Decided to start trying other PVRs

[x[corwyn]]

Last night after the studio announcement, I was finally spurred enough to install another PVR software to see if I can get what I do out of Sage. My first one last night so far is GB-PVR that Sub has put together. There are a few quirks but its still beat, however what really impressed me, was right out of the box, xcard works with OSD!!!!! Plus the Media MVP interface is really slick. My roommate (who isn't tech savvy at all) was able to finally do everything via the MVP that he had had to ask me to do before. Its taking some getting used to, and Sage is still on the box if I want to switch back over, but I'm going to test it out this week, and I'm also getting a copy of MCE2005, and I will try it out, however for my purposes I don't really think I will like it as there is no xcard or MVP support for it.

[RedCoat999]

Originally Posted by x[corwyn]

Last night after the studio announcement

Excuse my ignorance, but what studio message announcement??

[jptaz]

I think he is referring to this:

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...5&postcount=22

[jptaz]

x[corwyn],

Have you tried the MediaMVP Client that Matt created? I seems really nice and works well. Can't fault you for looking for other alternatives to SageTV though. I was a bit dissapointed in the Studio Announcement too, but I have to be able to run a client on a PC and I am not interested in BeyondTV.

John

[Ralphjb]

To each their own, of course.

But was is the big deal with Studio?

[x[corwyn]]

Originally Posted by jptaz

x[corwyn],

Have you tried the MediaMVP Client that Matt created? I seems really nice and works well. Can't fault you for looking for other alternatives to SageTV though. I was a bit dissapointed in the Studio Announcement too, but I have to be able to run a client on a PC and I am not interested in BeyondTV.

John

I did install the Media MVP interface, and it was definitely a step above from what Hauppauge has, but I didn't have a seperate client license and whats ironic was I was going to buy one today so that I could get that functionality going. I'm really stoked though that I finally have an OSD for the xCard. I can finally hang the TV up from the ceiling and not have to figure out how to plan on having a monitor by it for the TV portion. The OSD doesn't look as good as I hoped, but then again I'm using a composite cable right now, not Svideo or component, as I had to move the computer into my room when I found out there wasn't an OSD for the xcard. Now that I have a MVP player that kinda makes it moot for downstairs, but it can now reduce the clutter in my room. I wish Sage had worked on that...

I'm coming home tonite and will see the recordings and try them out on both my machine and the MVP. I am kinda bummed that the MVP when used with the GBPVR will not play Divx encoded files, however I have always hoped that the next iteration of MVP will have that functionality and a built in wireless G and I could stick this MVP in the garage or something...

Also something else I noticed...GBPVR has a web interface to get the TV Programming...How trick is THAT! I can now schedule stuff while at work...I'm excited...

[JasonJoel]

Yeah, well you can do that with Sage too... Using the web server plugin...

Jason

Originally Posted by x[corwyn]

Also something else I noticed...GBPVR has a web interface to get the TV Programming...How trick is THAT! I can now schedule stuff while at work...I'm excited...

[x[corwyn]]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

Yeah, well you can do that with Sage too... Using the web server plugin...

Jason

I found some of the plugins around here, but that was one I never saw. On the GBPVR site there is a comprhensive list of the plugs, the source code, and who the author is. Finding plugins around here is like searching through a train wreck, and you never know if they work with the version of Sage you have until you read through a bunch of text and answeres back and forth in a forum setting... Maybe they can add that to their suggestion box to have a easy to use spot for finding and using plugins for Sage, or if they do have a list make it a bit easier to find....

[nielm]

Originally Posted by x[corwyn]

Finding plugins around here is like searching through a train wreck, and you never know if they work with the version of Sage

Forums -> Sage Tv customisations -> First Sticky post: List of available customizations
Including author and which Sage version they work with.

My webserver plugin post has quite high traffic, so you should often see it on the 'New Posts' list...

[x[corwyn]]

Yea...if you look thats all in the "Beta Release" area. Thats not exactly the most easy place to find when a simple "Plugins" area or link would be a far better repository. Lets put it this way, in several months of being on here and reading the forums, I saw only references to a few plugins and tried a few out, and just now see that, or in less than one day have GBPVR running with several plugins going....which system do you think might be more user friendly?

Last night my roommate watched the episodes that were recorded yesterday on the MVP player via GBPVR and not one question, or complaint. I didn't realize that till this morning when he mentioned he had watched shows that were recorded... I'm having issues getting girder to work right so that I can use my firefly remote, but other than that I'm pretty happy. GBPVR isn't quite as polished as Sage, but its pretty damned close, and for the price I'm very impressed. Sub is to be given mad props for his work there...Now if he could get his forums to work right so I can log in there to hopefully get help with my girder issues...

I found a spare 20GB drive so I will probably turn that into an OS drive for Myth and also install MCE2005 on my windows drive and give that a test out. If anyone wants, I can give my thoughts on those as well. I will say this, even though I am definitely a techie, I concentrate more on ease of use overall and I'm willing to sacrifice features so if y'all want the supreme review and get flamed for missing certain cool features, I can already say that isn't my goal. I spend WAY too much time at work troubleshooting to want to spend all my free time troubleshooting as well...

[mlbdude]

Well, I switched from Sage to MCE05 on my primary HTCP for that exact reason. Under the covers I think Sage is still the strongest product out there (well other than the music core) but on the surface I just can't justify using it on a day to day basis. MCE05 is actually a pleasure to use - not tweak.

For Sage I find myself rewriting the UI to get it to the level I want now. That in itself is fun so no major complaints but it sure does take allot of my time .

However, don't be afraid to give this kind of feedback here. Even though it may seem like it sometimes, Frey is listening.

[jptaz]

mlbdude,

Seems kind of odd that one of the big STV developers doesn't even use SageTV as his primary PVR.

I have been using SageTV since 1.2.8 and I have rarely had major stability or usability problems in the core functionality.

When Betas come out I am willing to test them for a few days, but if any major problems show up in my regression testing it is back to the previous stable version. I am kind of upset that I did not have time to do more beta testing with 2.1 since it got released with several bugs I had submitted and since I did not have a chance to test the later betas to see that they actually didn't resolve the problems as the developers thought they would.

In the last 6 weeks I have only been living in my house for a few days since we have had major remodeling done and during that time there was not a single failure recording anything. I was able to eventually catch up on the 200GB+ of recordings since then and everything was perfect.

John

[mlbdude]

Yeah Sage 2.0 has been the most stable and reliable PVR application I have used. Any complaints I have are on the usability of the day to day items and not the underlying core.

It started with my wife making the decision to move MCE05 from the secondary PC to the primary. Sage has moved to the secondary with BTV out the door. At first I had a mission to redo Sage to be just as usable. Have not hit that goal yet but I will try. However, after living with MCE for about a month now, I am finding it harder and harder to come back to Sage. I still have hopes though that Sage is just down and not out .

[mc2wheels]

I have considered switching to MCE myself because I get it with my MSDN subscription, but I have not had much time to test it.

I heard that MCE 2005 doesn't handle multiple tuners having different guide data -- is this true? I have 2 tuners. One goes through the cable box for tuning, and one just tunes the cable from the wall. Can MCE handle this?

Also, is there a tuner plugin to tune a motorola box with the serial cable? I used to have a blaster with Tivo, and it was really unreliable. I don't want to go back.

Last question, have you tried an extender? I often watch the recorded shows with sage on my laptop. Can this be done with MCE?

[mikejaner]

I love using MCE for my High Def content. I am switching between the two to do just that. The Wife and I still use sage for all other shows etc... which is about 90% of our viewing.

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by mc2wheels

I have considered switching to MCE myself because I get it with my MSDN subscription, but I have not had much time to test it.

I heard that MCE 2005 doesn't handle multiple tuners having different guide data -- is this true? I have 2 tuners. One goes through the cable box for tuning, and one just tunes the cable from the wall. Can MCE handle this?

Also, is there a tuner plugin to tune a motorola box with the serial cable? I used to have a blaster with Tivo, and it was really unreliable. I don't want to go back.

Last question, have you tried an extender? I often watch the recorded shows with sage on my laptop. Can this be done with MCE?

Sounds like MCE is not for you . MCE can only do one type of source. So if you use two tuners they both have to be the same input types. Mine are both cable using the tuner. Or they could be both SVideo input with IR controlling two cable boxes. No mixing.

There is not serial tuner plugin that I am aware of. However, the remote you buy for MCE comes with two IR blasters.

I currently use the XBox extender. No PC extender available yet. The XBox extender is nice but you can only play recordings and music, no XVid or Divx files.

[kny3twalker]

there is beta support for serial for DirecTV

I heard that MCE 2005 doesn't handle multiple tuners having different guide data -- is this true? I have 2 tuners. One goes through the cable box for tuning, and one just tunes the cable from the wall. Can MCE handle this?

one reason I have not ran out and bought it yet
I am still trying to give Frey time to fix the VMR9 issue
I hate being limited to a post processor

this will be the reason
I switch if they do not fix this

I will rent another box and get locals through DirecTV instead of analogue cable

[ToxMox]

kny:
did you see my post in your VMR9 poll thread?

[kny3twalker]

yup and responded to it

[rotaryracer]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

I love using MCE for my High Def content. I am switching between the two to do just that. The Wife and I still use sage for all other shows etc... which is about 90% of our viewing.

Mike, are you running HDTV through MCE2005 on your Celeron 2.4? Any issues? I hate to say it, but I am probably also jumping ship on Sage and migrating to MCE. I really want to incorporate HD and SD into one app and Sage has shown no roadmap or plans to support HD, so......

I have an AMD Barton 2500 with 1GB of RAM and probably will be moving my 9800 Pro to my HTPC. Will this be enough horsepower to handle HD in MCE and still use my 2 PVRs to record SD (theoretically all at the same time)?

Also, any reason you're not using MCE for all SD and HD programming?

Thx...

Jason