into the fanart APIs and show some of them as complete background images).

[emveepee]

You aren't paying for the guide though you are paying for the guide data so you might need to have ads on all the screens that use the derived program names and descriptions in recordings and on playback. Besides now that Sage is open source it would be easy to remove the code from the display and skins

My experience with NextPVR is that everyone who tries to save the small amount SD charges costs the community in "free" support. Why bother.

Martin

[KryptoNyte]

I agree with the others - paying a small amount for EPG is no problem here.

SageTV is the one place in life that is virtually ad-free, and Jeff, don't think we haven't noticed that this forum is also [still] ad-free. Mistype something in Amazon search and you'll be staring at it for the next month on any other website.

I would actually welcome other services like news/weather outlets where a small fee could omit the advertising entirely.

[rmeden]

If there are ads in SageTV, it becomes a commercial product and Schedules Direct is no longer licensed to provide data for it.

As far as SD offering ads...

1. SD provides raw data to Open Source apps. What's to stop someone from modifying the source to turn them off?

2. SD provides raw data... what if the data is analyzed by a program and not displayed in a guide? (many approved products do this)

3. I can't see anyone at SD wanting to get in the advertising game... we just want to keep our projects working, and with good data. SD isn't anyone's day job.

3. I can't see the SD board giving it more than an laugh.

Robert Eden
President, Schedules Direct
XMLTV

[will]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I can't imagine anyone built their own PVR because it was the cheaper solution.

I think we tell ourselves it is going to be cheaper and less time to justify the expense (money & time) to start. Deep down we all know what we are getting into.

I just purchased a house and about to start renovations so I figured it would be a great time to add in some home automation... it will save me time and money (because no wasteful lights left on). It's hard to stop at one room so I'm already at 2k in light switches and dimmers and I haven't even started setting up Home Assistant yet or creating all the YAML scripts I'll need to program Alexa for voice control.

It's never cheaper or quicker, just more fun and powerful. I consider this stuff my hobby and I enjoy every minute of it.

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by jchiso

At this point I would pay $50 a year for an EPG that worked with v7 ...

You can use Schedules Direct and other sources with v7 via a combination of XMLTV Importer for SageTV and mc2xml, which is what I've been using for a few years for UK guide data but of course it requires more effort to setup than using the built-in SDEPG in v9.

I still haven't gotten around to upgrading to v9 as yet, my v7 setup still works fine and I just haven't had the time or inclination.

$25yr for schedules direct is a bargain!