Top 5 things I hate about sage :-)

[IVB]

I think you're both right - HTPC s/w apps are trying to give STBs a run for their $$, and as such, BTV/Sage/MedTV are all competing with Tivo/Replay/...

Actually, to take that up a level, everyone's trying to figure out how to get a piece of the $$ that folks are willing to spend not bound to the broadcasters schedule. The question about who's doing the best job will determine who's going to get the largest % of wallet. SageTV is trying to make their product as easy to use out-of-box, so studio isn't needed in the first place.

After all, you can't muck with the Tivo or Replay UI, and at this time, you can't significantly alter BTV or [looks like] MedTV either. That said, I suspect there will be a significant first-mover advantage to the first product that lets you setup the UI how you want it as a one-time license purchase is a very sticky event.

Really - what % of the SageTV populace would be willing to throw away their investment and buy BeyondTV just b/c Studio is a few months or quarters late.

[mlbdude]

Originally posted by ThatGuy
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...

If that is the case then they are in trouble . There just are not enough users in this area to keep them in business. Set top box like functionality and the OEM market is the only way to hit a large enough user base for long term financial stability.

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by IVB
SageTV is trying to make their product as easy to use out-of-box, so studio isn't needed in the first place.

After all, you can't muck with the Tivo or Replay UI, and at this time, you can't significantly alter BTV or [looks like] MedTV either. That said, I suspect there will be a significant first-mover advantage to the first product that lets you setup the UI how you want it as a one-time license purchase is a very sticky event.

Good points. That's why I think there are some serious stability/quality issues that have to be fixed before anything else. The problem is that there are so many different potential hardware configurations that it must be a nightmare for the folks at Sage to contend with, to try to smooth out the product for any platform. And I think they're doing a great job...I just hope that they are spending a majority of their time working out the technical issues rather than on things that can wait, like (in my estimation) Studio.

Ideal situation for me...release Studio as an open beta for those who want it, with the understanding that not much support will be given to it for a while...then work on the existing tech issues with Sage before going back to Studio. That way, everyone wins (I know folks will say that some users will get hold of Studio and not know what to do with it, and complain, etc., but so be it...those who are willing to tinker and learn can have it, others don't need to use it, or better yet can get help on the forums).

[bisbjerg]

For all of you satisfied customers, not waiting for Studio, please consider us poor, non-americans, who'll die at getting a chance to custome SageTV, i.e. change the UI language, wherever it is possible.
I'm aware that customers outside the US, don't carry that much weight, and I think that is a darn shame, because SageTV is a great product.
But it still remains a fact, that Frey do not have that much focus on other countries, e.g. PAL-support, general EPG support away from the standard 2-hour slots, etc.
Then again, how can they - its a pretty small company with one programmer - and globalization/localization isn't the easiest thing in the world.

[chrysek]

Originally posted by 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.

I did check the meedio website and I love it. In Aug they will came up with TV option so whoever said that sagetv will never go side by side with it is wrong. Sage IS competing with Meedio and others. Sage will have to do better if they will not want to loose their customers. I did purchase SageTV, I did finally get my SageTV to work without crashing that much, I had to replace my Newest PVR-250 with newest chipset for the older model so that it would work with the PVR-350 that I have but so much agrevation it costed me.

Someone said that you want it to look like a TiVO or at least be as easy to use as TiVO, yes I agree, but this move back and forward feature is not as nice as in TiVO or other PVR's I did put my hands on. Why do I need to keep pressing forward button? Why cant I configure it to just keep going trough the show at various speeds depending how many times I press on the forward button? my PVR501 for dish is great for that. On the positive note why I like SageTV better than my other PVRs, well I can watch using SageTV both Dish and cable channels at the same time, while until now I had to switch between on my TV. I could not have one single device to capture them both, I had to have two PVR's to capture either one.

Another thing is that StudioTV, everyone is asking for it, everyone wants to play with it, everyone wants to configure their SageTV with it. Why it is so dificult to give some estimate delivery dates? If it has to cost why cost cannot be associated with the product? or whatever?

I mean dont get me wrong, I finally love my SageTV, I wish I could have my request about duplicate channels on/off foe totaly different devices as an option so if I have dish network and cable box and I want to see duplicate channels only on my dish network and digital box regardles, example, I have WCBS on channel 2 (cable) and WCBS on channel 243 (dish) I want to see them both instead sage treating them as duplicate. Somehow had dificulty expressing this to Sage Devel team. I mean this is not something that will make me hate SageTV nor forse me to switch but I would like to see this in.

There are many things but I would love to have my hands on StudioTV and be able toto set it up the way I like it. All of the plugins are nice but if combined together they would make it such a great product.

Also I have this CASE with display in front. It does support parralel port output so I can put like "This is my HTPC" and a clock etc, I would love to sidplay more like that it is recording for example, or what it will record next? or what song it is playing.. wouldnt that be great?

I think Sage has a long way to go before it is a trully great product to replace TiVO and like devices but for sure it is a great start and on its way there, but be aware of the competition...

I also would like to thank Sage Team for dooing great job with Sage, making everyone happy is not an easy task...

Thanks

Chris

PS: dont take my comments the wrong way, I just wanted to get it out of me, now I feel much beter and hpe to see more improvement and finaly Studio out

[jptaz]

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.

I would have to agree with this as well. I love 2.0 and would not go back to 1.4, but 1.4 with all the same hardware and software did not have this issue so I believe there is a bug in Sage TV that is causing it. I get this on both SageTV Server and Client. I will have to say that there are times when a second client connects that it causes SageTV to use 100% CPU for a short period of time that causes any video playing back to pause or stutter. This tends to happen when SageTV has been running for a long time and a lot of video playback has been going on for a long time. What is odd is that after a fresh restart of SageTV simulating the same situation does cause a stutter in the video playback and CPU utilization is not as high for as long. I almost wonder if Java is not doing garbage collection and cleaning up unused memory or something because of the new connection.

[jblust]

I'm seeing a similar 100% CPU utilization problem on my sage server. It tends to happen at random times (e.g. not at the start of a recording), and the machine will just go to 100% utilization for maybe 20 or 30 seconds (50% of the CPU is used by Sagetv.exe and the other 50% is used by "System"). When this is happening, it doesn't seem to affect playback on my client machine (as long as you don't try to fast-forward or push any buttons) but the server itself becomes temporarily unusable.

I thought it might be related to my odd configuration (1 PVR250, 1 PVR350, 1 PVR250MCE with SHS's beta drivers), but I kinda doubt it.

[jptaz]

I doubt it too since I have all original PVR-250's in my setup and I see the same behavior. As I recall I saw the same kind of behavior where System was using about 50% as well.

[makutaku]

Originally posted by mlbdude
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)

I am not quite just waiting for a fix to fall from heaven ! I have been reading many posts here to identify if this problem is not just with me. And it appears several other people are having similar problems.

Before I started bothering people I wanted to do my homework and tried to consistently reproduce this annoying bug (which so far I couldn't).

I am now looking for help in this forum (can you help me ?) and I may call tech support soon.

Btw, I am using the default decoder and overlay: just plain settings.

[mlbdude]

Originally posted by makutaku
I am not quite just waiting for a fix to fall from heaven ! I have been reading many posts here to identify if this problem is not just with me. And it appears several other people are having similar problems.

Before I started bothering people I wanted to do my homework and tried to consistently reproduce this annoying bug (which so far I couldn't).

I am now looking for help in this forum (can you help me ?) and I may call tech support soon.

Btw, I am using the default decoder and overlay: just plain settings.

We can probalby help you . I would start a new thread with this issue and with as much detail about your system and configuration as possible.

[lovingHDTV]

The two things I miss in SageTV.

MediaMVP support - I need a cheap client in my childrens play room. Then they can watch thier DVDs up there instead of in my theatre.

HDTV support - even beta level (scheduling and record only) support like we had for v1.4.10. Then I could use mlbdude's compression extension with virtualDub to convert the TS stream to a nice mpeg2 file that I could then play within Sage and I can stop deciding HDTV or commercials.

I don't care much about Studio, I'm getting all the changes I want now without any work thanks mlbdude! Of course this will stop in the future.

My $0.02.

dave