A few simple things keeping me from payin'

[grot]

I love the software. It works. I don't even mind the super-clunky interface so much. There are really just a few things standing in the way and frankly, keeping me waiting to buy snapstream when it supports the PVR250:

1: Clean up the recording guide. It's LUDICROUS that it constantly keeps these endless two hour recordings of live tv. Its very hard to get rid of them, and they just shouldn't show up in my guide as "recordings" when they're not.

2: Save recordings with appropriate titles, and in a way that can be read by other software. I have yet to be able to display a recorded file in anything but sage, meaning I can't just drag them over to my laptop.

3: Make recording management more intuitive. Like many folks I am sure, this can't replace my dying tivo until it makes sense to my wife and my babysitter. Right now, its just way to confusing how you keep a show, how you delete a show, how you keep just a few episodes of "Stanley", etc. None of this is technology - all the pieces are there. It's ENTIRELY a UI issue.

[Omegadsl]

Originally posted by grot
I love the software. It works. I don't even mind the super-clunky interface so much. There are really just a few things standing in the way and frankly, keeping me waiting to buy snapstream when it supports the PVR250:

1: Clean up the recording guide. It's LUDICROUS that it constantly keeps these endless two hour recordings of live tv. Its very hard to get rid of them, and they just shouldn't show up in my guide as "recordings" when they're not.

2: Save recordings with appropriate titles, and in a way that can be read by other software. I have yet to be able to display a recorded file in anything but sage, meaning I can't just drag them over to my laptop.

3: Make recording management more intuitive. Like many folks I am sure, this can't replace my dying tivo until it makes sense to my wife and my babysitter. Right now, its just way to confusing how you keep a show, how you delete a show, how you keep just a few episodes of "Stanley", etc. None of this is technology - all the pieces are there. It's ENTIRELY a UI issue.

I don't know what you mean about the titles. I've been able to play files made by SageTV with every player I've tried and on a number of different computers. Are you having the same problem if you try to open a recording made with Wintv2000?

[grot]

By titles I mean this: If I record, say, Friends today at 7PM, wouldn't you think the title of the resulting mpeg file should be something like:

Friends.May30.7pm.mpg

Or something like that? This is how Snapstream does it. It's not like the EPG data isn't just sitting there to be used.

As for the MPGs, to be honest, I haven't tried that yet. I will.

[mlbdude]

Problem #1 is very anoying I agree.

My wife is able to use SageTV though with the universal remote quite easily. Everything you need is in the options menu. The hardest thing for her is modifying a Favorite. It is a pain to have to go to Setup to get to the Favorite screen (and once there I have no clue why you can't bring up the menu the same way as every other screen)**. I do think the UI needs to be cleaned up to compete in the long run (but I am glad they are focusing on a solid foundation first).

** Hey, Narflex, is there a reason why you have to hit enter to get the menu on the Favorites screen? It looks like the favorites are displayed as buttons so that may be why. Maybe it would be more consistent to have it come up with the Options command (or at least both ways).

[JasonJoel]

I still think the program is great, and even though I have a few things I would change I believe the stability and next-to-perfect recordings (EVERY time) outweigh the issues... That being said...

1. I would also like it if shows that I did not explicitly say to record would not show up in the guide as recordings. It clutters it and makes it confusing.

2. I also wish that the titles of the recordings were something a little more useful/clear.

Jason


Originally posted by mlbdude
Problem #1 is very anoying I agree.

My wife is able to use SageTV though with the universal remote quite easily. Everything you need is in the options menu. The hardest thing for her is modifying a Favorite. It is a pain to have to go to Setup to get to the Favorite screen (and once there I have no clue why you can't bring up the menu the same way as every other screen)**. I do think the UI needs to be cleaned up to compete in the long run (but I am glad they are focusing on a solid foundation first).

** Hey, Narflex, is there a reason why you have to hit enter to get the menu on the Favorites screen? It looks like the favorites are displayed as buttons so that may be why. Maybe it would be more consistent to have it come up with the Options command (or at least both ways).

[edmc]

Let me offer my support for #1. One of the annoying things about my ReplayTV is, if I walk away from the TV without pausing, I can always rewind back to any point (I think TiVo actually only allows one to rewind 20 minutes; ReplayTV doesn't have this lijmitation). This all changes if the program ends, however :-( A program that ends while being viewed cannot be accessed via ReplayTV again.

With SageTV keeping such files around, I can go back and re-view anything (unless I've consumed all my allocated disk space).

What would be an improvement, however, is to do for these recordings what SageTV does for different media types (e.g. programs vs. music vs. pictures). It'd be great to have a high level menu which allowed me to select between Manually Recorded, Favorite Recorded, and View Recorded material. Obviously, SageTV has this information as it is used in the determination of what to delete when space is needed...

[fasttech]

Yes I agree edmc. At first I thought it was wierd that it recorded everything, but eventually it grew on me. However I do wish it would categorize these though maybe into a folder.

[JasonJoel]

Yes, I guess I should clarify...

I like how it records everything, I just don't want those listings crammed in with the Favorites or Intelligent recordings. They need to be somewhere else, don't know where, but not with my Favorites.

Jason

Originally posted by fasttech
Yes I agree edmc. At first I thought it was wierd that it recorded everything, but eventually it grew on me. However I do wish it would categorize these though maybe into a folder.

[justme]

I like how it records everything, I just don't want those listings crammed in with the Favorites or Intelligent recordings. They need to be somewhere else, don't know where, but not with my Favorites.

Maybe there could be an option like autocatogorize, that would collapse all these recording into a single folder. That way if people like it the way it is fine. If they don't like the clutter it could be reduced to just one folder. This should be an acceptable compromise(IMHO). However it should be an option, not a set in stone change.

JasonJoel said:
2. I also wish that the titles of the recordings were something a little more useful/clear.
I have been campaigning** for an export option in SageTV. It would allow you to export a recording to a user specified location in the format of "Showtitle-Episodetitle.mpg".
ie "Futurama-Luck of the Fryish.mpg" instead of "Futurama-302348-0.mpg"

Again this should be an option since the serial# format is a far faster method for SageTV to use internally, and many users just use SageTV to manage their shows. However for use by people and programs outside of SageTV, I think this format would be more usefull. I want this because I edit then archive a lot of shows to Divx/Xvid or straight to CD/DVD.

**See Narflex, I'm not alone or crazy. (just joking I'm definitely crazy);)

[comprat]

Yes, I just mentioned something about this in another post. The record everything issue can be very annoying. You can view my response along with other requests I made in my reply here:

http://www.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=4545#post4545


I love the progress being made in SageTV. It has come along way in a short amount of time. Keep up the good work!

comprat

[dkardatzke]

You can enable autocategorization in the properties file. Just make sure SageTV is not running when you make the change.

[laurenglenn]

Originally posted by grot
I love the software. It works. I don't even mind the super-clunky interface so much. There are really just a few things standing in the way and frankly, keeping me waiting to buy snapstream when it supports the PVR250:

1: Clean up the recording guide. It's LUDICROUS that it constantly keeps these endless two hour recordings of live tv. Its very hard to get rid of them, and they just shouldn't show up in my guide as "recordings" when they're not.

2: Save recordings with appropriate titles, and in a way that can be read by other software. I have yet to be able to display a recorded file in anything but sage, meaning I can't just drag them over to my laptop.

3: Make recording management more intuitive. Like many folks I am sure, this can't replace my dying tivo until it makes sense to my wife and my babysitter. Right now, its just way to confusing how you keep a show, how you delete a show, how you keep just a few episodes of "Stanley", etc. None of this is technology - all the pieces are there. It's ENTIRELY a UI issue.
I kind of agree with #1, but I don't know if Ludicrous is the word. I believe they've said that if the show isn't a favorite, it's more likely to be deleted first.

#2 - I've run the MPEGs over a network using a shared folder without the Client software. My network isn't fast enough for that as it's just a basic phone-line network. The MPEGs are just regular MPEG-2 files. On http://www.doom9.org , they have a free MPEG-2 DVD player that integrates into Windows Media Player 9. Try that.

#3 - From what I've learned about TiVo, it's more expensive per month and it won't let you export MPEGs as easily as you can with Sage. You can basically copy the MPEGs from Sage and make a DVD out of them if you want. To make deleting easier, just map the Options to a button on your remote or keyboard and scroll to the Delete option. Or, if you have a cordless mouse, tell them to right-click on the program.

Maybe it's just because I'm a computer person, but it's not really too complex. The SnapStream interface is very nice, but I like Sage and it's worked great for me (not to mention the great product support).

Lauren

[laurenglenn]

Originally posted by justme
Maybe there could be an option like autocatogorize, that would collapse all these recording into a single folder. That way if people like it the way it is fine. If they don't like the clutter it could be reduced to just one folder. This should be an acceptable compromise(IMHO). However it should be an option, not a set in stone change.

JasonJoel said:

I have been campaigning** for an export option in SageTV. It would allow you to export a recording to a user specified location in the format of "Showtitle-Episodetitle.mpg".
ie "Futurama-Luck of the Fryish.mpg" instead of "Futurama-302348-0.mpg"

How about having the files named with both options:

Futurama-302348-0-Luck of the Fryish.mpg

I imagine it wouldn't require much of the code to be changed, probably just another asterisk in the file search code. (I'm guessing.... that's what an old program of mine would need...)

Anyway, to have it be both would be really nice to identify the program when converting it to DivX also.... :)

Lauren

[justme]

How about having the files named with both options:
Futurama-302348-0-Luck of the Fryish.mpg
Now that is a compromise I could easily live with.:D I personally think " Futurama-Luck of the Fryish-302348-0.mpg" would make a little more since, but at this point I'd be happy either way. Thanx for the support/suggestion. Come on Narflex how about something like laurenglenn suggests. PLEASE:D

[grot]

Don't get me wrong, I love sage (and, for what it's worth, I AM buying, partly because of how responsive the developers are right here in this forum).

I have faith the UI will either get tweaked or become more customizable. I agree you CAN do everything right now, it just takes a few more steps, and is often non-intuitive.

As for Tivo, I wasn't defending it! It's cool, but there's a reason I'm here - I want more. But, never underestimate the wife acceptance factor in these things. While I may cut a dvd with 5 episodes of stanley on it, my wife just wants to know that when she needs a toddler break, there's a new stanley sitting there she can get to in one or two clicks.

[Narflex]

That compromise could work fine. :)

It's on the list now.

[justme]

Awesome:D Your the best Jeff. This is why I bought and promote your software, you listen to your users. It's a pleasant change from some other companies.:)