SageTV as a content provider?

[korben_dallas]

Has there ever been any discussion of SageTV being a content provider? For example, a new menu item like "Shows from the Web" where you can purchase/download TV shows & movies direct to SageTV.

Seems like a logical step. The good install base of users with typically above-average computer proficiency and high speed internet connections.. SageTV could make a, perhaps not huge, but steady profit stream. Especially if they got exclusive or first distribution to a show/movie.

The mechanics would be pretty simple. And (heaven forbid!) if they were required to use DRM, they could easily integrate a custom DRM into the SageTV server/client environment so the content played across all SageTV nodes tied to that particular user's main SageTV server.

I suppose purchasing/dl'ing music off the web could also be a revenue stream, and it wouldn't hurt since SageTV has been accused of being weak in the music management category.

[dbfresh23]

I highly doubt that SageTV the company is big enough to do something like this themselves. Now if they were to arrange some sort of partnership with another company that already offers this, I could see something like that working.

[bcjenkins]

In fact, nothing would preclude a company from doing exactly that, would it?

B

[blade]

If Sage wanted to pursue something like this they'd probably need to partner with someone else who already provides content. Even if they were large enough to pull it off themselves, it would be unlikely that their user base would be large enough to reach economies of scale.

There are lots of opportunities for Sage to integrate with 3rd parties. One that comes to mind is purchasing music for download from within Sage. Being able to search, buy, and download a song directly into Sage from the GUI would be a nice feature IMO. I don't buy much music, but I'd imagine if the music section of Sage improves enough there are people who would use such a feature.

Sage doesn't necessarily have to make money from the integrations themselves as long as they help increase market share.