The official, "SageTV is working well for me!" thread

[jbarr]

Forums like this are often full of posts detailing how things aren't working, or how things could be working better. Unfortunately, posts about successes and general praises when things just work well, are often never posted, or are rarely seen. The SageTV community is certainly not all doom and gloom--I do see lots of excitement in many positive posts, but I think it's time to give ourselves a shot in the arm and really talk up those instances when SageTV is working well for us. OK, I'll start....

Despite my occasional rantings, and recent redundant feature request postings (sorry, Opus4) I am actually very happy with how SageTV is working for us. I love that for under $1000, I have a nice home theater PC that records 2 inputs of cable TV and 1 input of HD cable, and hat lets me view my digital photos, watch DVD's, and manage and play my music collection. TV shows are commercial-free, and HD shows look stunning. It's seamless, very intuitive (and even more so now that I'm using SageMC) and the WAF is very, very high.

Could it be improved? Sure. Have I had problems with SageTV? Of course! But overall, it has far exceeded my expectations.

So what do you say? Tell us about your positive SageTV experiences. How is SageTV making your home entertainment more enjoyable? What about SageTV makes you just want to run to a mountain top and shout, "Everyone needs SageTV!!"??

Oh, and negative posters need not apply. Please use some other thread to vent.

[Polypro]

Started with 2.2.8 in June of 2005, all release versions (not Beta) have never "gone down" or missed a show. True believer here

P

[UFGrayMatter]

HDHomeRun + SageTV = perfect combination!

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by UFGrayMatter

HDHomeRun + SageTV - perfect combination!

Agreed

[hoep]

bought a new server some weeks ago (doing also other things) - 2x dual xenon, 4 gb ram 3 TB storage - use it with 2x pvr usb-2 and 2 x HVR 3000 (MYTheatre plugin) 4 extenders - and have to state: works like a charm - no issues, only fun. I'm happy (customer since 2.something), so is the family - WAF is up to 100%
Upgrade of Java to 1.6 was also a big step ahead in performance on the extenders.

regards
hoep

[GTwannabe]

SageTV server has always been rock-solid for me. Client and PlaceShifter on the other hand...

[jominor]

I've been using Sage since version 1.4 back in '03. At the time, I evaluted a couple of solutions including BTV. Sage, despite having an "uglier" interface was more stable and really, how often do you look at the interface?

I've moved up from a 1 tuner to a 3 tuner systen and currently have 1.3T dedicated to Sage TV shows. I have another 800g dedicated to Divx movies that I watch through Sage. I use commericial skipping and it works great.

WAF factor is high(in fact, back in the 1.4 days, my wife said, "When you are buying the thing?" Even my daughter at 3 tells me to pause TV so she can go to the bathroom and thinks commercials are broken tv.

Sage is awesome. Using my setup I mine so much tv that expanded analog basic gives me all I can possibly watch.

[FidgetyRat]

I started with sage about 2 years ago and it was really just accidental. I was originally looking at the free distributions such as myth that would operate under linux. At the time I had a single Avermedia tuner that unfortunately I could NOT get to operate under linux. Reaching frustration I decided to go against my principals and try a windows distro since windows drivers are far better then linux. Enter sage.

To this day I am impressed that it can run for over a month without a single crash. Granted, I beat windows down to the bear minimum and the server is only used for sage ever.


The original need for a system like this came during my first year as a grad student. I would spend all day at work, come home and start class work for the day or attend my second job. After all my daily work was complete, it was usually 2am and time for sleep. I had no life.

I did want to watch TV, but I lacked the money to afford 100+ VHS tapes, so the PVR solution was needed. Sage worked perfectly. Now, I was able to record an entire weeks worth of TV, and if I got a half-hour for lunch here and there, I would ALWAYS find something to watch.

I also only had BASIC cable the entire time which for me was 6 channels. Even with just 6 channels, I have been able to watch every show I want and nearly filled a 180g drive with queued shows i still needed to catch up on.

Then came comskip ( a life saver ) and all sorts of other fun addons.

[ybrew]

I moved into my new house in December. I moved out of my rental in July of last year and knew I'd be saying goodbye to directv when I moved with inlaws. I had plans for my new house. Mainly, I wanted video distribution. I wanted to record everything in one room (closet) in my house and be able to watch those recordings in any room. I didn't want to worry about the same show on multiple DVRs. I also wanted something easy to use for my wife and son.

My 5 year old is able to put his own shows on. He knows if a show has a "W" by it, he's already seen it, and if it doesn't, it's usually a new recording.

Sure, we watch the majority of the TV in the family room, but we have 5 rooms with TVs. If my wife is watching something in the family room, I don't have to worry that my I can't watch my shows because the DVR is in use.

I have 6 analog tuners and 2 hd tuners (hd homerun). My hd homerun doesn't get a lot of use yet (hoping for the hd extender before the fall tv season starts), but the media MVPs work great. Exactly what I wanted - a small, unobtrusive, quiet box for each TV. All of my TV is distributed over ethernet.
I've got 100 of my son's movies ripped to divx and available via Sage as well.

Eventually I may try to get all my DVDs available. I tried it once. It was a tad flakey, but it worked. But it really took up too much disk space (I want DVD quality, digital sound, etc). I'll see how they work with the HD extender and maybe buy disks in the future, but for now no complaints. I don't mind popping one of my DVDs in the player, and don't have to worry about my son doing so since everything is available for him already (he doesn't worry too much about the quality).

I wish it was a bit easier to use for my 85 year old father in law and 74 year old mother in law. Right now we basically have to put it on for them.

And I need more disk space soon. 750 gig for recordings is getting a tad crowded!

But all in all, extremely satisfied.

[stanger89]

I'll just throw in my two cents

Just put Sage through the torture test of all torture tests, hosted a movie night tonight, had a few friends over, and we watched The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Extended Edition (while Sage was performing it's usual recording duties)

For those who don't know, that's approximate four and a half hours of movie. And Sage performed flawlessly, everyone was impressed, and movie night was a success

[IVB]

Been doing SageTV & at least 1 client for 3.5 years, only bit of the system i haven't changed since then.

And the ever evolving integration with the rest of my setup just rocks.

Now that damn DirecTV STB on the other hand, I hate that thing. But the HD OTA is working like a champ, plus the CCTV through Sage, damn I'm contemplating switching entirely to OTA once the Sopranos is over.

[bhyman1]

Originally Posted by UFGrayMatter

HDHomeRun + SageTV = perfect combination!

You bet your ass it is!

[sixdoubleo]

I have been running a SageTV server and clients flawlessly since version 1.4. I have a server with 2 tuners, two HTPC clients, 2 MVP Clients, and an occasional Placeshifter. Last night I just upgraded from Sage 5 to 6.1 and as usual, the upgrade was smooth as silk.

I noticed Stanger mention a successful movie night which went well. I'd like to add that with me, Sage works so well, that I have simply taken it for granted for the last 3-4 years. I EXPECT it to work well, and it does. I don't even really think about it. In other words I have had many movie nights, Seinfeld nights, Lost nights, Sopranos nights, and just general parties and get-togethers where Sage just simply did what it's supposed to do. I am so used to Sage working flawlessly that I don't even consider it out of the ordinary when it does.

Sure, I have had some very minor setup issues here and there, almost always a result of me not reading carefully enough...but everything I have ever needed to know about how to make Sage work seamlessly is in these forums. And most of my "issues" were because I was trying to do something above and beyond the advertised capability of Sage. But even then everything I have wanted to do, my Sage system currently does.

No offense to anybody on the forum, but honestly....Sage has worked so well for me, and the two friends of mine who also use it, that when I see so many people struggling to get it right and see all the "I'm dumping Sage" threads, I have no choice but to assume that you flat out don't know what you are doing. Say what you want, but when it works so absolutely rock-solid for some, but not for others, what other conclusion could there be?

Sage is probably the most "mission-critical" application in my home. Yet, it is the application I pay the LEAST amount of attention to, and somehow it is hands-down the most reliable application in my home. My Comcast DVR is nowhere near as reliable as Sage.

In a world of mostly crappy software, Sage is one of the very few gems...I couldn't do without it.

[stevech]

maybe the prevoius poster is reminding us --
Don't muck with it.

Software is like a machine with a million moving parts.

My Simple 1 tuner SD Sage runs reliably. It's in the appliance category.

The issues I've had are that when, say, a video storage disk drive fails, there's no simple obvious way to avoid Sage's database going into dementia mode.

I bought v6 but seeing all the mesages that 6.0.1 or 6.0.1.2.3 or 6.1.0 is unreliable and the guys fall back and jump around, leads me to leave well enough alone; new features of questionable value (stream uTube?) don't compel me to risk the WAF.

[motobarsteward]

Sage works well for me. I have had a couple of problems since starting with Sage 2 but these have all been self-inflicted! If you keep your server clean and only running sage and you never install new versions over the top of old ones you will have no problems. The web server, LMGestion and Birltes plugins/utilities are also rock solid. I use Orb to stream to my 3G HSDPA mobile and this also works well.

[RobJ]

There are a few users having problems with the latest versions. One posted here http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25460
and I responded with the post below. Seemed appropriate to quote myself here, sorry for the repeat post.

Originally Posted by RobJ

I've been using SageTV since 2.1, and I have to completely agree with Paul. I used to regularly lose recordings, which is probably the most maddening thing a PVR can do to you. I had to work around or live with a number of bugs and limitations. I still have over 150GB of old recordings in the Import library, instead of the Recordings list where they belong. But I really liked Sage then, and it has only gotten better with time. I haven't lost a recording in a long time. Sure, there have been 'shakeout' periods with almost every new feature, but that's normal to all software. There will always be something to live with. For me currently, it is major studder in my viewing, all SD.

Plus, with all the new features, there are many more sources of problems now than before. I don't do Placeshifting, MVP's, or HD yet, waiting for more money and more HD stability and user satisfaction with the whole HD experience.

There is such a wide variety of hardware, and users use Sage in many different ways. I think everyone has gone through rocky periods at times, and if you haven't before, then perhaps it's your turn? Sorry!

It's just my subjective opinion, but I believe there are less problems now than there used to be, at least as reported on the forums. It may be related to my own experience, but I think there is more general satisfaction with SageTV now than ever before. We never stop waiting for newer and better, of course.

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by jbarr

Oh, and negative posters need not apply. Please use some other thread to vent.

robj, I guess you missed the last line in the OP's starting post.

-PGPfan

[BerrantRyke]

I have been using Sage since v2.somthing. Back then the WAF was pretty low... A computer in the iving room? Argggg!

My, ohm my, how times have changed. Now running v6 (with SameMC and goole calender) on a dedicated machine. 300GB for recording and 380GB of xVID movies. My family could not do with out SageTV. Recently we tried getting the HD-PVR from the cable company and returned it less than a week later. The DVR app was flaky and klunky at best. And it couldnt play my movie library, or show pics. Arggg!

Is sage an 'appliance' in my home. YOU BET! Now, instead of having photo albums, a stereo, a VCR, a DVD player, and a cble box. I get one PC in the living room hooked to my big ol' HDTV. MVP's in the kids rooms and plans to add a HD-MVP to my room in the future.

Now add in teh fact that I use Jere's ShowAnalyzer and DirMon... Well, its just yummy!

Overall SageTV has changed the very way in which my family watches televison. Heck, going on vacation means bringing the laptop to access placeshifter!

THANK YOU SageTV!!

[pawn]

I'll throw my hat in. Been using Sage since 1.2.8 and it's changed our lives. We have glitches now and then, mostly due to trying to add new functionality, but for the most part, Sage has been a work horse. I suspect most users would say the same, but few people (just people with no life like me) come to a vendor forum because they *don't* have any problems.

[exdirtfarmer]

SageTV since 1.4. Generally Rock Solid unless I messed it up. Server with 1 tuner and it runs for months at a time. 1 Client, 1 Media MVP, 1 Placeshifter. WAF is VERY high. She uses it more than I do. I'm sure I'll be picking up the HD hardware Client and modding my Starchoice receiver to do HD later in the year. All my colleagues rave about Microsoft Media Edition but I have no interest in testing those waters. Completely satisfied with Sage.