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

[falchulk]

File size listed in the info for recorded shows. Thanks.

[syversen]

Wow this is a long thread... Anyway, here are a few features that are important to me (a HTPC shopper still debating what solution is best!)

1) Ability to automatically remove commercials before archiving (and ideally viewing too!). During recording would be ideal, but post processing/re-transcoding works too. As mentioned earlier, maybe this means just more actively supporting a third party project.

2) Also mentioned by someone else earlier: Support for general non-HW based TV cards only for live-tv. This is a great idea as it allows you to record in the background and watch another show in the mean time.

Keep up the good work, you guys have the premier Windows-based PVR solution!

- Jason

[Beelzebub]

Request 1:
Ability to Output to Serial Devices, for each source.

This should be simple, it should only take a few hours at most to code. Crap if I had the source Iwould do it myself, maybe just realease a small SDK. Maybe a DLL that controls stuff like this, and the interface.


Just make it script based something like this


[Source1]
port = 1
bytesize = 8 parity = none
stopbits = one
timeout = 1
xonxoff = 1
rtscts = 0
ChannelInterval = 600 // Time in ms between sending channel signals
Chan1 = "\h0D\h0A...............\h07"
Chan2
.
.
.
Chan0
ChanUP
ChanDown

[Source2]
port = 2
bytesize = 8 parity = none
stopbits = one
timeout = 1
xonxoff = 1
rtscts = 0
ChannelInterval = 600 // Mili Seconds
Chan1 = "\h0D\h0A...............\h07"
Chan2
.
.
.
Chan0
ChanUP
ChanDown


This would make life so much easier for people with IR Blasters, and CableBoxs. Using plugins really sucks.


Request 2:
More flexibilty with Multiple Tuner Cards

1. Deditcated Channel Guide for Each Source
When you hit guide, bring up a menu the lets you choose Source1 or Source2.

2. Options to Set what each tuner records. The current system works great, if you use the same brand of tuners, and your lineup is the same. To avoid confusion, just have a Basic Multi-Tuner option, and a Advanced option. The basic option would be current system, the advanced would be something like this.

Request 3:
Make some of the Source Open. Something that lets us add features, like my idea in Request 1, customize the interface, add menu's, etc. Actually if the SDK was well thoughtout I could do both of my requests. I am strongly debating over switching over to MythTV since its open. OF course I don't expect you to make the whole app open.

Request 4:
!!!!!!!!!!! Make a Linux version, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

less face it Windows is to unstable for a PVR.
Porting it shouldn't be to hard since your using Java.


Request 5:
Real Fast Forward/Rewind. Your skip ahead is kinda annoying.

Evan better, add something like Tivo's 3 speed FF/RW

Request 6:
Mini Guide just like Tivo's. I miss that more then anything else

Request 7:
Better File managment, I was watching tv the other day, and ran out of drive space. My Errant folder was like a 70gigs. It should have automatically deleted those files, or a old recording. The tivo does a good job managing files, just make it like that.

Just add a Save Until I delete option, if we want to keep the show.

Request 8
Transparent menus, This shouldn't be hard if you use PNG graphics games do it all the time. If you want I could send you some code I'm using for a quke2 engine mod. It in C, but it shouldn't that hard to change over to java. Really all it is code to load the PNG as transparency. Then you adjust the level of transparency in the image itself.


Request 9
Some kind of Error recovery. If it runs in Windows, it will crash


Request 10
Integrate XMLTV, or use whatever service it uses. Your current options are kind of grim.

[justme]

Things I like:Listed in rough order I'd like to see effort put into.
2:9 Would we awesome. Running as a service should be part of this as well.

1:1 Support for multiple control devices each mapped to a specific source tuner would be great. But it needs to include USB devices as well as serial, this would allow a mix. ie Actisys and USB-UIRT. I don't know about throwing away the Plugin as it has worked great so far, and could actually be easily expanded to accomodate multiple sources. Someone on this forum has already shown how it could be done by just adding a tuner/source designation and multiple channel numbers.(I'm too lazy too search for the specifics)Edit:OK, I did do some searching and it looks like Jeff is ahead of us, as usual. Here is a link to Jeff's post on multi external tuner control.

2:4 Would be nice, but I firmly believe it MUST wait til Sage2 is out the door and fully debugged. WinXP is a fairly reliable OS. Also a SageTV linux client should come first before a SageTV linux server, this would apply to a wider audience of current SageTV users. IMO

Sounds like great ideas for Sage2:Listed in rough order I'd like to see effort put into.
2:3
2:8
2:5
2:6
1:1 This one is here again since Sage2 might allow something like Beezlebub described.

Most likely impossible and/or redundant:
2:10 If you live in North America, XMLTV uses Zap2it as the upstream source. This is where Sage already buys it's data from. So it's redundant and would likely violate Frey's license contract. .

I'm a little unsure of what this one means:
2:2 This should already exist in SageTV if you are using the Sage Service. The current XMLTV plugin's limitations may not allow this, but I'm fairly sure Jeff said it could be fixed. PS:Never mix the current XMLTV plugin with the Sage Service, this advice is a paraphrase of a direct quote from Jeff. Bad things can happen. The good news for US customers is the XMLTV plugin is no longer needed on November 1st, when Frey's EPG service will support all US markets.

Really a bug report:
2:7

[justme]

I honestly feel the Database for recorded shows should be split from the wiz file. There are just too many situations where Sage can lose EPG data for recorded shows while the database is part of the wiz file. Also spliting would possibly allow for multiple database files.

Once this database is split from the Wiz it could be structured in a more user friendly format. By user friendly I mean for editing. I can understand the current structure of the Wiz file, since Sage needs to protect it's EPG and IR data. But by splitting off the database of recorded files you could losen the structure without compromising Sage's secrets. This would help with the general portability of Sage's recordings thru out a network and thru subdirectory rearrangement.

It would also allow a user to create a method to keep the recorded show's data with the file outside of SageTV. Another possible use of multiple database and the new user friendly structure would be the addition of user created/modified files to Sage's guide. ie. transcode a recorded MPEG to an AVI(divx) and add it back to the sage Guide without losing the show's detailed description.

By multiple database files, I'm not suggesting Sage be allowed to degenerate to a complex of 100+ files with each holding only a few show descriptions. I don't see the need for more than a few database files, the less the better. IMO What I imagined is that the multiple database support be used to update(ADD/Remove) files from the main Sage recorded show database.

Edit:This post was partially inspired by all the posts about SageTV losing recorded show data. It is particularly bad for network setups, since networks inevitably go down. To fix this sage could export a file that contians all the data for showfiles that Sage is currently unable to find. By periodically checking this file and re-importing the data if a showfile has reappeared Sage could weather a network outage.
With some slight modifications or user intervention the same method could recover show data for files that are temporarily lost due to the addition of Harddrives/partitions, directory changes, etc.

[hamptonhills]

One more for the suggestion box.


It would be nice if SageTV would distribute programs that are being recorded simultenously to different video directories. It appears that currently SageTV just looks for the video directory that has the most free space. I have a 3 tuner system (non 64k formated disk) and at times it seems like it can not keep up with recording 3 (1.8GB/hr) programs. The program distribution mechanism could be as simple as sequencing through the video directories for each recording or as complex as creating some video source/video directory affinity mechanism.

[RedCoat999]

When using the menu's, if i use the up button and I am on the top button, I would like it to scroll through to the bottom of the menu and vice versa.

[Ralphjb]

I haven't read this thread in a while, so forgive me if I post a request that has been made before...

I really am not a big fan of Intelligent Recording. I certainly can understand that others would find value. But the way I use SageTV is primarily as an intelligent VCR. I do not watch much live TV on Sage. Rather than intelligent recording, I would like the ability to have intelligent "search". I'd like to be able to use a search word as the key value upon recordings are made. Perhaps the name of an actor, or name of a characeter or some other search term. Also, I would like to be able to limit the channels that these searches are applied to, at times. For instance, if I search on "PGA Golf" I might want to eliminate the Golf Channel from the search.

Just a thought.

[dkardatzke]

Wish List recording will be in v2.0.

[falchulk]

I would like the ability to stop one instance of an intelligent recording selected show. For instance, MacGyver plays 3 times a day 6 days a week. While I like this show, I don't have time to watch it 18 times a week. It would be great if you could select options and choose "record once a day @ this time" and be given a selection with times the show is scheduled like during conflict resolution. Other selections like "record every other day @ this time" would also work.

[justme]

Have Sage intelligently split the text up between two screens(up/down arrow). I've increased my font size and decreased columns so Sage is now Very readable on TV from far away. The problem is that some show's detailed info screens are then made unreadable. The text is vertically squashed. This is caused when a show has a lot of actors and very long description. As an example just look at the System information screen to see what I mean.

It's obvious sage is doing some kind of character count since it is squashing the text only when needed, many detailed info screens are fine. So instead of squash just let the "extra" text overflow into a screen that is just below the currently visible screen. Just like my Tivo.

[dballer1]

Have a seperate directory for TV files (moved from sage recordings)

[dballer1]

A way to regulate the network stream for the clients. I might not want all that data for a 2x2 inch window on my computer screen.

[pawn]

Since hockey season is approaching, I simply must ask again:

Is there any possibility of adding a keyword Intelligent Recordng and/or Favorites helper, so I can record all Leaf games?

My understanding is that this is a common feature for set top PVR's.

Thanks.

[JJarmoc]

I was going to post something about keyword favorites too. I've been watching the cubs lately, and while I wouldn't mind recording all cubs games, recording everything with 'Major League Baseball' as the title is pretty annoying.

[dkardatzke]

We'll only add a feature like that if you promise to stop being a Cubs fan and become a Sox fan instead.

....It will be in v2.0.

[Mike Young]

I know someone has probably allready asked....but how about automatic commercial skipping ? Noone really wants to have to edit commercials out of shows that they are going to save.
I realize Replay took a lot of heat for that feature...but it would be very much appreciated. Perhaps some kind of 'hook' that would allow a user to create this feature, even though it might not be 'officialy' endorsed. Just a thought!

mike/

[jptaz]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before...

It would be nice to be able to have different aspect ratios and overlay settings for
TV and DVD.

For me TV needs to be Overlay and Fill aspect ratio and DVD needs
to be VMR and Source Aspect ratio.

John

[JJarmoc]

Yes! I second jptaz's request.

[mikbro]

With Sage supporting the entire US for lineups 11/1, how about letting us supply Sage with the TMSID's of the stations we want in our guid, and the channels numbers we would like to see them at. I have multiple C-Band systems and use custom software running on my Sage TV pc to translate the channel desired by Sage (via the serial directv protocol) to tune my big dishes accordingly. This works great, but my lineups are a bit unwieldy and don't have all the channels I can receive (and for which there is TMS data for).

Sage is the PERFECT pvr software, I can't wait to see what you guys do next.