What about studio

[alon24]

Now that sage v3 is out to public Beta, how about getting studio out to the masses?

I know that many people would like to contribute.

Could we have an Official answer about studio? OPUS4???
Thanks

[Opus4]

Unfortunately, the only official answer I can give at this time is: there is no official answer I can give other than the status is still as it was. If/When SageTV decides there is an announcement regarding Studio, then someone will post that information. I know that everyone wants more information about Studio, but there is nothing more I can say at this time.

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Due to how these Studio-related threads have devolved in the past... Note to no one in particular: Everyone on the forum and at SageTV already knows that there is a great desire for public Studio access, so please do not turn this into yet another gripe thread about Studio. This has all been hashed out on the forum before. If this turns into nothing but more complaints, I'll simply close the topic so we can talk about something more productive. Thank you.
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- Andy

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by broderp

First a few comments, from a "non-tecky" POV.
...snip...
I guess my point is that unless SAGE is targeting this product to the technically advanced in the world, and never expect to see thier product on the shelves of BEST BUY, CIRCUIT CITY or other major retailor, then this is what they are doing. To become mainstream I feel they need to be doing what they promised all along, and that is deliver STUDIO as promised. All the functionality is there for us non technical people, how about some flexibility?

I'm sorry, but if you believe the average consumer 'non-techy' person has any interest in Studio, you are grossly mistaken.

People want things to work out of the box, and that's that the new GUI does a much better job of. With all the new features that are being rolled into v3, I think Sage WILL get those customers.

[Kanati]

I'm sorry, but if you believe the average consumer 'non-techy' person has any interest in Studio, you are grossly mistaken.

I think what he's getting at though is that he wants a more flexible product where he can modify the UI and other things himself because all of the major functionality that is wanted... is already there to be had out of the box... But the UI is lacking some things that would be nice. Hence... If we had studio instead of just the priviledged few, we could happily tweak ourselves into blissful oblivion. Frankly, that kind of flexibility is what is making me eyeball Media Portal real hard. If it were only a bit more mature in it's feature-set it would be a no brainer for me. Everything it has is in open sourced C# with a nice little plug-in API and you can tweak and tune it to your heart's content.

If they would release studio as an unsupported tool, much in the same way that the game community releases modding tools, with a disclaimer stating "we're not supporting this at all. Use it at your own risk. You break it... tough." then they don't have to worry about tech support on it. I think the same probably already goes for imports or custom STVs from "those priviledged few" already doesn't it? Obviously Sage can't offer support for nielm's imports or cayar's stv or malore's or........... So why not toss us a bone and give out studio with the same conditions?

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by Kanati

I think what he's getting at though is that he wants a more flexible product where he can modify the UI and other things himself because all of the major functionality that is wanted... ...snip...

I've had this conversation before, and I don't have the energy to have it again. I was merely contradicting the previous argument that the average big box electronics customer would want Studio.

Instead, I'll just refrence you to a recent post by Opus4:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12186

[Kanati]

You seem a bit "touchy" on the subject. Breath deeply. Let it out.....

[Crashless]

Not touchy on this subject in particular - pissed I'm at work on a Sunday morning. Sorry.

Edit: Ah, thanks for moving this Opus.

[stanger89]

As Opus has said, and everyone knows, the whole Studio thing has been hashed to death. All I can add on Studio in particular, are that SageTV has their reasons for not releasing it, and Crashless is right that "the average consumer 'non-techy' person has [no] interest in Studio". Not to be curt, but you'll have to trust SageTV's judgement on this. Can't really say any more.

Now that that's out of the way, I think this could be a very useful thread if directed in the right way. As Opus also said, SageTV knows people want to be able to customize Sage to suit their will. The most common requests I see are a way to modify menues, rename things, and change the look feel.

My suggestion is this. For those of you that want to see customization, post (specifically) what you would like to see. What sort of customization is important to you (like change colors, layout, wording, etc). What method you want to use to do it (like some config file, GUI, drag-and-drop). Basically tell SageTV what you want to do, and how you want to do it.

I think discussion of exactly what you want to be able to do, and how you want to do it (not just "I want Studio") would be a valuable use of this thread.

[parkimar]

That sounds a good middle ground Stanger.
I must admit my initial thought is 'Give me Studio' , however If I rationalise this, What I really want is the ability for greater visual customisation.
In terms of developing new functionality, which is what the STV's seem to offer, the odds of me developing anything, are somewhat slim. (And from the bits of info. I can gather about studio, it seems to be a steep learning curve, and isn't a quick drag and drop gui).
However If I could, maybe pick from a few menu transitions, colour schemes (I know I can rename my own images), change fonts, amend the menus' to easily link to my own progs, that would probably sort me.

Maybe a sage customisation tool, is the way forward for most users.

Anyway my 2p.

Cheers

Mark

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by parkimar

I must admit my initial thought is 'Give me Studio' , however If I rationalise this, What I really want is the ability for greater visual customisation.

Yeah, I think "I want Studio" has sort of become a rallying cry like "Remember the Alamo!" . However I think most people have their assumptions about what studio is, and there's no guarantee that's what it's really like. I believe most people really want a skinning interface of sorts. And "Studio" has just become sort of the embodyment of that desire.

[Kanati]

It's a nice thought stanger, but I don't see that sage actually checks this forum very much as evidenced by a few people actually saying "email support" about certain bugs and "this isn't an official support forum" as stated by others.

Plus, waiting for sage to make this, that or the other specific change would be a waiting game that would be futile as I'm sure they have their own little idea of how they want the software and where they want to head with it. And of course what floats one person's boat certainly won't float everyone's.

What's needed is either a skinning / scripting package or a UI API for those that want to just do UI stuff, and a full blown API for those that want to get in depth and create things like the weather plug-in, etc.

I can only assume that if, as you say, they have very good reasons for not releasing studio, then it must be "broken" in some way, a violation of some sort of EULA for a tool it uses, so overly technical that the casual programmer wouldn't be able to "get it", or they have something totally different in the pipeline that they don't want to announce as yet. But let it be known, that a real plug-in api / toolkit is something that is no longer just wanted, it's something that's needed if sage is going to be competitive with even the free options out there. Even tivo has such a beast and it's been a pretty much closed hardware/software combo...

So, if my discussion of this type of subject is "disturbing" to some, then that's fine, I'll not say any more. I feel I've said all I can say without rehashing my own viewpoint on it anyway.

[Crashless]

Great thread-steering Stanger.

If people post, like Stanger said, specifically what they want to be able to customize, it isn't out the realm of possibility for an STV develper to implement user-friendly customizations with a custom STV. Take a look a nielm's dynamic menu system - that was born out of such a request.

I like hacking just as much as the next guy, so I understand the need to have this kind of thing, and I plan on making my STV very configurable as I move forward.

[alon24]

I would simply like sage to work naitivly in Hebrew.
I would love to have the xml files that say cayars output, to support heberw.

I would like to see support for an internal menu system that I can add native screens to, and not have to open different applications.

That is what I want to get out of studio.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Kanati

It's a nice thought stanger, but I don't see that sage actually checks this forum very much as evidenced by a few people actually saying "email support" about certain bugs and "this isn't an official support forum" as stated by others.

It's also been said that they do know what goes on on these forums. They don't need to post here to know what goes on. And, especially if there's a nice thread with lots of suggestions, I'm sure they'll follow it.

Plus, waiting for sage to make this, that or the other specific change would be a waiting game that would be futile as I'm sure they have their own little idea of how they want the software and where they want to head with it. And of course what floats one person's boat certainly won't float everyone's.

You missunderstand, I don't mean post what you want changed (like this menu layed out this way). I mean post what things you want to be able to change. Like say "I want to be able to rearrange menues, or remove/add things to menues".

I'm afraid to even say this but it's probably the best way to get across what I mean:

Think of this as posting feature requests for Studio.

There I said it.

What's needed is either a skinning / scripting package or a UI API for those that want to just do UI stuff, and a full blown API for those that want to get in depth and create things like the weather plug-in, etc.

This is the kind of comment I was suggesting, spelling out what you want to be able to do.

[bebanovich]

Originally Posted by Opus4

This has all been hashed out on the forum before. If this turns into nothing but more complaints, I'll simply close the topic so we can talk about something more productive. Thank you.
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- Andy

Opus,
I really appreciate all of the time and effort you have put into this forum and I understand your desire to steer it away from yet another gripe session. Another round of venting does not really help the community in the traditional sense. However, I think it would be a really bad idea to cut-off this conversation which represents a real and continuing frustration.

I have complained a bit in this forum in the past, but I consider myself pretty level-headed in general. Even if this thread were completely unproductive from a practical stand-point, I would really resent seeing the venting voice of some of the community stifled.

Sage has chosen to reveal next to nothing about their future plans - a tact that is a bit archaic, in my opinion, but a legitimate business choice. Any choice they make in regard to releasing information carries some sort of consequence, and the consequence of Sage's current choice is frustration on the part of many in the community that they can't make any informed future PVR plans themselves.

Couple this with the fact that the small group who have the ability to customize Sage seems to have become much smaller and less productive (certainly not a knock on the small group who have been selfless and generous with their much-desired work) and you end up with a segment of the community who feel somewhat shackled and in the dark.

I wouldn't have posted in this round of venting if I hadn't been struck by the idea that venting would not be tolerated here. I know that you are in the unenviable postition of being the liaison between the secretive Sage and the clamoring masses and your work is very much appreciated (by me at least). But I would feel very much pushed away from the community if I saw that legitimate (though repetitive) reminders about the choices Sage has made would be quelled. Even if Sage has a panacea on the horizon for all of these questions / complaints, they have created this consequence of frustrated users looking for tidbits of information, and publicly wondering if the grass might be greener somewhere else.

Again, no offense to you or to anyone who has generously shared their great and creative work. I just wanted to give the perspective of a user who feels in the dark and reliant on the kindness of studio-possessing strangers.

Thanks,
Bebanovich

[sleonard]

My take on Studio is that it is a complex tool that requires Java programming skills and is targeted to OEM's rather than end users. It likely gives way too much access to the internal workings of SageTV to be released publicly. But I'm just guessing from reading every Studio post in the last year and a half.

What I would like to see instead is a simple plug-in architecture consisting of a plug-in directory in the SageTV directory, an open API for creating plugins using the programming tool of choice (including Studio if you have access to it), and the whole thing geared towards self contained plug-ins that have a single purpose and can be mixed and matched acording to the end users needs. Want the Weather plug-in, the Comskip plug-in, and the Caller-ID plugin but not Divx transcoder nor the DVD burning plugins? No problem. Just d/l the plug-ins that you want, copy them into the plugin directory and restart Sage. Everything stays neat and tidy and easy to install and remove. Combine that with a simple, end-user friendly skinning app for customizing the UI/menu structure and no one else will be able to compete.

Anyway, that's my $.02

As it stands now with the custom STV's and Studio it's an all or nothing approach.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bebanovich

Opus,
I really appreciate all of the time and effort you have put into this forum and I understand your desire to steer it away from yet another gripe session. Another round of venting does not really help the community in the traditional sense. However, I think it would be a really bad idea to cut-off this conversation which represents a real and continuing frustration.

<snip>

I wouldn't have posted in this round of venting if I hadn't been struck by the idea that venting would not be tolerated here. I know that you are in the unenviable postition of being the liaison between the secretive Sage and the clamoring masses and your work is very much appreciated (by me at least). But I would feel very much pushed away from the community if I saw that legitimate (though repetitive) reminders about the choices Sage has made would be quelled. Even if Sage has a panacea on the horizon for all of these questions / complaints, they have created this consequence of frustrated users looking for tidbits of information, and publicly wondering if the grass might be greener somewhere else.

The issue is not quelling discussion, it's the fact that most/all Studio thread (of which there are many that one could choose to post in) devolve into "Where TF is Studio, I want it #%# it!!. I feel screwed!" And serve no purpose but for venting. We don't need another thread like that. If you feel the need to vent do so in a thread that's devolved to that already.

[PGPfan]

For my version of "Studio", I'd like the ability to keep all the existing UI elements as far as functionality, but have the ability to move buttons where I want, change background/button texture and shape to what I want, use the fonts that I want, and name menu items what I want.

Now, if somehow this could be applied 'globally' to any .stv one chose to use, not only would I 'wet' myself, but I'd pony up some cash as well.

-PGPfan

[parkimar]

So In terms of generating a 'wanted' list for a non studio , studio , so far we have :-

Customisable Menu's
Open API for creating plugins
Language changes in in a customisable manner
Ability to move buttons
Change background/button texture and shape
Change fonts

Any additions before we make a request ?

Cheers

Mark

[silkshadow]

I'd like to add Unicode to the requests. UTF-8 in particular. If Sage can get unicode going it'd be one humongous step in front of Meedio. For music, movies and EPG.