Come Back to SageTV - Open Source in "Near" Future

[SHS]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Are you referring to the audio via USB->Creative or the audio from the NUC itself being worse? The former would make sense, but I'm not so sure about the latter.

My guest is it will depend which Generation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 NUC ? as may have come with poor audio chip or may his rev didn't supported.
Must be the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro or Sound Blaster X-Fi HD unless he when all out for a Sound Blaster X7

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Lol...it never used MPEG2 encoding..it was always MPEG4. The main reason we didn't use H264 was the CPU power required to encode that...but that may no longer be an issue. I also had to modify the MPEG4 codecs in FFMPEG to do adaptive bitrate control...so that same work would need to be done for h264 unless the codec already supports it.

Oh, for some reason I,thought it was MPEG2. Still, MPEG-4 Part 2 is still outclassed by H.264. And HD support would go along way to improve streamed video quality. One of the reasons I switched to Plex for streaming. That and the ability to sync specified content to my mobile devices so I can still play with limited to no internet.

Speaking of which. That should be a goal of the Placeshifter for PC and mobile. Add the ability to store certain content locally.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

... Speaking of which. That should be a goal of the Placeshifter for PC and mobile. Add the ability to store certain content locally.

That was something I asked about years ago: a Detached Client, if you will ...

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Lol...it never used MPEG2 encoding..it was always MPEG4. The main reason we didn't use H264 was the CPU power required to encode that...but that may no longer be an issue. I also had to modify the MPEG4 codecs in FFMPEG to do adaptive bitrate control...so that same work would need to be done for h264 unless the codec already supports it.

IIRC, when I was working on HTTP Live Streaming for the mobile web server we discovered AirVideo does something similar and I used that. The plugin streamed H.264 because of iOS requirements. Anyone who's interested could look there for some of that code.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Lol...it never used MPEG2 encoding..it was always MPEG4. The main reason we didn't use H264 was the CPU power required to encode that...but that may no longer be an issue. I also had to modify the MPEG4 codecs in FFMPEG to do adaptive bitrate control...so that same work would need to be done for h264 unless the codec already supports it.

There was hope with Intel (Quick Sync) and nVidia (NVENC) support transcoding with ffmpg can do hardware trans-coding

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Speaking of which. That should be a goal of the Placeshifter for PC and mobile. Add the ability to store certain content locally.

With respect to saving media locally, in the original Sage webserver by nielm ("SageTV Web Interface" still available from the front page that you land on when you log into the webserver), there is the option to download any media file on your server to the local device. I have used it a few times before when I've been on trips with sketchy or no internet - sat in the hotel lobby where the signal was decent, downloaded movies from home to my tablet so that I could watch them in my room, and on the plane trip home (no wifi). I think that option is also in the Android Phoenix app as well.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Narflex

For the questions about how many devices of this nature you'd need to order at once; we did them in as small of quantities as 500 (but had to agree to buy at least 1000) as part of it. We used 3 different manufacturers (one for each extender), and some of them had 1000 unit minimums, others were 2000.

SageTV as a company no longer exists. There's nothing stopping a 3rd party from taking the open sourced software and trying to recreate another extender. No one will be prevented from making money off SageTV...but they would need to follow the rules of the open source license we use. They can't just load the HD300 firmware on another device though...there was licensing to prevent that...although I'd have no problem disclosing how to disable that if I can remember how we did it and if we came up with some kind of back door or not.

This is all very amazing news. I have a very strong suspicion that we could rally up 500 or even 1000 purchases of extenders just among those here (or previously here). And of course, the thing that the doubters seem to be overlooking is that, once Sage is open sourced, ESPECIALLY if extenders are available, new people are going to come onboard. Heck, if the extenders were back in play, I know of at least 3 or 4 friends of mine who will join, and they'd each be wanting to buy 2, 3, 4, or even more extenders. Everyone I know who sees my Sage system wants it. I suspect many here are in that same boat, especially now that the idea of a home media center is a lot more familiar to the public than even three years ago.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

With respect to saving media locally, in the original Sage webserver by nielm ("SageTV Web Interface" still available from the front page that you land on when you log into the webserver), there is the option to download any media file on your server to the local device. I have used it a few times before when I've been on trips with sketchy or no internet - sat in the hotel lobby where the signal was decent, downloaded movies from home to my tablet so that I could watch them in my room, and on the plane trip home (no wifi). I think that option is also in the Android Phoenix app as well.

But for iOS?

[graywolf]

Will SageTV going OS have an impact on the PlugIn Repository?

Would it still be hosted at http://download.sagetv.com/ (for many?)

How would the PlugIn Repository work and Who would take ownership?

just thoughts that popped into my head

[tchapin]

This is a super cool development! I'm glad that SageTV may get renewed vigor!

I'm not sure that we'll adopt it again, as we dropped live TV entirely and are streaming / stored media only. I have Sonos for audio and Plex (w/ Rokus) for local media, as well as AppleTVs.

In terms of new hardware extenders, why not figure out how to produce them and do a kickstarter (or other crowdsourcing) to get enough money / pre-orders for the production?

You could launch it as the re-birth of SageTV.

Putting it together more of a prepackaged solution might work. Some kind of computer for the server, with the extenders, a tuner, etc.

Just noodling...

Anyway, congrats!

[SHS]

Originally Posted by tchapin

Just noodling...

What you did catch and when Dinner?, You know it a ref to a form of fishing.

[KryptoNyte]

Whatever the target extender is, it should probably be capable of 4k (if not version 1, then at least version 2), and then there's the remote control that will need to be created and available.

[valnar]

A resurrection of the extenders is one of the crown jewels of the Sage ecosystem. Yes, even before the extenders existing it was the best PVR back end, but those made it the best front end.

XBMC may have the various computer options (PC's, Raspberry Pi's, NUC etc) but all pale in comparison to the Sigma chips. These are also in the fabled Popcorn Hour and Dune devices.

I have no problem if people want to extend the Sage Client or Placeshifter to the likes of a Raspberry Pi in the future, but the ace in the hole has always been the Sigma extenders.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

But for iOS?

Well... ... you can pick up Android devices pretty cheap these days...

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by valnar

A resurrection of the extenders is one of the crown jewels of the Sage ecosystem. Yes, even before the extenders existing it was the best PVR back end, but those made it the best front end.

XBMC may have the various computer options (PC's, Raspberry Pi's, NUC etc) but all pale in comparison to the Sigma chips. These are also in the fabled Popcorn Hour and Dune devices.

I have no problem if people want to extend the Sage Client or Placeshifter to the likes of a Raspberry Pi in the future, but the ace in the hole has always been the Sigma extenders.

I really hope you're wrong. If the primary thing which comes out of open sourcing Sage is extender availability, then I'll be finishing my switchover to Kodi and calling it quits with Sage. In that case, it may as well still be proprietary as there will be no evolution of the software and it would still essentially be a dead product.

[NoodleNT]

Awesome!!!!

I had a feeling all of a sudden I should check the forums to see if there was anything new! Hope the updated code (once released) no longer requires me to do nightly reboots.

[FlyingShawn]

I use Sage daily and love it, but only ever come back to the forum every few months to see what's going on (usually with a sense of dread that the end of the forum or EPG will have been announced). This is the best news I've heard in a long time!

Jeff, thank you so much for keeping Sage alive and pushing for this change!!!

[mechling-burgh]

Now that this is open source I would like someone like Centon to work on it. They could create there media server box that they started before Microsoft pulled the rug out from under them. They could contribute to the software but also could build extenders that would work there box and the sagetv software. For that matter Silicondust could be an option. Just some of my thoughts.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by Wayneb

Answering my own question, the new VTEN does do 4K.
http://www.cloudmedia.com/products/popcornhour/vten

Good find Wayneb

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I really hope you're wrong. If the primary thing which comes out of open sourcing Sage is extender availability, then I'll be finishing my switchover to Kodi and calling it quits with Sage. In that case, it may as well still be proprietary as there will be no evolution of the software and it would still essentially be a dead product.

Maybe this would be good for another thread somewhere, but I setup ServerWMC and enabled TV on my OpenELEC machine and the TV experience, specifically recordings, was "paintful" to say the least.