SageTV Version 6.0 Public Beta is Available

[ARMYB77]

That's great I guess I misread the announcement, so as long as I have my version 5 key that will work on the new version? Because when I try to get a new key upgrade it says I have to pay $30?
I still would pay another $30 for the 1394 support though! Even if my upgrade is free.

Thanks
Armyb77

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by ARMYB77

so as long as I have my version 5 key that will work on the new version? Because when I try to get a new key upgrade it says I have to pay $30?

When you install v6 over v5, it won't ask for a key.

[grooves12]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

Fantastic news!

Only one thing that would solve all of my woes appears to be missing.



DVB-S support, hurrah! When is CI/CAM support to be added for it though?

I second this... I would be nice if we had the option for adding in one of "those" plugins for the cam support, that Mytheatre curently supports.

[naln]

Hi,

First off- great job on the new release.

Would be nice if the Imported Videos etc screen had a 'Folder Up/ Previous Folder' kind of folder navigation button...right now the back arrow button selects the side navigation menus (The one that has options for Previous Menu, shuffle , repeat etc).
I also found it a little confusing that the 'Previous Menu' takes you to a different Menu viewing option rather than the earlier screen you were viewing. Don't know if I am doing something wrong here either........

Any way to manually edit the Song/ video info that appears in Imported Videos, add custom images etc?

Also, can sage play video off any specified URL- or can it play only via Google Videos....

Thanks,
naln.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by naln

Would be nice if the Imported Videos etc screen had a 'Folder Up/ Previous Folder' kind of folder navigation button...right now the back arrow button selects the side navigation menus (The one that has options for Previous Menu, shuffle , repeat etc).
I also found it a little confusing that the 'Previous Menu' takes you to a different Menu viewing option rather than the earlier screen you were viewing. Don't know if I am doing something wrong here either........

using Back (or Left while on the column of icons) does move up the folder heirarchy. When all the way back to the top of the folders, those commands will go back to the previous menu.

Also, can sage play video off any specified URL- or can it play only via Google Videos....

The default STV plays Google Videos, not just any URL, since it needs access to the file to be downlaoded for playback.

- Andy

[naln]

Thanks Andy- the Back button worked fine like you said.

Anyone noticing any issues with Xvid/ DivX playback? I just noticed that a couple of my DivX videos play with an A/V lag.....but play fine outside of sage.

Is there someway we can set/specify the codecs to be used for DivX decoding?

Thanks again!!

EDIT: n/m found some answers in this thread....http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20407
Still would like to know if there is a way to specify decoders to use though.

[AngelofDeth]

Originally Posted by ARMYB77

I love sage, however we just bought the software last month and now I have to pay another $30? I wouldn't mind the upgrade if Sage did the one thing in hardware that there are more posts about then anything and that is Firewire support! At a minimum for channel changing, I believe that this is much more effective then USB-UIRT, and the Huappague IR Blaster, so why isn't it integreated yet? There are only a couple of boxes that have the port, most people seem to use the 3250HD. From what I understand also as long as the manufacurer is the same (ie Scientific Atlanta) they command are as well, so integration should be easy.

It has been a long time since sage has added an integrated blaster like USB-UIRT. and having this feature is deffinately worth the $30 I believe, and it would releave the headaches that so many users face that try to blast commands to thier STBs.

So can anyone tell me if this is aready done with this version, or can the developers tell me if they will add the feature for us. If they arn't i'm willing to pay $30 to anyone who makes an easy GUI auto installation of this feature, and I'm sure others are too.

Thanks
Armyb77

You can already do channel changing via firewire with version 5. I don't know anything about Sage and firewire since I don't have cable. Perhaps it works well enough the way it works now that integrating it is not a priority, or perhaps not...

[ARMYB77]

AngelofDeth,
I understand that firewire works with Sage v5, however it is not integrated. Also unless you are an advanced user, and understand regedit, and how to use plugins, most users won't be able to get it to work. I know that my wife wouldn't have a clue!
The whole reason for owning SageTV is that it is very wife friendly, and it looks good. But my wife gets really frustrated when she can't get it to do what she wants. And then I spend hours configuring it so that it will. Only problem is I am deployed with the Army right now to Afghanistan, so my wife is left to fend for herself. So for me to have an easy program to automatically install the firewire feature for channel changing I am willing to pay for! Finally I am willing to pay even more if they get the video firewire support to work with using an easy install program (GUI). I understand that SageTV may not want integrate the feature, but why not develop a seperate integrator with a setup wizard and sell it seperately?
That's more money in thier pockets.

But V6 is still in Beta so it's not to late to add the feature to the final release, isn't that the point of an open Beta to get user feedback?
.

Thanks
Armyb77

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by jds23

There is a "Back" button, it is just called "Backspace", works great for me. Flachbar has greatly optimized SageMC for the MVP (he got a MVP, so he wanted it more optimized as well) by allowing a user to turn off all animation in the SageMC options, and when you do get everything setup for the MVP it is quite snappy! I personally think SageMC works and looks great on an MVP, but I am not saying it should be the face of Sage, but I do however think Sage could use a more modern (newer) face!! Maybe the new MAC version will inspire a change, you never know, we shall see over time

When I said "Back" button, I meant that its lacking the button on the screen. I don't mean the button on keyboard or on a remote control. I guess I should say its lacking the "mouse" button to be more concise with SageTV terminology. The default STV has it and makes navigation with the mouse possible, although its like 10 pixel wide on the upper left corner but at least its there. i don't know why it is so small and not bigger.

As for the MVP, I know the animations can be turned off. My problem with SageMC is that its made for content to be played in the small preview window at the bottom left corner, and not in the background. I prefer having the video in the background. And when playing in the background and using the menu at the same time, the menu items and white text are really hard to read, especially if the background video is bright.

[AngelofDeth]

Originally Posted by ARMYB77

AngelofDeth,
I understand that firewire works with Sage v5, however it is not integrated. Also unless you are an advanced user, and understand regedit, and how to use plugins, most users won't be able to get it to work. I know that my wife wouldn't have a clue!
The whole reason for owning SageTV is that it is very wife friendly, and it looks good. But my wife gets really frustrated when she can't get it to do what she wants. And then I spend hours configuring it so that it will. Only problem is I am deployed with the Army right now to Afghanistan, so my wife is left to fend for herself. So for me to have an easy program to automatically install the firewire feature for channel changing I am willing to pay for! Finally I am willing to pay even more if they get the video firewire support to work with using an easy install program (GUI). I understand that SageTV may not want integrate the feature, but why not develop a seperate integrator with a setup wizard and sell it seperately?
That's more money in thier pockets.

But V6 is still in Beta so it's not to late to add the feature to the final release, isn't that the point of an open Beta to get user feedback?
.

Thanks
Armyb77

Well I understand what you are saying, but I don't think "most users" is the case... HTPCs are not for your typical wife. She probably could get an IR blaster working either, especially something like a multizone USBUIRT. While using SageTV should be friendly, setting it up can sometimes be pretty advanced... stuff like setting up firewire capture and channel changing. Just getting decent video playback out of a PC can be challenging.

[malbec]

Well, I finally got around to playing with it. No conversion problems, no loss of features. So far, looking great, knocking on wood and appreciating a great deal the Google Video add, MVP enhancements (much more responsive, DVD Menu support), the changes to the music and photo areas and the format conversion feature. This is coming damn close to perfect! Nice work guys, well worth the money!

I am not sure if others have posted the following. If so, sorry for the repeat. If not, please let me know if I need to submit a bug report or a feature request form, etc.

1) When selecting to convert a video file the navigation of the menus could use some clean up. For example, if you select "Convert" and then press the back button nothing happens. When you get far enough along through the menus so as to select a name to save the new converted file, you can't use the arrow navigation keys to go to the numeric key pad shown on the screen like you can for searching for the title of a show.
2) I love the music enhancements, however I have some 400 albums ripped to my hard drive. Cycling through all the albums, artists, etc. takes too long for my inpatient fingers. Some sort of alphabetical short cut or the like would be a very nice convenience feature for quicker navigation.
3) Maybe I am finally becoming a video quality snob (never thought of myself that way before) but the MPEG4 conversions I have done as experiments (all at the highest quality setting) have resulted in new videos that are quite noticably worse worse in quality to watch. For my tastes, again didn't think I was a snob, but they are bad enough that the feature, well holding great promise, is probably one I won't use much. Now, I found what I think is new setup item that allows for the MVP to up the quality on transcoded files. I have now turned that on and am in the process of reconverting the files I previously deleted. Anyway, if this doesn't do the trick, is there anyway to improve the quality of the conversion with different codecs, a second pass in the conversion process, etc?
4) In the Google Video section, there appears to be an area at the top of the screen such that when you highlight a clip there is information on the clip. Sometimes, there is not enough room to read all of the information. However, there is no such thing as "View Additional Information" for the video clip, there is only "Play" and "Cancel." Not really all that important, but I thought I would mention it nonetheless.

[mike1961]

Yikes - I would do anything to stay away from IR (for changing channels on the STB) whenever possible. I use the USB-UIRT on my client workstations to change channels and it works great. But, I have all my STB's hooked up to my file server and I change the channels on the STB's via a serial cable so there is NO IR and it works flawlessly.

Mike

[mike1961]

Can someone explain what this Google feature is. I'm probably going to find time to install version 6 tomorrow.

Thanks,
Mike

[nielm]

Mike: http://video.google.com integrated into sage

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by malbec

2) I love the music enhancements, however I have some 400 albums ripped to my hard drive. Cycling through all the albums, artists, etc. takes too long for my inpatient fingers. Some sort of alphabetical short cut or the like would be a very nice convenience feature for quicker navigation.

There's a new feature in v6 called One Touch where you just enter a name either through the numeric text entry (NTE) or with a keyboard and it automatically filters out none matching items. Just go to your msuic folder and started typing some keys/letters and you'll see the list shorten.

3) Maybe I am finally becoming a video quality snob (never thought of myself that way before) but the MPEG4 conversions I have done as experiments (all at the highest quality setting) have resulted in new videos that are quite noticably worse worse in quality to watch.

yes they are poor, hopefully they will offer better quality settings before v6 goes final.

[blade]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

yes they are poor, hopefully they will offer better quality settings before v6 goes final.

Very poor, none of the settings are really good for playback on a large screen. It seems they focused more on converting the files for playback on portable devices with very small screens than for use on a main system.

You can create custom conversion rates, but I believe you're still limited to single pass.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by malbec

1) When selecting to convert a video file the navigation of the menus could use some clean up. For example, if you select "Convert" and then press the back button nothing happens. When you get far enough along through the menus so as to select a name to save the new converted file, you can't use the arrow navigation keys to go to the numeric key pad shown on the screen like you can for searching for the title of a show.

You can use the Options command to cancel at pretty much any point of the conversion setup process.

In pop-up dialogs, the NTE buttons are more for show, so you would just type or use the remote. (You can click on them w/the mouse now, however.)

2) I love the music enhancements, however I have some 400 albums ripped to my hard drive. Cycling through all the albums, artists, etc. takes too long for my inpatient fingers. Some sort of alphabetical short cut or the like would be a very nice convenience feature for quicker navigation.

See Usage tips for new v6 features. You don't want to miss the first post there. You can type the first letter to jump to an item, but even better filtering shortcuts do exist.

- Andy

[allen]

Version 6 seems to be working pretty well for me except I occasionally get the busy SageTV rotating icon in the center of my screen. The icon appears when Sage seems to be legitimately thinking, but won't go away even when it seems like it has finished thinking. I can do everything- watch live TV, watch recorded TV, cycle through the menus but the rotating icon stays unless I restart the program.

Any ideas or should I submit as a bug?

Thanks,
-Allen

[White94Cobra]

Originally Posted by Zladotimov

Anybody have any luck getting ac3 to SPDIF passthrough working?
With V4 and V5, I just deleted the ac3filter.ax installed in the Sage folder, (re)install my own version and setup the output redirect in the ac3filter config menu. This doesn't appear to be working anymore.. at least not when playing a file from within Sage. Passthrough _does_ work when playing the file with Windows Mediaplayer... I have set the "mpeg2 audio decoder filter" setting to ac3filter, but that doesn't help.. It seems that Sage ignores any installed ac3 codecs and use its own codec instead.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.. TIA!

I'm in the same boat... none of my imported videos with AC3 play via SPDIF after upgrading. They are all playing as Dolby Pro-Logic.

Update: My HD Mpegs play with AC3 just fine. Just the AVI/MP4 files are missing the Dolby Digital or DTS audio.

[mobby]

Hi check this post out regarding the ac3/spdif problem, solved it for me. I went for the setting the value to "false" rather than trying the other option suggested in the thread.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&highlight=ac3

Oh yeah also to give you some background to my setup I also got rid of the ac3filter.ax from the sage installation as I use the latest version from the ac3filter website.

HTH

mobby