Thanks to the SageTV community!!!

[jack_leach]

Having lurked on this forum for the past two months and having read many hundreds of posts (probably more than a thousand!), and having now built my own system, I have come to the conclusion that:

SageTV is extremely "buggy", requires LOTS of research and tweaking to make it work and it is certainly NOT a "plug and play" system. Instead of "plug and play", I would call it "plug (install), groan, research, tweak, groan, research some more, try five different options, try six different sequences" and FINALLY you'll say one of the following:

a. Why didn't they put that in the documentation?

or

b. I guess I'll have to live with it the way it is.

or

c. Why does this behave like a bad "beta" version?

or

d. I never would have figured that out without the help of the SageTV forum folks!

Actually, for just about every problem I've encountered, I've answered with all of these responses. Quite simply, without the SageTV community I never would have been able to get this system going. Even though I have a solid technical background (40 years computer maintenance and network engineering) this was (and still is) the most difficult "consumer" technology product that I've ever encountered. In all fairness, many of my problems have been related to the HD-PVR and IR blasters, but SageTV is still extremely buggy IMO.

Anyway, I just want to thank the thousands of individuals who have taken the time to share their experience with the world and (in almost every case) to do this with patience and understanding. You guys and gals are great!!

Jack

[bastafidli]

Hello Jack,

thank you for sharing your experience. Maybe because I am not using Sage as PVR, only as a media center for all my media, my experience was entirely different. I have bought HD100 less than a day after I first discovered Sage in december 2007. It took me probably about 10 minutes to get Sage installed on my server, hook up the HD100 and show my family our photos while listening to some of our music and then watch a movie from our media library. Ever since, I have come across small bugs or features I would desire to have but the basic functionality I bought Sage for worked 100% all the time and was rock solid and whats more, Sage has added features I cared about (just recently, multiple audio tracks support, subtitle support, TIFF support) or promptly fixed bugs directly in response of requests from the community.

I have not wondered into a PVR world since I dont have much interest in it at this time. From my observation of this and other forums, PVR functionality is not easy to master not only for Sage but also for other systems (WMC, Beyond) since it is highly dependent on coordination of multiple pieces of hardware provided by different vendors. In such situation it is hard to blame Sage that every combination doesn't work as expected.

I definitely have to agree wth you also that support you get on this forum is great.

[mayamaniac]

I came to the conclusion as you did, Jack, only it was 4 years ago.

I made a thread about it, the link is in my signature. I think it would've help you avoid some frustrations had you read it. I even thanked the community like you did. But the difference is I know what SageTV shortcomings are and try to avoid them. For example, before the buying the HD-PVR, I did my homework and made sure I have everything needed to make it work, including channel changing.

[sandor]

It is funny, because i had the exact opposite experience as you.

I found Sage, got it set up and was using it with little problem at all.

then decided i wanted to try new things, ventured to the forums and started using betas and "personalizing" sage with stv's etc.

[PLUCKYHD]

Basic sage setup is easy.

Customizing that is where it gets fun

but then I spent allot of time on third party apps and customizing with media center as well

[Yalbik]

Having been a long-time Sage user (4+ years), I'm always a bit confused by this sort of post....

Did I do something wrong (or extremely right?) when I installed? Every issue I've had with Sage I eventually tracked down to one of the following:

- Flaky hardware
- Not paying attention to suggested install instructions (64k clusters)
- Flaky plug-ins (I'm looking at you ShowAnalyzer).

I've found the core product of average stability for a commercial product, and much more stable than most open source software I've tried. Early versions had some bad issues during upgrade, but an uninstall/reinstall usually fixed that.

Admittidly, I do not have an HD-PVR (yet), but I do have a reasonably complex setup...3 tuners, an IR blaster, server with client running, NVidia PureVideo decoders, an MVP extender, and 2 placeshifters.

It's comments like these that keep me from installing a system for my Mom or sister-in-law.

What types of problems are people seeing? Is it typically HD stuff? Plug-in stuff? Esoteric hardware issues?

[PLUCKYHD]

Hd-pvr is buggy, r5000 takes a while to get set up (not long but some lines have to be added in config)

I think he was refering more to the sagemc and customization part.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by sandor

It is funny, because i had the exact opposite experience as you.

I found Sage, got it set up and was using it with little problem at all.

then decided i wanted to try new things, ventured to the forums and started using betas and "personalizing" sage with stv's etc.

Same with me. I was using BeyondTV and was frustrated with its lack of MVP support. I saw that Sage supported the MVP so on a lark I installed Sage on a test machine, fired it up, and had the MVP working flawlessly in 10 minutes.

Then I decided to start tweaking .......

[sandor]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Then I decided to start tweaking .......

that is *always* my downfall. in computers. in cars. in motorcycles. in cameras. i start thinking "what if?...."

[jominor]

Originally Posted by jack_leach

Having lurked on this forum for the past two months and having read many hundreds of posts (probably more than a thousand!), and having now built my own system, I have come to the conclusion that:

SageTV is extremely "buggy", requires LOTS of research and tweaking to make it work and it is certainly NOT a "plug and play" system. Instead of "plug and play", I would call it "plug (install), groan, research, tweak, groan, research some more, try five different options, try six different sequences" and FINALLY you'll say one of the following:


Jack

Well, while no complex software is bug free, I'll say that I don't believe that Sage is even close to "extremely" buggy. Plug and play depends on the approach. If you do *no* research at all, you will encounter problems.

If you get behind the wheel of a car, or attempt to use any complex tool, you will have similar problems.

My out of the box experience with sage was relatively painless. I had some issues, but it was running so quickly that my wife was asking when I was going to purchase it. And this was in the 1.4 days!

I researched pretty much everything before attempting it, so my showanalyzer/comskip worked pretty much from the beginning. Is it perfect? No.

I have some orphaned shows, that I have to clean up from time to time.
Showanalyzer occasionally will run until it will consume all memory if I don't kill the process.
On infrequent occasions, a show from the same one of my three encoders records with slowed down audio.
On very infrequent occasions I have to restart the sage client.

Weigh that against a system that runs 24/7 non-stop, with 3 tuners and IR turned on.
I don't turn off my client, but instead put it to sleep when done. So, the system is very close to "instant-on".
I know how to check for orphans, and I check daily for zombie showanalyzers. But we have his and her laptops in the family room on the coffee table anyway and I am on it quite a bit, so that costs me very little to RDP to my Sage server and check it.

Complex systems require care and feeding. You can have a simple one or two tuner sage system running client and server on on box connected to a tv like I originally had and it required very little effort.

Or you can have a three or more tuner, client-server, commercial skipping, dynamic menu, multi-terabyte setup requires more effort for more usefulness. My 5 year old rarely sees commercials and I totally chafe when I have to endure them.

The system, IMO, works very well.

[freedml]

Amen to the orignal post.

My biggest frustration with SageTV is that the collected wisdom of problem causes and solutions is not organized in a central troubleshooting guide, but is scattered and hidden in thousands of posts. Searching turns up a lot of garbage and sometimes your answer is hiding in the middle.

[jack_leach]

I am encouraged by those of you who have had such good experiences with Sage and I hope that I reach the land of Sage bliss soon. I don't doubt for a minute that you had a good experience. But I'm sure you also realize (by reading this forum) that there are MANY folks who have a terrible time trying to get this product to work properly. I now believe that the problems you will see with a Sage system will increase exponentially with the complexity of the system, i.e. if you add multiple tuners, multiple HD-PVR's, many add-ins, etc., then your problems with increase exponentially.

Here's how I look at my experience:

Using my own "yardstick", I have four different ways of analyzing any particular endeavor:

1. Career: something that takes 40 or more hours per week.

2. Serious hobby: something that takes 10 or more hours per week.

3. Casual hobby: something that takes fewer than 10 hours per week.

4. Plug and play: plug it in, it works, you're done.

I certainly did my homework, having read this forum and others for more than a month before jumping in. But I still wasn't prepared for the succession of problems that presented themselves as I configured and tested my system. I certainly wasn't expecting "plug and play", but I WAS expecting "casual hobby". What I got for the first month was "career" (I'm retired and easily spent 40 or more hours each week for the first month). Now I'm into the "serious hobby" stage (about 20 hours weekly) and I'd really like to get to the "casual hobby" stage. Even though I'm good at tinkering with PC's, software and electronics, I wasn't looking for a "serious hobby" and would rather spend more time watching the videos that I've finally started to record successfully.

I knew that the HD-PVR's would take some effort, but I still underestimated just how much. First I struggled to get the first unit working; then a new struggle to get two units working properly; then problems with IR channel changing; and now one of my HD-PVR's has died and I've been waiting for two days to get an RMA from Hauppauge (and they won't send me a replacement unit until they receive my bad unit and evaluate it).

I've got too much invested here (time and money) to stop now, so I'm resigned to a little more of this but I'm REALLY hoping that I don't end up regretting my commitment to Sage. Looking forward to better days!

Thanks for everyone's contributions here!

Jack

[jack_leach]

Originally Posted by freedml

My biggest frustration with SageTV is that the collected wisdom of problem causes and solutions is not organized in a central troubleshooting guide, but is scattered and hidden in thousands of posts. Searching turns up a lot of garbage and sometimes your answer is hiding in the middle.

Thank you for expressing this so well! I read this forum daily for two months before making my first post because I didn't want to annoy anybody with my newbie questions that were probably already answered "somewhere" in the forum. There is no "blame" to assign here; it's just the nature of a large forum that you end up with LOTS of scattered info and it can take a long time to ferret out what you're looking forward.

What WOULD be helpful would be for the moderators and/or sage experts to create a "sticky" posting that contains links to exceptional threads (a Top 40 list if you will). And I wouldn't be surprised if it already exists and I just haven't found it yet (do you realize that this forum now has more than 342,000 posts as of today!)

Jack

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by jack_leach

I knew that the HD-PVR's would take some effort, but I still underestimated just how much. Jack

Truer words have never been spoken.

I downloaded the Sage trial version to test it out. I used my existing ATi HDTV Wonder and nVidia dualTV tuners. It was a breeze. I had everything working flawlessly within an hour. But the reasn I was trying out Sage was that I had read it was farther ahead than most in HD-PVR support, and that's where I was headed.

I ordered the HD-PVR and when it arrived the heart(head)aches began. I do not envy anyone who starts out wth HD-PVRs. I went through a month of probably 8-10 hours a day before getting everything working.

I do have to say this though, until the tuners and devices that support HD reception and capture become reliable, it's going to be difficult for SageTV to be anywhere near "Plug n Play". Probably another year at least.

So I don't blame SageTV. It's just the times. After all, I did get a two week glimpse of what a pleasure it was to use SageTV..... just before my first HD-PVR arrived.

would rather spend more time watching the videos that I've finally started to record successfully.

I'm at that point now and it's a nice place to finally be.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

Truer words have never been spoken.

I downloaded the Sage trial version to test it out. I used my existing ATi HDTV Wonder and nVidia dualTV tuners. It was a breeze. I had everything working flawlessly within an hour. But the reasn I was trying out Sage was that I had read it was farther ahead than most in HD-PVR support, and that's where I was headed.

I ordered the HD-PVR and when it arrived the heart(head)aches began. I do not envy anyone who starts out wth HD-PVRs. I went through a month of probably 8-10 hours a day before getting everything working.

I do have to say this though, until the tuners and devices that support HD reception and capture become reliable, it's going to be difficult for SageTV to be anywhere near "Plug n Play". Probably another year at least.

So I don't blame SageTV. It's just the times. After all, I did get a two week glimpse of what a pleasure it was to use SageTV..... just before my first HD-PVR arrived.



I'm at that point now and it's a nice place to finally be.

That says it all I tried hd-pvrs and just couldn't get the digital audio working correctly had 3 different rev's and no luck. I finally decided the r5000 mod would be worth it if it just worked. I am happy to report it does it took some work to get it setup but once I got it working it hasn't stopped or missed a beat.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by jack_leach

I am encouraged by those of you who have had such good experiences with Sage and I hope that I reach the land of Sage bliss soon. I don't doubt for a minute that you had a good experience. But I'm sure you also realize (by reading this forum) that there are MANY folks who have a terrible time trying to get this product to work properly.

Jack

As has been mentioned many times before **SUPPORT** forums tend to have a higher incidence of users requesting **SUPPORT** for obvious reasons.



I fully expect a larger % of people posting in the forums to have issues. in fact, i myself did not post here until i ran into issues. Difference being that *I* created my issues - but if i did not choose to fiddle and push the limits, i would never have had a need to come to the forums in the past 5 years.

[jack_leach]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I went through a month of probably 8-10 hours a day before getting everything working.

That's exactly where I'm at. I just spent the past month (8-10 hours daily) building my server and installing/configuring SageTV. Half of that time was spent with HD-PVR issues. And just when I thought that everything "might" be working, one of the HD-PVR's dies.

Thanks for your comments!

[sandor]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I ordered the HD-PVR and when it arrived the heart(head)aches began. I do not envy anyone who starts out wth HD-PVRs. I went through a month of probably 8-10 hours a day before getting everything working.

So wait, you are saying it took over 240 hours to get the HD-PVR working?!?


That simply has to be abnormal and extraordinary, otherwise i don't think anyone would be using one.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by sandor

So wait, you are saying it took over 240 hours to get the HD-PVR working?!?


That simply has to be abnormal and extraordinary, otherwise i don't think anyone would be using one.

It turned out to be 2 HD-PVRs and I'm counting testing time, monitoring the forum looking for tidbits time, trying every suggestion time, diagnostic time, finding the hot chips and putting heat sinks on them time, modifying the boxes for fans that worked time, conflict resolution time, replacing some of my other tuners time (conflicts again), and most of all brain time spent mulling over what to try next time.

You would have to have been there.

[freedml]

Getting SageTV to work reasonably well can easily be a full time job for a number of weeks, or a week here and there over several months in my case. I've been there...