*****OFFICIAL SageTV/SageClient FEATURE REQUEST/UPDATE THREAD*****

[BergoniaC]

1. When you press the "x" on the upper right hand corner of Sage TV it goes to sleep mode instead of closing the program.
Moderator's Note:This is already possible using the properties file setting of: sleep_on_close=true
Check out the SageTV Configuration Properties file on the SageTV Configuration page. Set this property while SageTV is not running to force it to sleep instead of exiting.end of Mod's note.

2. Easier way to record VHS or other video sorce other than TV. ie pick a source and press a record button.

[DON3k]

This may sound odd, but I have a feature that would be very useful if you understand why this feature would be helpful.

It seems that lately my Cablebox and SageTV are dead-on with their time sync. Sage is set to sync with Sage server, so it's always right on with Cox Cable here in New Orleans. However, at certain times of the year, I find that the 1st few seconds, or sometimes a full half-min will be missing from the beginnings of shows.

Most television shows go right into the show/story, then after a minute or so, they go into the opening credits. Often this initial one minute of show is critical to understanding what's happening. The credits at the end are not nearly as important to me, and I always seem to have the full credits, and sometimes the first few seconds of the next show.

I know, I should use the padding feature. Well, that feature is a bit of a pain, since if a show goes back-to-back, it doesn't pad, and you have to do it for each show, and at a minimum of one minute, at least, as far as I'm aware.

My suggested feature is this - Sage Time Sync Offset

I would like to be able to say, "Sync with SageTV, but subtract or add X number of seconds to or from the sync." This way, I can counter the 1st few seconds being missed from my shows without the use of the padding feature. I think 30 seconds would probably do it, but a custom amount of time would be the best option.

Just turning off the sync and setting my PC isn't the greatest, since the PC seems to get a little off in it's time on it's own after a few days. The nightly sync with Sage is best, but the offset would be great.

It doesn't have to be a per-channel setting, just a universal setting. I'd much prefer to lose the last of the credits, rather than then actual first few seconds of the program itself.

Comments anyone? Moderator's Note:Please keep all comments to PM or use another thread. This thread is for feature request posts only.

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DON3k

[AndyS]

I'd really like to put SageTVClient in my guest room, and make all of the normal features available to my guests. However, I don't want my guest's viewing habits to affect what Sage records (I have Intelligent Recording enabled).

So - I'd like a 'read-only' mode that can view stuff but can't affect IR and maybe can't set recordings (other than those for programs being watched, obviously).

This would also be great for kid's rooms.

If anyone knows how this functionality can be achieved using the current version of Sage, please PM me or start a new thread.

Andy.

[DCipher]

I have to admit i only read through a few pages of these suggestions, so i'm sorry if these have been mentioned earlier:

1. Ability Write shows to DVD (similar to save to VCR feature of TiVo). With DVD recordables so cheap now, this would be killer...

2. Genre based music selection (Specifically Genre/Artist/Album). Really, this should be customizable so you can specify ANY filter.

3. Allow hooks into standard menu items to fire off commands as needed. For example, when i select to play music i need to send a command to girder to tell it to switch my receiver to stereo mode instead of Dolby Digital. This could be as simple as menu item properties where you specify the command and command line params.

Sage is such a cool application! I have finally ripped out all my components in favor of my HTPC and Receiver... Having a unified interface for everything is soooo nice!

Jeff

[Darren Cook]

I've seen this mentioned before, but I'll say it again....chalk it up as another vote.

FM Radio implementation with Scheduled FM Recording. PLEASE! What good is an HTPC if you can't listen to the radio? I know there are other radio apps out there, I use them, but it totally takes away from that "unified interface for everything" that DCipher just mentioned. SageTV is just NOT everything, with FM radio support missing.

PS: I've read it's on the list of planned developments, etc etc. Anyone care to give a rough date? ;-)

Darren

[jadawin]

I don't know if this has been suggested before (didn't show up in my search), but it would be nice if the 'timed recording' allowed us to assign a name to the recording that was more descriptive than the auto-generated date/time naming.

[Jeraden]

When you are watching a saved recording and you get to the end of it, you are taken back to the list of recorded programs, but you are taken back to the top of it. Make it so you are just taken back to the recording info screen of the program you just completed or at least have the recording list positioned on the item you just finished. Its kind of a pain when you have tons of recordings to scroll through and find the one that just finished so you can delete it.

[dragon]

Since SageTV is monitoring the video Import directory, why can't it maintain, keep and use the wiz.bin information for a Sage recorded file moved there. Instead of just dumping file information for past shows that are not in the "video directory" when starting, I'd like to see SageTV do this same scanning on the video import directories also.

Further, I'd like to see the obsoleted entries tagged for deletion in a couple days -- if they don't show up on a subsequent scan. This would solve the issue of losing video information when moving files to a different drive or different computer, or when restarting SageTV while the networked storage is offline.

Terry

[DCipher]

One of the things TiVo does very well is handling FF, REW, Skip, etc. (that is when you have the 30 sec. skip backdoor enabled). Sage would do well to copy TiVo and do the following:

1. Skip Forward button does 30 second skip (should remain customizable) - (SageTV handles this already and should continue to handle this in the future) Mod's note:Can be set to any value using the sage.properties file. See FAQ in SageTV software forum

2. Replay button does 10 seconds backwards instant replay. (SageTV can handle this already and should continue to in the future). Mod's note:Can be set to any value using the sage.properties file. See FAQ in SageTV software forum

3. FF button does 1x, 2x, 3x FF so you can scan thru video (YES, this is a useful feature when scanning through longs streams of video for interesting stuff - e.g. looking for crashes in bike races).

4. RW button does 1x, 2x,3 x RW.

When you switch to play from FF or RW, it automatically adjusts the start point based on what speed & direction you were scanning (keeps you from overshooting what you are looking for).

5. Skip to Tick: tick marks are every 15 minutes. When in FF or RW mode, pressing the skip button jumps to the next tick in the appropriate direction. This helps you quickly get to a specifc starting location in a large video file.


This leaves the user with a lot of control over how to jump around in a video file. I use ALL of the methods on my TiVo and am missing some of them on the Sage box (specifically #'s 3, 4, and 5).

[xlr8shun]

Originally posted by pawn
2. A video export utility. I don't do any video editing, but about the only thing I would do, is save a clip from a show.

It would be best if this utility could be accurate down to a second (i.e., save the portion of show "X" from 2 minutes and 45 seconds to 3 minutes and 30 seconds), unlike ATI's predictably useless solution which is only accurate to the minute.

since its been OVER a year since this was originally requested (see first page) and possibly requested more then once in the 15 pages, i'd like to bring it back up again.

countless times i wish i could save a clip from a show, or a commercial to send to someone or save for someone to view later. currently its a pita to do this.. you have to copy the original to a temp location, open it up in your editor, then set marker, and save. if you're unfortunate enough to have a program that has to reencode could take hours.

so what i propose then is the same result, but a slightly different approach.

sage would have a new mode that you enter into (like time scroll), where you can set tick marks with buttons like 'enter/select' and move around the timeline by pressing left and right. you could save a clip between 2 tick marks by pressing the record button. where sage would then prompt you for the filename (perhaps even with an osk?) then you can save it for later.

with the addition of tick marks you could also kill 2 birds with 1 stone, since a lot of people have been requesting these markers/ticks/bookmarks. just make them so you can skip to them.

if that gets added, then it would probably allow studio users to tag the 'clip' as such, and perhaps even allow us to store all our 'clips' in a single dir in the video library and/or recordings menu. for easy access/playback/orginization.

[jkf]

I like the intelligent recording feature of sagetv, but I think it could be improved.

I think the intelligent recording option could benefit from a questionnaire during setup where you tell sage your basic likes and dislikes.
I would also like to be able to tell sagetv to never record programs from a specific category or channel unless manually selected.

For example, I'm recording the world series of poker which the guide classifies as a "sports non-event". Sagetv now wants to record all other sports non-events, which turns out to be anything on speed or the golf channel. I'd prefer it if there were a way to tell sage that I don't like golf, instead of going through all of the golf programs and selecting "don't like".

[7up]

The multituner support should be used for picture-in-picture (PIP) functionality.

Please also add my vote for Xcard OSD support.

[SpaceFuzz]

I would like to request a change in the Keep at Most (KAM) / Autodelete (AD) functionality. It seems to me that the only logical response for those settings should be:
1) KAM 5 / AD Automatic - record 5 episodes, then delete the oldest as a new one is recorded
2) KAM 5 / AD Manual - record 5 episodes then stop recording new episodes until one or more shows are manually deleted by the user.

Currently, in scenario #2, SageTV will ignore your KAM setting and you'll ultimately end up with an infinite number of recordings of one show. VERY annoying. Several users have requested this to work like TIVO, and common sense says these settings SHOULD.

Mod's Note:This is already on the list to be changed for the next major release.

[broderp]

1. Add a pop up menu at the end of watched video, giving us the instant option so save, move to library, set as watched, clear watched or DELETE. with out haveing to go back to the recorded menu system and reselect and go thru the entere process.

2. Allow SAGE tp redefine the terms FIRST RUN and RERUN to mean first time recorded and watched and already recorded and watched.

[Jeraden]

Originally posted by pawn
1. Favourite by keyword. Since I didn't get a response about having Sage record only an individual sports team's games, I'll assume it currently can't be done.

But perhaps it could be if, for instance, the user could enter a key word, or key words to be searched for in the guide titles and/or program desciptions.

Example: I could enter "Toronto Maple Leafs" as a favourite, or even as an intelligent recording helper, and Sage would record all Leaf games for me.

Was just about to post this as a request but see it was previously suggested. I second this request. I find myself every week or so searching on several keywords to see if any upcoming shows are related to them. For example, particular actors, artists, subject matter. Would be nice to be able to just have it automatically record anything matching those criteria, just like in the search for programs screen.

[chrysek]

I would like to see in SageTV is that if I move my Recorded mpeg file to a different location like the multimedia directory I would get the desctiptions and all the movie infos. I would prefer that SageTV had some database file or text file or whatever to keep such info in. Best if Sage could do something like MD5 checksum check on the files so if the filename would be changed but checksum would be the same it could identify this file and could display its information back.

I did not want to keep my video files that I recorded with SageTV in the same folder as regular day-to-day recordings so I moved them to my so called OK directory but as soon as I moved them in I lost all the detail information that was associated with those files.

Maybe it could be great to have text file created with the video but different extention that could have such detail information in and whole lot more like when it was captured/recodred etc.Mod's FYI:Metadata export(XML) is already possible using a custom STV. However full metadata portability is not available in the unmodified SageTV setup, as of this note. Uncustomized SageTV2.0 uses the "Wiz.bin" file to store metadata and that info is tied to a filepath.

Could it not be tied to a filepath? this way if file was moved it would still be able to display all the detail information under sagetv...

[chrysek]

Live TV guide section should have maybe information about what capture card or provider I program is provided by. Ok, lets say I have two different sources going to my SageTV. ne source is dish network and the second source is Digital Cable box. Now, lets say channel 100 is there for each system but they are totaly different channels. When I do search for programs and choose one I dont know which card or source it is recording from except I have channel number. Then I need to think and figure our if this channel is on cable box or dish network box. Just more info that could be useful for me.

Thanks for a great job with SageTV, I love it.

Chris

[chrysek]

I would like to add some option for each PVR card delayed recording. What I could acomplish by such is to have recordings without old channel's displaying in my video before actual switch to new channel is made.

let me explain. I want to record channel 150, so I setup my reording. I have my box setup at channel 100, time does come to record channel 150,recording does start with content of channel 100 beeing recorded, then SageTV does send signal to change channel to my box and then channel is changed to 150.

If there was a delay recording I could time how long for SageTV it does take to switch channels and have this 10 or 15 seconds delay (or whatever it does take) and not be recording previous channels or the process of changing my channels.

I would love to have this since most of my recordings have this junk and if I wanted to record it to DVD or something to keep it nice I need to cut it manually... Just an idea that I think would be great to have.

Chris

[nspindel]

A zoom reverse-effect:

When watching material broadcast in widescreen, but over a 4:3 signal (so black bands on a normal tv, picture frame on widescreen tv, such as West Wing), I like to use the 16:9 Zoom aspect ratio of my tv. This gets rid of the picture frame around the image and zooms to perfectly fill my widescreen tv. But the Sage overlays (play, pause, time-bar, channel info, etc.) are all off-screen. It would be nice if there was an easy way to tell Sage that the screen has a zoom effect turned on, so it should zoom it's own overlays back out so they could be seen.

stanger89 wrote:nspindel,
What I did for that is set the 16x9 AR to about 133% vertical zoom, this does essentially the same thing as the zoom on your TV, but since it's in Sage the OSD doesn't get pushed off screen.
PS, you'll probably have to play with the exact zoom amount

[chrysek]

Press FF and have playback skip x2 speed but not just once but contiunue to progress, when you press it second time it should move faster maybe x4, then next time you press it should skip x8, then x16 the speed. WHen you press play or stop it should then stop, but it should be smart enough and move the scene back few seconds.Mod's note:SageTV's timescroll feature is currently the easiest way to jump large distances.

I disagree, if you are using mouse and keyboard then yes, but if you configure your HTPC with remote control I dont find it easier than my Cable PVR or DISH PVR501 reveicer.

Chris