Top 5 things I hate about sage :-)

[srothwell]

5. Music jukebox needs a complete overhaul just to be a little more like the 3 year old Audiotron. Why can't I search by genre? Why can't I have a pop-up keyboard to seach by artist or album? -- I have to scroll through the ENTIRE LIBRARY to find what I want. Why do I always have to add to a playlist? Why not just say "play next."

4. I cannot set a favorite to only record on a certain day. This causes extra showings to be recorded on "repeat day"

3. Sage gets very sluggish sometimes. No rhyme or reason to it. You give it a command and it might take 10 seconds to respond. You finish a show and it might take 5 or ten seconds to finally show the menu.

2. If I cancel a recording it deletes the ENTIRE FILE, instead of just stopping the recording and saving what it has.

1. If I have recorded a bunch of shows under a favorite and I want to stop recording any more and delete the favorite, IT DELETES ALL MY RECORDED SHOWS!!!!! For crying out loud, leave the bloody shows that I already have recorded! Now I have to record another 10 episodes of "Clifford the Big Red Dog" and (yuk) "Barney." My heart just can't take that :-)


--- But seriously --- Sage is great! I would not have spent the money and, more importantly, the time if I did not think it was a great piece of software. But, boy, it does have some annoyances. Maybe v2.5??? Maybe at least the top three?

Cheers!

Stacy

[Opus4]

I'll just reply to a couple...

Originally posted by srothwell
4. I cannot set a favorite to only record on a certain day. This causes extra showings to be recorded on "repeat day"

You can check out teh MlbDude2 or MalDude custom STVs & use the timeslot feature... then as long as the show is not repeated during the same time, it will record only 1 of them. Or, try creating a manual Timed Recording.

1. If I have recorded a bunch of shows under a favorite and I want to stop recording any more and delete the favorite, IT DELETES ALL MY RECORDED SHOWS!!!!! For crying out loud, leave the bloody shows that I already have recorded!

Check out this property:

seeker/seeker/clear_partials_and_unwanted_when_ir_off - true/false deletes all recordings that were not requested but made due to timeshifting when Intelligent Recording is disabled

Set it to true or turn on IR & you won't have that problem. (Exit SageTV before editing the properties file.)

- Andy

[chking]

Another one to add to the list of complaints:

6. You can't modify the interface. I'm sick of hearing how great "studio" will be when and if it ever comes out. As far as I can tell, it's not coming out anytime soon and we've all been lied to. I'll be looking closely at Meedio when it comes out (at least with Meedio you can modify the interface) and consider Sage a giant waste of money.

[ErsatzTom]

whatever.

t

[stanger89]

:

[mbrown3]

I think chking is being quite overdramatic, but that doesn't mean that his or her comments don't have some merit. Studio was supposed to be included with V2 and yet there is still not even a timetable for its release. I realize all of the work and technical support that has to go into these things, but even some idea of a timeframe would be helpful to those of us who have to rely on the few that have it for the useful features we feel are essential.

Having said that, to say Sage is a giant waste of money is foolish and shortsighted...just my opinion.

[stanger89]

Maybe if he had more than one post. Some of us are just tired of debating Studio with people who are here only to whine about it.

[mbrown3]

I hear you...no argument there.

[mlbdude]

At the foundation, Sage is not competing with Meedio. It is competing with Tivo, Replay, and other set top boxes. I know Frey is big on making installation and setup even easier.

Their target consumer is someone with just enough computer knowledge - the 80%+ of PC users. Us teckies who love all the tweaking and configuring just don't make up a large enough number of consumers to keep them in $$$ long term.

I guess what I am saying is that I think the UI modifications are more important to us - the active few- then they are to Frey.

[Opus4]

I'll have to say that when I first looked into which software PVR to purchase, being able to customize the interface was absolutely nowhere on my list of required features. I can understand people's frustration at a lack of public Studio release so far, since it has been mentioned in the forum for quite some time, but it certainly doesn't make SageTV unusable.

- Andy

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by mlbdude
At the foundation, Sage is not competing with Meedio. It is competing with Tivo, Replay, and other set top boxes. I know Frey is big on making installation and setup even easier.

Their target consumer is someone with just enough computer knowledge - the 80%+ of PC users. Us teckies who love all the tweaking and configuring just don't make up a large enough number of consumers to keep them in $$$ long term.

I guess what I am saying is that I think the UI modifications are more important to us - the active few- then they are to Frey.

Right, but then the reasons we've been given for the delay of studio are that they need documentation, easier use, etc. for the general populace. If your theory is valid (and I have no reason to think it's not), then these shouldn't be a concern. Those of us willing to tweak should be given the current iteration of studio for our tweaking pleasure, with or without full documentation or general populace support.

[makutaku]

3. Sage gets very sluggish sometimes. No rhyme or reason to it. You give it a command and it might take 10 seconds to respond. You finish a show and it might take 5 or ten seconds to finally show the menu.

His #3 annoyance is my first ! Specially when my wife is the one who is waiting for 10 seconds without any feedback at all. I feel ashamed and I just tell her: "This happens Honey, but the software is still good overall ..."

I've tried to see if I can do anything to minimize this problem but so far no results. What puzzles me is that CPU usage is @ ~30% when this 5-10 seconds delay happens.

I really don't look forward to any other features or customizations but these usability/performance fixes.

[mlbdude]

Originally posted by makutaku
His #3 annoyance is my first ! Specially when my wife is the one who is waiting for 10 seconds without any feedback at all. I feel ashamed and I just tell her: "This happens Honey, but the software is still good overall ..."

I've tried to see if I can do anything to minimize this problem but so far no results. What puzzles me is that CPU usage is @ ~30% when this 5-10 seconds delay happens.

I really don't look forward to any other features or customizations but these usability/performance fixes.

Since this is something that most users never see, have you tried looking for help on this in the forums or with tech support? That is not normal Sage operation. Waiting around for a fix for something for your setup that will never come is probably counterproductive. (based on your 1 post)

[Opus4]

I've been guessing that this is a memory usage issue somewhere between SageTV & the playback decoders. I'm not sure if I'm right, but it seems to be the type of delay caused when something gets swapped out of memory to the Windows virtual memory cache file, then it has to get reloaded from the hard drive before it can be used again... so the delay with low cpu usage may be the sytem waiting for things to finish doing whatever it needs to do to reload everything. You will notice that after that delay, you can go back & forth between video playback & the menu fairly quickly. But, if you play the video for a long time again, showing the menu will have the delay again.

But, it doesn't matter how much memory you have -- playback seems to uses all it can & shoves everything else out temporarily.

- Andy

[jphhughes]

Originally posted by mlbdude
At the foundation, Sage is not competing with Meedio. It is competing with Tivo, Replay, and other set top boxes. I know Frey is big on making installation and setup even easier.

Their target consumer is someone with just enough computer knowledge - the 80%+ of PC users. Us teckies who love all the tweaking and configuring just don't make up a large enough number of consumers to keep them in $$$ long term.

I guess what I am saying is that I think the UI modifications are more important to us - the active few- then they are to Frey.

I consider myself the 80% you refer to. However I have found SageTV anything but easy too install and configure. The lack of proper documentation is also a real problem. Now having said that I thinks SageTV is a great product. I also learned up front (while using the trial version ) that it would be the type of product you would need to get "under the hood" to configure.

Let me also say that Frey biggest asset are the good people of this forum which keep folks like myself from giving up on the product..

[ErsatzTom]

Originally posted by mbrown3
Right, but then the reasons we've been given for the delay of studio are that they need documentation, easier use, etc. for the general populace. If your theory is valid (and I have no reason to think it's not), then these shouldn't be a concern. Those of us willing to tweak should be given the current iteration of studio for our tweaking pleasure, with or without full documentation or general populace support.

Actually I believe that the most recent "official" word was that they had decided that they needed to be able to make the modifications more modular so that small changes could be shared vs. the current monolithic, all or nothing STVs were are currently using.

Here is the post in which Dan describes their current efforts. It was made about a month ago.

t

[x[corwyn]]

Everyone knows what I want...full xCard support, plus Media MVP and/or Shocenter Clients...

I have to admit for some reason the bloody thing started ALWAYS recording cops. Every version of it. No matter how many times I say "don't like it" then "delete" I still find a huge file of it. At least I trained it to no longer get "Paid Programming"...Never fall asleep while watching Live TV. Thats all I gotta say.

As for the GUI it feels sluggish as hell but I'm using a bloody Remote console for viewing the menus right now until I either get a 2nd monitor or xCard full support is released. So I am suspecting that its because of having to Remote console it.

One big gripe...No timetable for features/fixes. I would like to see what they expect to be releasing within the next month/6 months/ 1 year. The software company I work out could not get away without that, and then also making sure to stick to it. Reading several months back about a feature that was "working well and should be released soon" then not having any sort of timetable on it breeds major frustration and lack of sympathy for issues that are going on. Communication is always key....

[justme]

Communication is always key....

Very true. My personal opinion is that Frey has often been too open with their internal ideas in the relatively(considering the company's history) recent past. They are going thru a transition from a small tight group of users, to a larger less knowledgable(of all Sage's abilities/features/quirks) groups of users. I think they were still in the small community mindset when they leaked some of their longterm plans. Unfortunatley the software had already grown beoynd that point, at that time IMHO. The result is well known to longterm members of this forum.

Now, I think Frey has realized(witness the recent 'official' posts) part of their error and has been appropriately quiet/circumspect about new features until their release is almost assured. This of course frustrates the people who've felt they belong to this tight nit community, but is an unfortunate side effect of making sure the new users don't feel miss lead. It's far better for Frey to have a good honest reputation with the broad user base, than to risk building build hype for a feature that may not make it. Some will agrue "tell us what you're working on and we won't hold you to it.", but even if that group doesn't feel thay were miss lead if the features don't appear in the near future or ever... The larger user base will feel they were lied to, or misdirected. It's just how things are. I'm personally glad to see Frey is attempting to avoid many of the issues that occured leading up to 2.0s release.

However... Bugs/fixes are a totally different issue and Frey should always make sure the entire user base is aware they are actively working on a fix. Maybe even a rough timetable on when the fix can be expected.

Another area that needs to be addressed as Frey gows is Sage's current lack of a real manual. While there is a short setup guide and a great forum available(thanks to everyone here). This is no subsitute for a real manual. Sage is just too feature rich for new users to get the most out of without a true manual.

Just my personal views on this. Not meant as negative criticism of Frey or anyone here. I posted in the hopes of it being used in a positive manner. I personally dislike posts that dwell on the negative, without a possible solution/improvement suggested.

/justme

[stanger89]

Well said

[Brett]

Originally posted by mlbdude
At the foundation, Sage is not competing with Meedio. It is competing with Tivo, Replay, and other set top boxes.

I have to disagree here. Sage has three main competitors: BTV, MCE, and (upcoming) meedioTV. Plus a handful of hobby TV applications. I have to also say I agree with the frustration around Studio. I realize they are retooling it, but I totally disagree with the companies current behavior. What is that? They toss out a version of Studio to a handful of folks, who while they do share, are more teasing us than anything else. I could continue my Studio rant, but I will hold off at that...