Am I the only sad one?

[grooves12]

Is it just me, or has SageTV lost its luster now that SageMC's development is pretty much on hiatus?

[nyplayer]

You have to be patient 6.44 will be released soon and some of the plugins have to be changed to work in 6.44. It would not make sense to make changes that will work in 6.310 then redo them for 6.44.

[Brent]

Give it some time. The two developers had some non-Sage things going on in their lives that delayed development. They'll be back at it again before too long

[tmiranda]

Let's see, should MeInMaui concentrate on recovering from a heart attack, or should he work on SageMC....

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Let's see, should MeInMaui concentrate on recovering from a heart attack, or should he work on SageMC....

Can we vote?




Ok-let him recover.

Gerry

[stuckless]

I'm probably a minority here... but I feel the main SageTV UI is better than SageMC... so for me, I'd have to say, no I don't think that SageTV has lost it's luster

[Brent]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I'm probably a minority here... but I feel the main SageTV UI is better than SageMC... so for me, I'd have to say, no I don't think that SageTV has lost it's luster

I'm always curious about those that prefer the default STV. What is it you like better about the defalt SageTV STV over SageMC? I'm sure there are several things it does better so just looking for things to add to the to-do list for SageMC


On the other topic, we should all put together a belated get-well card for MeinMaui....

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm always curious about those that prefer the default STV. What is it you like better about the defalt SageTV STV over SageMC? I'm sure there are several things it does better so just looking for things to add to the to-do list for SageMC


On the other topic, we should all put together a belated get-well card for MeinMaui....

The new Malore Menus simply are much better than the default recordings in SageMC. I can sort any way possible. And set up 12 diff views using the regular and archived menus.

[doc]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm always curious about those that prefer the default STV. What is it you like better about the defalt SageTV STV over SageMC?

When I first saw the Microsoft media centre interface, I thought

'Wow! thats flash, now how can I turn it off'

Its good to be different

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

The new Malore Menus simply are much better than the default recordings in SageMC. I can sort any way possible. And set up 12 diff views using the regular and archived menus.

Getting close on the conversion to SageMC. I'm hoping to have a preliminary version of them by the end of the weekend if I get time to work on it this weekend.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Getting close on the conversion to SageMC. I'm hoping to have a preliminary version of them by the end of the weekend if I get time to work on it this weekend.

That would be great! Thanks,

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm always curious about those that prefer the default STV. What is it you like better about the defalt SageTV STV over SageMC?

To be honest I tried SageMC about 4 years ago and got a botched install. Since then I 've just steered away. There is probability lots that SageMC has that I would enjoy. However, I haven't wanted to bother with figuring out the install. So I just go with the stock STV with some select imports. Comskip etc.

So for me its not what do I prefer about the stock STV that is the question, What is better about MC edition?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

To be honest I tried SageMC about 4 years ago and got a botched install. Since then I 've just steered away. There is probability lots that SageMC has that I would enjoy. However, I haven't wanted to bother with figuring out the install. So I just go with the stock STV with some select imports. Comskip etc.

The install is pretty easy. Instructions come on the SageMC download page or alternatively if your a more-information kind of guy like I am there's a blog post that goes through what SageMC is and does and how to install it.

So for me its not what do I prefer about the stock STV that is the question, What is better about MC edition?

Okay, you asked so I can't help but put in a long post (sorry in advance)
As you can see from the above comments, the STV you use is definitely a matter of taste. It's also a matter of functionality as the default STV has a few items that work better than SageMC while SageMC has some functions not found on the default STV.

Pros for default STV:

• You know certain things will work - even through the betas (Online Videos for instance break for SageMC if you upgrade to a new version of SageTV before the SageMC STV has been updated to match it.
• Malore Menus (see above post for more info) is currently a much-wanted feature of SageMC.
• Some like the look & feel of the default STV better.

Pros for the user-created SageMC STV:

• Total revamp of the menus look & feel - more like MCE's menus, although you can customize it to look however you want it to.
• A new "My TV" page that shows you Recent Recordings and Upcoming Recordings on one page along with all TV-related menus on that page
• A new "My Videos" page that catalogs your archived movies in video or dvd format on one page. This can be viewed by list or folder and by genre, groups and file system. This was a major feature for me
• Integration with DVD Profiler for importing detailed information about your movie/video collection including movie title, details, genre etc. as well as an import of the DVD cover for each of the movies. Again, a major feature for me
• A new "Music" page that shows music in an organized format by genre, artist, album, folder and song. All of this can be sorted by Artist, time or title. There is an integrated music search, playlist and now playing page built into this menu.
• A Pictures page similar to the default SageTV pictures page.
• Built-in integration of IMDB search with cast, locations, quotes, trivia, description and other information available. SageMC can be set to automatically import pictures from IMBD for television shows, videos and movies.
• Built in commercial skip monitoring along so once you get comskip installed, it will detect commercials so you can skip forward or backward over commercials with one press of the remote button or alternatively you can set it to automatically skip over the detected commercials.
• Built-in RSS feeds and email functions
• Completely configurable functions, keyboard shortcuts and menus.
• Built-in automatic recorded tv file compression
• Themes Switching - ability to load various alternative themes to SageMC
• Built-in configuration and plugin imports from SageMC
• Detailed status page on the settings menu provides detailed information about SageTV including: SageTV software version, Java version, SageMC version, network name & IP, available video diskspace, used video diskspace, total video and library diskspace and content in GB and hours, last guide (EPG) update time, next guide update time, status of each available tuner, default quality, what is being viewed on SageTV, SageTV uptime
• Integrated, customizable weather status on front page that can open up into an enhanced weather page with current conditions and forecast along with 10 day forecast and weather maps.
• Built-in disk bar that shows the TV storage space in GB's and hours remaining for recordings.
• Configurable Date and Time on front page.
• Built-In shutdown icon for powering off the SageTV gui
• Built-in preview pane for viewing video content (or music details) while browsing the menus.
• Integration with Dynamic Menus (developed by nielm) that provides further ability to customize the menu screens
• Significant ability to customize the screen layout, look and feel. Save those layouts and easily switch from one to the other.

Those are the main ones. I still have to go to the detailed settings page from the default STV to change some settings, but other than that, I'm in a SageMC STV world only.

For me main reasons for using SageMC STV are the movies/videos integration and cataloging ability (using DVD Profiler), I prefer the look-and-feel of the menus in SageMC and I like the menu customization.

[bialio]

Originally Posted by Brent

• Total revamp of the menus look & feel - more like MCE's menus, although you can customize it to look however you want it to.

You really can achieve non-MCE looks and feels - this theme that I developed is a good example of that:



btl.

[tmiranda]

I use the default STV w/the "super secret" Malore menus. I've tried SageMC but it's just too cool for a geek like me.

[planetc]

I used MC on my old two box network with v4 and it looked good but was never as responsive as the stock stv. When I built the v6 setup this year I tried it again but still found that the stock stv was more responsive. I am using very low spec clients however, which perform well without the bells and whistles. I suspect it would be better on superior hardware.

With a few choice mods, including dynamic menus, the cogs theme (stock is too dark in my opinion) and some posh icons borrowed from various stv's or custom made it looks tidy and is very easy to use. My six year old daughter picked it up in about ten minutes and I think the wife could too if she could be bothered (she'd still be on 5 analog OTA channels if she hadn't married me!).

I believe most, if not all of the functionality in MC is available as an stvi for the stock setup so it comes down to cosmetics really. I have changed a little as I have grown older and tend to put function before form these days. I even strip XP back to the classic interface to improve performance where possible.

Sometimes life has a habit of creeping up on us if we spend too much time playing with our toys, I'm sure the guys that have worked so hard on MC will continue to do so as time allows.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

The new Malore Menus simply are much better than the default recordings in SageMC. I can sort any way possible. And set up 12 diff views using the regular and archived menus.

And to wet your appetite with a bonus feature (in case I can't finish it this weekend) here is what the conversion of the Recording Schedule from the Default STV looks like converted to Sage MC (something that was asked for in another thread). FYI: I'm using the icons from the Default STV for the left tool bar and the top selection bar but I plan on changing the icons on the airings to be those used in SageMC (instead of the Red&White F below) if I can find all of them

BobP

[stuckless]

I'm always curious about those that prefer the default STV. What is it you like better about the defalt SageTV STV over SageMC?

I guess it comes down to what you are initially used to. I came from XMBC, which is in my oppinion, the best SD media center today. When I switched to SageTV, i was so disappointed in the media center functions, so I decided to try SageMC, and to be honest, it may have looked a little better, but in the end, it didn't really offer much new, in my oppinion. SageMC is a a rebranding of the SageTV core, with some extras. So I switched back to the default STV. Given that both were lacking what I needed/wanted, i opted to use the default

I hear a lot of people comparing SageMC to MS Media Center.... I've never used MS Media Center, so I can't compare.... but if I did, then I probably would want to use SageMC as well, especially if it functioned/looked in a similar way.

There are some pretty basic things that I'd like to see in the base stv, such as video stacking and pluggable metadata support, both of these are core features that would need to be added by the sage team before they can implemented in either the default stv or SageMC.

Either way, SageMC brings a lot of value to sage users, it's just not for me

[Brent]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

And to wet your appetite with a bonus feature (in case I can't finish it this weekend) here is what the conversion of the Recording Schedule from the Default STV looks like converted to Sage MC (something that was asked for in another thread)....
BobP

Looks great Bob. Can't wait to try it out!

[wado1971]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm always curious about those that prefer the default STV. What is it you like better about the defalt SageTV STV over SageMC?

Navigation for me is the biggest hurdle. Above personal preference comes a comfort factor with what you know made more apparent when you involve a wife or entire family. It’s just impossible for me to switch now so I constantly look up all the new SageMC layouts to torture myself Can’t we default guys get a bit of bling on our side?

If you're taking suggestions... an option which completely reverts back to the default UI look, feel, menus, & navigation and then lets you move away veeerrryyy slowly so that the wife doesn't notice. I'd be an MC fanatic in about mid-2009.