Big list of issues/suggestions/wanted behaviour

[TwistedMelon]

I compiled this with respect to the .7 release. I'm sure I'll have some additional suggestions now (especially with the backwards interface changes lately )

Let me get this out right now.... I think SageTV is the best (overall) you can run for Windows (or Linux for that matter). I've used MCE quite a bit (built into my OS) and I've also used BeyondTV for a long time (damn it's badly designed, yuck). And I've set up and configured MythTV under Linux as well as researched other programs. They "don't get it" I used DirecTV TiVo for a number of years and I still think, despite some of its shortcomings, that it's the all-around best solution ever created and certainly the best interface on any platform (or of practically any consumer device). It's no surprise it was rated one of the top 100 inventions.

1. LiveTV does not jump to LiveTV.
If watching something out of the Recorded shows, pressing LiveTV jumps to the end of that recording instead of jumping to LiveTV. Going to the main menu and pressing LiveTV from there returns to the end of the Recording again, instead of LiveTV. LiveTV is documented as jumping ONLY to LiveTV, not any playing media/video.

2. LiveTV (timeshifting) doesn't continue to record while playing something out of the SageTV Recordings.
Expected behaviour would be that if I'm watching LiveTV and I jump to a pre-recorded program, but do not change the channel, that same channel will continue to timeshift so that I can come back to it

3. Starting the program after having completely quit SageTV (not running service or restart) always returns to channel 2.
I expect that when SageTV is quit the currently tunned channel would be recorded in a pref somewhere and when starting the program again, LiveTV would automatically be tuned to that channel (like Most TVs when you turn them off and back on again).

4. After having watched a recorded program (not a LiveTV item, but something that was schedule manually or automatically), SageTV just stops on a single paused frame with no feedback.
I expect that when I reach the end of a recorded program SageTV should either ask me what I want to do (Return to Recorded menu & keep recording or delete show, etc..) or just automatically jump back to the recorded programs menu with the current program selected. This is a bit different with new versions but doesn't seem to be consistent as someone else already pointed out (starting to watch something half way through recording it).

5. Attempting to play a recorded program (that has been watched - for instance, something that was scheduled but that I also watched live as it was on) from the recorded programs menu starts on a still frame at the end of the program.
Similar to above, this is very unintuitive and makes it look like a program error. If the end of a program has been reached, SageTV should automatically start playback from the beginning of the program when playing it again (clearing the watched flag). In fact, I expect that a recorded program should always start at the beginning when I select it from the recorded programs menu if I have never selected it from there before.

6. Attempting to play a recorded program (that was stopped or last left part-way through - but not in the last minute of recording) offers no option to start from beginning of program.
I may have started to watch a program and then left it for a few days. When returning it would be nice to be offered the option of starting playback from the start, instead of automatically starting where it last left off. Prevents me having to manually rewinding.

7. Current channel's timeshift buffer always appears in Recorded programs menu.
I'd like an option to NOT show the timeshift LiveTV recording in the recorded programs menu. I'd like to be able to see only favorites, manuals and suggested recordings at one time (real recorded content versus transient).

8. Create a new single command that toggles between LiveTV and Guide.
I'd like a new command created that toggles between the Guide and LiveTV. When pressed from anywhere in the program it jumps to LiveTV and when already watching LiveTV it would jump to the LiveTVGuide. This would give the ability to use one remote button to do both these functions, like on a TiVo. This is pretty important for people with limited number of remote buttons.

9. Add ability to quickly set a favorite to record only on a single channel, without having to scroll from the start of the whole channel list.
When creating a favorite from the Guide, one should be able to easily set that the favorite should be recorded only from the "CURRENT" channel (the one the program was selected from in the guide) rather than scroll from the whole channel list. Alternately, the channel list could start with the current channel number highlighted in the list (current that the program was listed under, not current being watched if LiveTV active)

10. Add ability to set Search to "Starts with" when doing title searching.
Right now searching for titles does a match anywhere within the title string. Therefore typing "so" will bring up all sorts of matches which don't narrow down the choices very much. If given this option, immediately the results list would show only shows starting with "so" - like "South Park"

11. Search by All Fields and Search by Description shows alpha and numerical input box over entire screen instead of just half the screen like searching by title. And it doesn't show results as input is being made.
This is inconsistent even though I understand the greater impact of the wider search query. In both cases I would expect the titles of matching shows to appear on the right side of the screen.

12. Can't create a favorite by Search keyword (Query cannot be saved as favorite, only a single resulting show can be selected).
When using any of the search features the program forces you to pick a specific program and does not allow you to save a favorite on just what was typed. For instance I can search for person by "Ford" or pick "Harrison Ford" from search results or description for "NSX" but I can't set any of those to a favorite, allowing me to record any programing with Harrison Ford for instance while also getting anyone else named ford (first example) or record any show which contains NSX in the description. This is extremely limiting. This is what defines TiVo's "Wishlist" feature.

13. Can't specify ROLE when searching for people.
The Tribune Guide data specifies roles for people, such as Director, Actor, Producer, etc.. It would be very useful to be able to filter searches for person by role. So then I can find programs that were directed by Ron Howard (like Apollo 13), but didn't have him in it as an Actor (like Happy Days). This becomes even more useful with the ability to save the query itself as a favorite.

14. I'd like an option to jump to the "other" tuner if using more than a single capture device/tuner.
This would enable one to instantly jump to a tuner that had a recording in progress while watching something else on another tuner. Right now if I want to jump to a show being recorded I either have to scroll through the guide to find it or I have to go to the recorded programs menu to find it.

15. Is there a reason (beyond some extra query time) favorite programs are not scheduled to be recorded more than 3 days ahead of time?
This makes it very difficult to confirm if the recording schedule for the week is correct or if an episode (from a favorite) coming up in 10 days will be recorded. I'd like scheduling to be done right to the end of my guide data. More intelligent scheduling can be done if it goes out the full 14 days. I know this can be changed, but I want it to be supported, not a hack.

16. When pressing INFO during LiveTV, the progress bar includes a lot of duplicate information (that's already in the top info section).
Progress bar area is too big (tall) and includes a lot of info already part of the description area above: channel number, callsign, program name. I'd prefer it only to contain the progress bar, start time of show on one end, end time on the other and the time of the current position (pressing play or pause already does a smaller progress bar - this should be how it always shows up, but I'd prefer start time and end time instead of 0 and duration for LiveTV content). The current day/time I'd like to see at the top with the show info.

17. I'd like an additional Info command to show ONLY program details/description, without the progress bar.
Pressing any transport commands already shows the progress bar. When pressing Info I want to see description, but not progress bar. No way to do that right now.

18. Be able to disable volume control and volume-related icons.
Like many people I use SageTV as my main TV source connected to my home theater setup. I use either a TV or amplifier for volume and never adjust volume on the computer itself. I'd like to reclaim some screen space and have a less cluttered interface by removing the volume icons from the display (right now volume bar and icon appears in the progress bar area when doing info).

19. Settings are reset when switching between normal program operation and running Sage service - they keep different preferences.
After enabling the Sage Service it forced me to go through part of the wizard again and reset all my custom keyboard commands. A number of other settings, such as renderer and other detailed settings were also changed. I would expect that all settings would be common between service mode and non service mode.

20. Audio and Video hiccups each time a new show is starting.
Every time a new block is entered in the guide (where a show switch occurs) the LiveTV video and audio have a momentary hiccup. This is ppretty ugly and really takes away from the otherwise "seamless" TV experience.

21. Sage Prompts for permission to switch channels at xx:xx o'clock even when you're watching a Recorded show.
If I'm not (actively) using a Tuner to (because I'm watching a previously recorded program) then Sage is free to switch channels without asking me. It's a bit strange/annoying to see the prompt come up. It also puzzles other people not familiar with the issue, like my girlfriend who was worried something was about to screw up.

22. Default installation of SageTV does not decode both NTSC fields from hardware encoding cards like PVR-500.
Sage's built-in decoder seems to be doing vertically doubling a single NTSC field on its decode. I'd expect that by default both fields should be shown interlaced. And then turning on one of the De-Interlacing options would either BOB, WEAVE, etc. fields. Right now it doesn't matter what options I choose, nothing changes the decode behaviour. I had to download a third-party decoder (using FFDshow right now because it's the only decoder that decode pretty much everything, including imported content - for when I have to download a TV show I missed recording).

I'd actually love to be able to define Three decoders, one for Sage-recorded content (including LiveTV), one for DVD (which we can do now) and one for Imported video. Right now Imported and Sage use the same decoder. Then I could probably buy a higher quality MPEG2 decoder for TV and DVD and keep using ffdshow for imported files. An advanced option to set up decoder based on video content would be fine too.

Bruno