Where's 3.0??

[Fluffdaddy]

Brownville Texas serving in the USCG............Yep I remember summer of 1980

[dbfresh23]

Man you people are old I don't know if I was even walking yet!

[Blue]

But you were old enough to watch Thundercats? Wasn't that in the 80s?

[dbfresh23]

ahh, i said walking, also i was referring to 1980 specifically.

Heh, I hate cats so I figured I'd grab a pic of snarf instead

[WLNE-TV]

You're old. I wasn't even a twinkle in my mother's eye yet.
Jeesh.

[dragon]

Originally Posted by alijiwani

sorry, its officially summer down here in Texas, so much for that deadline!

As I recall from my days in Houston, "Spring" was one afternoon during March. Summer promptly arrived the next day.

[scbundy]

Being June 1st I think it's safe to say Spring has come and gone. I don't know the "official" days of spring, but I don't think anybody really regards June as part of it.

Hopefully it'll be soon, I do wish we'd get an update from them though, at least an updated feature list would be something (it really better have more than Linux client support as a primary feature or these guys could be in trouble).

Their presence on these forums leaves a lot to be desired.

[Ryokurin]

Technically the last day of Spring is on or around June 22 at the Summer Solstice.

I admit it worrys me but it could just be that everything is quiet because everyone is working on it you know.

[dbfresh23]

This is why lots of companies do not give time tables or deadlines, everyone cries when it gets close or misses it.

Sage is nice enough to give it as a Free Upgrade(for which i think they are crazy), can't we show a little patience?

[JasonJoel]

Honestly, I would rather them charge me $30 and get it out 6 months earlier...

Jason Bottjen

[dbfresh23]

But they can charge you $30 and still give it to you 6 months later. It could just me, I just don't get how a company can expect to sustain an income by not charging for new releases. "New Customer" sales will eventually slow down and they'll have to count on existing customers upgrading. I guess this makes as much sense to me as not releasing studio generally.

[korben_dallas]

I have a feeling many people would stick with version 2, if there was a charge for version 3. And if it was a forced upgrade.. i.e. there was a cutoff date for Zap2it support in version 2.. then people would be moving over to MCE or other PVR solution.

[jptaz]

As it is now I think they would have to offer me a pretty compelling reason to pay for an upgrade.

I use the mediaMVP pluggin and I dabbled with the XCard pluggin and will use it for my projector at times and it seems the HD Network encoder is making progress to the point where I might consider going to one HD card. If they made Studio generally available I am pretty sure no one would bother ever upgrading since so many features can be added by the development community.

Now they could force me into an upgrade track by getting rid of the EPG data unless I was running the latest version and then I would pay the fee as XML is just too unreliable and too much of a hassle to configure.

If they seemlessly integrated HD Tuners and had a native SageTV Client on a Roku Photbridge or other device that can playback HD I would jump on that upgrade in flash.

John

[dbfresh23]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

I have a feeling many people would stick with version 2, if there was a charge for version 3. And if it was a forced upgrade.. i.e. there was a cutoff date for Zap2it support in version 2.. then people would be moving over to MCE or other PVR solution.

That seems silly, even at the OEM level MCE is $120+ every time you want to upgrade it. As I see it the only advantage MCE has over SageTV is extenders. I've tried MCE2k5 and needless to say that I'm still using SageTV, I was less then impressed with MCE. The need for an entire PC for a client is just silly to me, especially when something like the ROKU box could probably quite easily be made to work with SageTV. That new Intel mac mini clone will make a nice client, but it's still a PC. - Just noticed that the Intel mini is expected to be ~$1000 so scratch that off...

[aperry]

Don't forget though that MCE is not exactly the same as Sage. MCE also includes the operating system. Sage does not.

Regarding paying for upgrades. I'd have to think long and hard before I'd agree to paying for it...

There's been no indication that Sage is planning to charge for this upgrade, is there?

[dbfresh23]

Originally Posted by aperry

There's been no indication that Sage is planning to charge for this upgrade, is there?

No, SageTV said it will be a free upgrade.

I just think they are crazy for providing free upgrades. I can understand minor versions and obviously bugfix versions, but major upgrades is just nuts.

Good point you made that MCE is a Full OS, so now to upgrade you need to reinstall your entire system, is that really a plus?

SageTV is the only non opensource software I know of that provides free upgrades. I could even see something like a 1 fee covers all upgrade license so ya pay a fee that covers all SageTV licenses you already paid for...

Don't get me wrong, I'll take the free upgrades as long as they want to give them out. I just don't see the logic unless their ultimate goal is to create something that a bigger company will come along and buy them out (MS has been known to do this).

[Lucas]

I think the SageTV strategy is to maintain and build the customer base(individual households) and increase revenue by making sure that each customer buys more licences.

Are you all getting the itch to add more and more clients?
I know I do. And when 3.0 comes out with the official MVP support I will fork out for 2 client licences.

And when everything in my house runs SageTV, I will be locked in and committed to the roadmap.

[Wheemer]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

SageTV is the only non opensource software I know of that provides free upgrades.

BeyondTV has always been free upgrades too... Given the fact that there are very few applications available covering PC PVR functions, I think free upgrades is the norm.

When considering the very small market of Television viewers that Sage and the like have captured thus far, it would seem that expansion and the spread of PC PVR popularity is where the most revenue can be made. I think free upgrades to a new more feature rich, stable version leads to better functioning systems.

The PVR industry is still too young and unrefined for the software providers to get too greedy.

Just my opinion

[jptaz]

I agree with wheemer. Very few companies can ask for upgrade fees when their audience is still very much techies and beta testers. I would still pay for upgrades if SageTV required it, but I will likely be more cautious and wait longer before installing them since I have SageTV running most of the TVs in my house...I have coax to most locations, but I believe when I had people working in my attic they damaged the lines so I think I am stuck with MediaMVPs for those TVs...not that I am complaining since they work great for me.

John

[GbrNole]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

That seems silly, even at the OEM level MCE is $120+ every time you want to upgrade it. As I see it the only advantage MCE has over SageTV is extenders. I've tried MCE2k5 and needless to say that I'm still using SageTV, I was less then impressed with MCE. The need for an entire PC for a client is just silly to me, especially when something like the ROKU box could probably quite easily be made to work with SageTV. That new Intel mac mini clone will make a nice client, but it's still a PC. - Just noticed that the Intel mini is expected to be ~$1000 so scratch that off...

hmmm... msft has provided free upgrades for all their incarnations of mce based on the xp core. now when longhorn appears i would have to imagine that would need to be a new purchase since it will be a completely new OS but that would be the only case.

as far as sage and extenders what about the mvp? the only thing that a roku has over the mvp is ability to parse HD stream and output via component. it still doesn't handle mpeg4 which is the stumbling block for most people.

if sage could be tweaked to work UPnP for clients then we would have a wealth of extenders to choose from.