A clear statement regarding DVB subtitles support

[mpogr]

This is a question to Sage product management/R&D.

At the beginning of the last beta series there was a promise to add DVB subtitles support (see here and here, please, note the post dates!). This caused surge of enthusiasm and clearly pushed many people to buy Sage TV software and hardware, at least I personally know several people in Israel who went ahead and made hefty purchases.
These promises have not been fulfilled. Moreover, several subsequent inquiries to Sage (here and here) on this matter went unanswered.

I think loyal user community deserves some answers, especially considering the fact Sage brought this topic up themselves.

Thank you in advance!

[ha.oded]

I agree with mpogr

I am a new user. I have not purchaced SageTV and planning to use MediaPortal just because of this issue !!!. There is no question that Sage is a better product than MP, but once I installed the trial version, my wife asked me to remove it immediatly . Just because of subtitles

Please help...

[banjo]

Hi,

Well i asked for that from sage tech support looonnggg time ago.

today i'm working with sage software and mediaportal (for the subtitle support)

it will be great if sage implement the dvb subtitle support in the sage software/
so i could stay and use the Sage software.

Thanks

[Joshua_G]

It's a pity that a freeware like Media Portal has DVB subtitles support, While Sage TV don't. Such a support is a must for users from certain countries, like my country.

[Brent]

Has anyone asked this question directly to SageTV support?

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by Brent

Has anyone asked this question directly to SageTV support?

Yes, many times... The answer was silence...

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mpogr

Yes, many times... The answer was silence...

Then they either didn't get the email, or the response was blocked by your spam filter.

For my part, DVB is useless in NA and I never use subs, so I don't need it.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Then they either didn't get the email, or the response was blocked by your spam filter.

I can think of a couple of additional possible reasons, but I won't mention them explicitly to stay on the polite note...

Originally Posted by stanger89

...DVB is useless in NA...

I guess this could be one of the reasons I was referring to, which would have been fine, if they hadn't proclaimed themselves they will support it...

[Brent]

To be fair, they didn't promise or even say exactly when. Things can slow the process down or even change their mind (think Hulu...)

But I think it's worth asking for an official response which I've done. I'll let you know what (if anything) I find out cause I'm a little curious myself even though it wouldn't benefit me directly.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by Brent

To be fair, they didn't promise ...

Please, take a look here:

Originally Posted by Narflex

Embedded Subtitles
Currently this is only supported with the HD200; but this will be expanded later to cover other parts of the platform. This is supported for all file types; but only text based subtitle formats are supported currently. We are going to expand this soon to include embedded bitmap-based subtitles as well (for BD, DVB and embedded VobSub).

and here:

Originally Posted by Narflex

...We don't have DVB subtitle support yet; but we will in the near future on the HD200 first and then expanding it around the platform after that.

I don't see any conditional language here, to me this does look like a promise.

Originally Posted by Brent

But I think it's worth asking for an official response which I've done. I'll let you know what (if anything) I find out cause I'm a little curious myself even though it wouldn't benefit me directly.

I'd really appreciate any help.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by mpogr

I don't see any conditional language here, to me this does look like a promise.

To me a promise is more of a "we promise to deliver this feature". They say "we will" and "we are" but that isn't a promise in my book. Things can change and many times will change. Seriously if we get caught up in this sort of stuff too much we basically discourage them from communicating any plans ever to us. I personally don't want that.

I understand you're need to know what's going on. Just trying to explain where I'm coming from as well.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by mpogr

Please, take a look here:

and here:

I don't see any conditional language here, to me this does look like a promise.

I'd really appreciate any help.

And so far they have kept their promise. Their promise was soon and in the near future. Ambiguous at best and not a defined date. But they are obviously working on it and when it happens, it happens. Soon and in the near future. Definitely sounds like they are on track because they haven't come back and said they can't do it. And if you're expecting someone to come back with a date let me set your expectations. They won't do that. (Based on past history) And who knows-it may be ready in the next beta. But I'm not speaking for them and have no insight into it. I think soon and in the future is the best you're going to get and it's good you know they are working on it.

Gerry

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mpogr

I can think of a couple of additional possible reasons, but I won't mention them explicitly to stay on the polite note...

At the very least, support will reply with a "Well pass this along to the development team..." note. AFAIK, they never just blow off support emails. "Silence", ie non-receipt of a response usually means they didn't get your email, or you didn't get their response, usually because of a spam filter.

I guess this could be one of the reasons I was referring to, which would have been fine, if they hadn't proclaimed themselves they will support it...

That's not a reason for lack of response (even if it is an explanation for lack of progress on development).

[mpogr]

Guys, don't get me wrong, I'm really supportive towards Sage, I even invested quite a lot of my personal time into creating of a fairly non-trivial plugin enabling watching encrypted DVB channels using it.
Still, Sage behavior is quite disappointing in this case. The quotes from my previous posts are dated back into the beginning of the last beta cycle ~ half year ago. Moreover, they stated that the upcoming release (6.6) was going to focus on subtitle support. But any reference to DVB subtitles quickly vanished from their posts, there was no signle word about it in any release notes and all the inquiries by the people either here in the forums or sent to them via email have been ignored.
I understand there might be delays. But I, and others, need to know if there is something to wait for, and the current situation, when a statement was made and then nothing, doesn't look promising, to say the least.
@Gerry: I'd really wish you were right and it's just a matter of time, but it would be much more helpful to hear anything on this subject from Sage themselves.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mpogr

But any reference to DVB subtitles quickly vanished from their posts, there was no signle word about it in any release notes and all the inquiries by the people either here in the forums or sent to them via email have been ignored.

1) SageTV does not monitor the forums, so any questions that require their direct response should not be posted here expecting an official response.

2) Again, if no response was received to an official, email support inquiry, then the request never made it to Sage or the response didn't make it to the requester, usually due to a spam filter.

If you're having a problem with something (subtitles) you should contact support directly and double check your spam/email settings that their response isn't getting blocked.

Remember, AFAIK the devs are all in the US, where there's no DVB to test with to speak of, so for all we know, they put in what they think would work, but it's broken because they've got nothing to test with, and nobody's submitted a bug....

[mpogr]

stanger89,

I do have experience with Sage support, actually quite a lot of it while communicating on different issues. So far their responsiveness was far from ideal. Often issues have been mixed up. Many times I got wrong or irrelevant replies (e.g. the issue was told to be fixed while it was not, or the reply referred to a different issue). I have also experienced lack of any response... There is a lot of room for improvement on the support side.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by stanger89

...they put in what they think would work, but it's broken because they've got nothing to test with, and nobody's submitted a bug....

I don't think it was ever claimed to work, it was mentioned as something "in works" and "be ready soon", but then disappeared. Any subsequent inquiry was either completely ignored or replied with "we don't know when it's going to be ready".
As for the difficulty developing the subtitles support, this is quite ridiculous. If they ask, I and many other people can provide them with plenty of samples with DVB subtitles in them. But we've been never asked...

[49studebaker]

Originally Posted by stanger89

...DVB is useless in NA...

That's not true. There are several hundred free DVB tv/radio satellite channels in the USA.

Refer to:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/thelist/...&page=printfta

or

http://www.ftalist.com/master.htm

[Taddeusz]

Ok, maybe next to worthless. The only programming on there that I'd actually be interested in watching is NASA TV.

I can understand if you're in North America and wanting to get news feeds from your native country. But there's little else on there that's really of interest to most people.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Ok, maybe next to worthless. The only programming on there that I'd actually be interested in watching is NASA TV.

I did say "for my purposes" Simple fact is in NA, there's not enough up there FTA, and what is, is spread over so many satellites that it's not worth the trouble for all but a handful of people to bother trying.