Stay or Bail ?

[kcjack]

I realize that SageTV has a plugin for MyMovies. I do currently use it. I am more concerned about the extenders and EPG data after the end of Sage. I just wondered if anyone has taken a poll or something about what peoples intentions are to go to if Google does not have something similar or better than Sage.

[graywolf]

I plan on staying with SageTV.

EPG = other means of getting it other than thru Sage.
Slugger has already written a plugin that would get the EPG data from Schedules Direct once Sage no longer provides EPG data.

I have a couple "spare" extenders in case the ones in use go out. After that, I'll give my hand with clients.

Just can't leave Sage, especially with the awesome ADM plugin that was just released.

Even if all other plugin development ceased (which I don't see happening). I think I'd be happy with my setup for quite awhile.

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by gplasky

We already have a good idea what GTV2 is about. The developer version is already out there and it's based on Honeycomb. If any remnants of what was once SageTV is going to show up you're probably not going to see it until GTV3. Probably a year or so away.

Gerry

Yeah, maybe not. I was more thinking bits and pieces would show up in FW pushes to GTV2 devices. I did not think there would be a massive push of "all things Sage" all at once to GTV2 devices.

But it would be naive to think that there will be zero FW pushes between GTV2 and GTV3, if indeed there ever is a GTV3. Google itself touts its "free" update pushes on its GTV website.

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I think the point is, the reality of the situation has to "kick in", that bandwidth is not nearly as scarce a resource as ISPs would make it out to be.



That is only partially correct. Cable companies are switching to "Swtiched Digital Video", where the only channels sent into your house are the ones you're watching, not everything. The coax coming into your house has approximately 125 to 180 RF channels, each of which support 38.8Mbps of data (QAM), that's 4.8Gbps of bandwith at a relatively conservative estimate.

There's no problem getting 100Mbps into peoples houses, it's the infrastructure feeding the neighborhoods that is the limit currently, and those limits are vanishing as fiber is rolled out.



Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying



Sorry but that doesn't make any sense to me. There was no radical paradigm shift, and frankly I would expect development to slow (as it sort of seemed to in the late days of 7.1). I would not expect Jeff to roll out the massive changes in V7, or heck even some of the larger ones like the security model in V7.1 in an effort to "prep" for sale. It just doesn't make sense to me.

What it says to me is that regardless of what state negotiations were at, Jeff intended to keep developing Sage, something that clearly had no future as a Google product, for the current customer base. Google couldn't care less about any of the development done in V7 in my estimation.



I doubt GoogleTV 2 will be of interest to me.



I'm sure it took a while, probably a few months no doubt. But I don't think you can look back at what SageTV did over the last year and see signs in SageTVof the then oncoming acquisition.

Well, I don't see it that way in my area. Charter did a massive fiber rollout about 5 years ago. They add HD channels at a snail's pace, which is why I went to Dish. I figure if they can't get their act together in 5 years, it ain't happening any time soon. (3 miles east of me and it's 2-way satellite. How much HD are you going to get off Hughes to begin with, and then after they FAP you 2 days into the month and you get dial-up speeds?) A little less quality on Dish, maybe, depending on whose argrument you read, but lots of HD I would never have access to vs. Charter. Yes, I've heard of switched digital; but, again, you don't address who will pay the costs for all that fancy equipment for where it can be put, not to mention where it still needs to go. And far it must go, given that at least one poster says U-Verse only allows one master head-end unit per home. That's saying something pretty scary about Fiber to the neighborhood, or last mile copper or whatever you want to call it. If you take 4.8Gb/s and divide it by 16Mb/s per HD channel, and each home takes 4 HD channels for shifting what can be, watching current events, etc. you are burning 64mb/s per house. At 80 houses, give or take, you are at saturation assuming a perfect switched network and no one wants to do anything else silly like download HD content to a local drive, Music, surfing, fast-reaction MMOG, etc. There is going to need to be some sort of pause or dual-record buffering feature for long shows such as the Olympics or more than one show at once. A modicum of local storage is going to be needed, but you might still get away with 16 Gb/s for an HD stream. One last little niggling detail - no everyone might want "The Cloud" which is nothing more than a reversion to the days of when a few networks controlled all the content, and the Peacock was in color... They might like their TV the way it is.


My brother-in-law installs for AT&T and has for about 10 years. U-Verse around our area is a joke. DSL is a belly laugh. AT&T has zero economic incentive to push it or DSL due to any number of political and local issues. Verizon could not care less about FIOS anymore.

If I want 100Mb/s guaranteed 80% speed all the the time, no cap internet, it's $340 per month.

You also forget Cable is hub and spoke. Every hub has so much bandwidth. So 4.8Gb/s sounds like a lot until you start dividing that up between a whole lotta houses...

As far as paradigm shifts go, Sage 7 is radically different than Sage 6. A total emphasis on horizontal menus vs. vertical ones, horizontal icon scrolls rather than vertical ones. Legos for wallpaper on the search screen? Huh? Who thought of that one? A TV on a beach on the TV screen? It's a radical shift.

Of course the owner kept developing at Sage. Duh. We spent a year getting our company ready for sale. We gave the same great service and equipment we always did, because until the wire hit our bank account the sale had not occurred. We made darn sure we did not lose any accounts of any size and of course kept selling and expanding at our target rate in our market area. That's just common sense for anyone who wants to sell.

Maybe you've never sold a company. The last thing you want anyone to know is that your company is for sale. That's why any prospective buyer signed pernicious NDA's if they wanted to look at our books and then decide to blab. It also kept away the posers.

You say GTV does not interest you. It does not interset me either. That does not mean that internal code won't contain Sage innovations and may not manifest itself in minor ways to those familiar with Sage.

I never said I smelled a rat. I said I SHOULD have smelled a rat. Hindsight is 20/20. But there were times when I got 2 bets updates in something like 3 days with Sage 7. And the posts by the mods to immediately move up the beta ladder. I even sent a couple of emails to tech support asking them what the heck they were doing trying to tack so many arguably minor features on so fast when I felt other major features were suffering. Like many others, I wonder where all the logs I sent in of problems went.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

Like many others, I wonder where all the logs I sent in of problems went.

I never had any problems getting a quick response when I sent bug requests. Granted I did send them to the dev team directly, but the only reason I did that was because I replied to the same email address that sent the response to me. They were always very quick. I worked with them for months on the issues we all used to have when v7 came out and the splitter suddenly could handle more file types. Almost every single request I had for additions to configuration and decoder compatibility were answered. I've never gotten support that good from any company. My old cable company from west texas comes close. Stupid time warner wants to send someone to my house to "install" a cable modem. I am perfectly capable of reading a mac address over the phone and screwing a cable into the back of the modem. Why in the world would I want to pay someone else to do that?

[Folkboat]

Prior to my 5 years with SageTV we used GBPVR!
I switched to SageTV because:
- it was a commercial product
- used MVP as extenders
- WAF was high because of the MCE plugin
- upgraded to 6.6.2 currently using (2) HD200's

We do not record much TV just the awards shows, Oscars........etc.
We primarily watch our ripped DVD collection (approximately 4+TB) we still have the original DVD's.
We also have other videos in various formats (thus the HD200's).

The moral of this story is SageTV just works and works very well for us.......
HOWEVER nothing lasts forever........

Anyone else out there with a SIMILAR STORY, have you bailed and if so TO WHAT!! Are you evaluating media streamers??

Appreciate your patience

Thanks

[rjudge]

Originally Posted by Synomenon

This sucks. I actually just purchased SageTV a month or two ago after leaving behind SnapStream BeyondTV (they have seemingly abandoned their home users as well) and now it's happening again with SageTV. If I knew this was going to happen, I wouldn't have purchased SageTV.

Same here. Four HD300s, Server SageTV, Two SageTV PC Clients, Two Colossus cards and a HD-PVR plus switching to DirectTV with four HD STBs. Not an insignificant chunk of change. It's working fairly good, so, I guess I'll try to stay as long as I can stand any hassles. I like not having to worry about disk space.

RJ

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by davephan

The general public will never handle the complexity of a SageTV system. Many can barely handle using a TV remote control. If Google TV is dependent on streaming, I think it's future is probably DOA right now due to the bandwidth caps, unless it is designed for a 3" screen and lousy quality.

That's a pretty sad commentary, over two weeks and just one posting on beer. People are concerned about the future of SageTV and very concerned what happens if their media extenders quit working. I think the hope for SageTV's future is fading fast.

My impression from the post was "I'm still here". Instead of a five finger 'hello' wave, I imagined I was getting a one finger salute.

Dave

Agree. Well said.

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by Folkboat

Prior to my 5 years with SageTV we used GBPVR!
I switched to SageTV because:
- it was a commercial product
- used MVP as extenders
- WAF was high because of the MCE plugin
- upgraded to 6.6.2 currently using (2) HD200's

We do not record much TV just the awards shows, Oscars........etc.
We primarily watch our ripped DVD collection (approximately 4+TB) we still have the original DVD's.
We also have other videos in various formats (thus the HD200's).

The moral of this story is SageTV just works and works very well for us.......
HOWEVER nothing lasts forever........

Anyone else out there with a SIMILAR STORY, have you bailed and if so TO WHAT!! Are you evaluating media streamers??

Appreciate your patience

Thanks

Probably run Sage server and stream to Popcorn Hour, Dune, etc. Dune had a great skin option but it only ran on WHS. Sorry, not buying another OS.

Will have to program Sage server with remote desktop (Access Remote PC) or go to SuperMicro board with built-in KVM over IP. Just a thought.

[herrdude]

Just for a lark, last year I found the hack that allowed AppleTV 1 to run OSX 10.5.8. I managed to set it up as a dual-boot so it could either launch into AppleTV or into OSX. When it was running OSX, I installed Sage Client and it worked quite well except for HD content (stuttered like crazy). I figured that it was too demanding running OSX and Sage Client. I tried to have Sage Client as an app that could be launched from AppleTV (thinking this would be less CPU intensive). I was never able to get it to launch as an app (due to my limited Linux skills).

Food for thought as the original AppleTVs can be had quite cheaply these days...

[Narflex]

I'm right here. The main reason for not posting anything for awhile was personal vacation time (which was scheduled pre-acquisition) and spending a few weeks in Mountain View for Google orientation.

And for those complaining about lack of tech support...I'm not sure what you're complaining about...we still offer support for SageTV like we always did. Just click on the link on the forums home page and it'll get you to the page in our site that still works for requesting support. (I do understand the other complaints about no client licenses or extenders....and we are still trying to work on potential solutions to those problems)

You all know I don't have the freedom to say anything I want like I did when I was running the place; but I am still advocating for the community and doing what I can to help out the users who have supported us over the years.

Originally Posted by GMan78

Speaking of Jeff, Jeff where are you??? Let us know you are still out there working for our interests, or at least that you still care...it has been a long time since we've heard from you....even a hello at this point would be welcome...or is this like one of those slow breakups where we keep waiting near the phone hoping you'll call, until finally one day we all just give up and walk away...

We all want to be hopeful and excited for your future AND that of our beloved SageTV....show us a sign oh lord Jeff, that there is something around the corner worth looking forward to... (hint: client licenses would be OH SO SWEET!)

George

[davephan]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I'm right here. I do understand the other complaints about no client licenses or extenders....and we are still trying to work on potential solutions to those problems

How about if Google sold the client licenses only. The client licenses would not expand the base of SageTV users if the base shouldn't be expanded. It will make more money for Google. It will make the SageTV users happy. Most of the license keys purchased would probably never be used, but kept for insurance. to keep the SageTV running if or when the extenders break. The problem with SageTV is that it is too good and the alternatives are either a step down or a leap down a cliff. Maybe the GoogleTV replacement could be years away or it might not even be a viable option if the quality is too low or the bandwidth caps kill it. The current SageTV users want to keep their systems working until something better comes along. The client licenses would give SageTV users 'peace of mind' if or when their extenders quit working.

Dave

[Zervun]

Originally Posted by graywolf

I plan on staying with SageTV.

EPG = other means of getting it other than thru Sage.
Slugger has already written a plugin that would get the EPG data from Schedules Direct once Sage no longer provides EPG data.

I have a couple "spare" extenders in case the ones in use go out. After that, I'll give my hand with clients.

Just can't leave Sage, especially with the awesome ADM plugin that was just released.

Even if all other plugin development ceased (which I don't see happening). I think I'd be happy with my setup for quite awhile.

I have 2 HD300's and 1 HD100 on it's way out, linux server. I'm having a hard time finding information on EPG after sage closes the doors - you can't search for EPG in the title on the forums unfortunately. I have even less hope because if it is plugin based it is not going to work on the linux install.

Could someone that has them bookmarked link them to me?

I'm so depressed - I do 2x HDhomeruns pumped in by 2x ATSC antennas on my roof. I run an ubuntu linux server that pumps out to my 2x HD300's and 1x HD100.

This setup could run until the hardware dies but I need the EPG or an equivalent.

I'm just floored what Sagetv did to us, you have to make money but they should have given us some warning or worked out something with google. I think google products are great but I 100% doubt they will do something like sage. I have absolutely 0 interest in their current googletv product. I need/want a server based system I can run myself based on HDhomeruns

[graywolf]

The plugin is in this thread. should work with Linux installs (V7) also.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56228

Another option would be XMLTV (i'm not familiar with it but been mentioned many times)

[Zervun]

Originally Posted by graywolf

The plugin is in this thread. should work with Linux installs (V7) also.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56228

Another option would be XMLTV (i'm not familiar with it but been mentioned many times)

Thanks Graywolf for the links!

[Slack]

Stay for the near term.
1 Year EPG statement kind of pissed me off!
Honestly. But my knee jerk response is exacerbated by recent events....ReplayTV pulling the plug on my parental units' guide data. 'Lifetime' ain't what it used to be.

Came to SageTV from ReplayTV if you couldn't tell.

Way back when, I looked at Media Portal, BeyondTV, and something Nero had out at the time. SageTV was the only package that could lay two HD streams to disk while I watched another with enough efficiency to not stutter. It took quite a while to get my box stable and stutter free. I almost gave up once. But since then, SageTV has been the bedrock of our DVR solution.
Things have changed since then. The original box is now the 'back end' and no longer has to render anything. Two HD-200s are the front end(s).

So far, this is good enough.

Before I upgraded to V7 I was looking into XBMC as a front end for Sage. And installed a user plugin (XBMC kind of 'scraper' that looks into your recordings folder, and re-directs meta data, etcc.... for XBMC to use...) That project has languished since I installed V7. As well as a mysql database to coordinate multiple XBMC client to pick up where another has left off like I am used to with ReplayTV and SageTV.....

I digress... Long term, XBMC might be my psuedo SageTV client. Of course this depends on my backend living a long life. No Taiwan cap plague PLEASE!

I am a two tuner OTA only house. No colossus, no cable, no sat. So barring a hardware failure. I am running this software and extenders (Sage DNA or third party bastards) until my back end dies.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I'm right here. The main reason for not posting anything for awhile was personal vacation time (I do understand the other complaints about no client licenses or extenders....and we are still trying to work on potential solutions to those problems)
... but I am still advocating for the community and doing what I can to help out the users who have supported us over the years.

firstly: good to see the communique
secondly: go to Belgo in London
thirdly: open a Belgo in SoCal
lastly: the client licenses AND extenders for registered users would really be nice. really nice.
You'd have way more friends than you'd likely ever want for making that a reality.
Make it like a special at 'Albertsons': Chimay 750ml bottles - .10 cents a bottle - limit of two per customer.

[speck55]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I'm right here. The main reason for not posting anything for awhile was personal vacation time (which was scheduled pre-acquisition) and spending a few weeks in Mountain View for Google orientation.

And for those complaining about lack of tech support...I'm not sure what you're complaining about...we still offer support for SageTV like we always did. Just click on the link on the forums home page and it'll get you to the page in our site that still works for requesting support. (I do understand the other complaints about no client licenses or extenders....and we are still trying to work on potential solutions to those problems)

You all know I don't have the freedom to say anything I want like I did when I was running the place; but I am still advocating for the community and doing what I can to help out the users who have supported us over the years.

First - Jeff - good to see you are still here. Second - hope you enjoyed your vacation. Do you have any idea (weeks, months, whatever) until you may have some of these potential solutions ironed out and ready for the community? I and I'm sure others are torn between leaving and selling our extenders, or staying in hopes of acquiring client licenses or HD-300's we need to complete our setups.

If we need to look elsewhere for a product to carry on with, those decisions are cheaper and better made if there was some sort of rough timeframe, or "the answer is no new client licenses or extenders, if that is what you need, then move on", given. Surely you can talk Google into letting you provide us one of these answers, no? No firm commitment, no trade secrets, no freebies, just an indication that there is or is not a path for those of us that hadn't finished our builds.

A couple of HD-300's at less than $400 apiece (say, the original retail price) would help put an end to my suffering/daily contemplations as to what I should do about my whole-home media situation.

THANK YOU in advance for any bit of insight you may be able to provide us. I understand you don't make (all) the rules anymore, but I think I can speak for a good number of people in saying that having one of the above answers would help us immensely.

[Savage1701]

Several posts back someone asked about alternatives.

Just for the heck of it I downloaded the beta of Media Portal, version 1.2.0.0. I had used up to 1.1.0.0 before but was unimpressed with the cobbled-together feel and such.

I gotta say 1.2.0.0 installed on Win 7 64-bit without issue. Using it strictly as a client with my Sage shares mapped to it I got flawless playback of all my Sage HD-PVR files, old USB-PVR2 stuff, OTA ATSC, and DVD.

I did NOT try Blu-Ray or online options, since I don't want to commit the storage space Blu-Ray needs and I don't do much in the way of watching YouTube, etc.

I also did not try using the built-in player with my hardware DVD drive in my client either, but I have little reason to suspect issue there as I have used that feature in the past or mapped it to a different software player that launched in its place and that has worked fine with MP.

But, as usual, you still don't have all that neatness or consistency wrapped up into a little $150 extender.

Just food for thought under the "Stay or Bail" thread.

[scoful]

A few have posted that the viability of SageTV for widespread distribution can never happen due to it's complexity of setup. While historically this has been true, I suspect Google sees a very different future - one where interfacing with cable and/or satellite services is plug and play. With Google's high speed internet projects starting up I suspect that it is their intent to ultimately provide their own 'cable' services via their data network. Since they provide the bandwidth they're not subject to caps.

Think about it - if you provide a solution that's integrated into every brand of major television that is produced that offers leaps and bounds above what other cable companies are offering and the best way to get it is using Google's internet service....

I envision a NAS capture device (probably linux based) for local content and highly integrated streaming content - ultimately knocking out both traditional cable providers and either acquiring, replacing or squeezing out of existence services like Netflix and Hulu. I would expect the initial form of the NAS device would integrate CableCard (or it's successor) but ultimately I would expect that Google's network will either incorporate their own hosted content for streaming or they will effectively real time encode channels to a UTP stream and your NAS will be scheduled to record that stream when it's running (this would reduce overall network traffic since the stream isn't customized to individuals - it's just running live and whoever wants it latches onto it and records or watches it like traditional cable.) Ultimately advertising becomes whatever Google chooses - a vignette, a mandatory set of commercials or a ticker tape (or worse yet - all of the above - I think there's a scene in Idiocracy that shows a guy watching a wall sized TV in his apartment and most of the screen is advertisements so his 120" screen really has 27" show in the middle of it).

The client will simply be embedded in the television, an extender appliance, PC or Android device. Auto discovery of the NAS would make it plug and play and a Web service between the NAS and Google would prevent the need for any end user firewall configuration for advanced services.

I'm not sure what will happen with Windows PC's - I've been doing a little Android development and Google seems to be keeping things locked down a little in some of their super easy to use features - like fusion tables which would be a simple way to web host data but there's not any easy way to use or synchronize the data from Visual Studio for example.