X-10, Email, Caller-ID, Voice

[Droid]

Just trying to get a read from you all.
It seems as we move into a digital world with everything media related running from Sage, wouldn't it be great to use the TV as a hub for everything. Listen to voicemail, read email, control my x-10 environment, see who is calling, view a family calendar etc... Not having seen what Studio allows access to, I was curious if anyone liked this concept and if you know anything about Studio is this possible?

[chrysek]

http://www.meedio.com/whatismeedio/

This software has it, I heard in Aug. they will release TV option. I guess Sage will need o compete on many different fronts, and this is I think one of them. But on the other hand how many people will go for this? Who will go this extra step to do this? Will it be worth development effort just for few people who would like such feature? It is nice but I think idea of having sage is to have it as simple as possible so it is as easy as Tivo

I am just a customer and I would love to see such features but I do not think we will see those features anytime soon unless someone is already working on them… Maybe when Studio is released someone will write module for it.. Who knows, but I like this idea… The more there is in SageTV the better…

Chris

[SHS]

I hate say this but Meedio is nothing more then a FrontEnd tools like min other which are base on Modules Plug-in acc 3rd other apps

[Crashless]

I currently use both Meedio AND SageTV. Sage is awesome as a high WAF rated interface, and extremely functional, stable, and a great quality product. I use Meedio for all my other media and information because it is extremely extensible. I use it to automatically download, and view movie showtimes, RSS feeds, AP wires, as a frontend for all my MAME games, PC games, music, and my 100+ movie/dvd collection. But what it can't do is TV, which is where sage comes in.

Both these programs coexist quite nicely on my system with SageTV running out of my PVR350, and Meedio running through my GFX card/stereo. This is ideal for me because I like being able to do two things at once. I can watch my recorded sportscenter on my big screen while browsing the newsfeeds on my monitor (soon to be touchscreen) next to the couch.

MLBDude has said he will integrate Meedio into his STV, so yes there are plans to integrate the two. Any more questions about Meedio? Go to http://www.meedio.com

[Droid]

Crashless, Sounds interesting.
I do have a 350, but am using the Svideo out of my MB for simplicity sake. If I did that then I really need to wait for the MLBdude integration so that navigation is clean right? I dont know about Girder but I assume that it will launch applications via remote control... How configurable is meedio? Can it be the front in with Sage integrated?

[sticky]

With the send message program you can creat buttons with in meedio to launch to various points with in sage

For example..

I have three buttons in meedio to launch to live tv, the guide, and recordings. then when I am done I put sage to sleep and meedio is still there.. it works quite well as all I have to do is sleep sage to get back to meedio.. and then go back to the sage module to launch sage again to any point I want with in sage...

[JUC]

sticky-Just curious, when meedio releases their TV module, are you planning on ditching sage completely? The flexibility and features alone will make it tempting...especially if studio isn't released really really soon. Hopefully Sage will pick up the pace a little or I think they might lose some customers to meedio
JUC

[sticky]

I would have my doubts if the original release of meedio tv will be anywhere near as flexible as Sage TV in terms of PVR.

Plus I use Sage Client on my main HTPC so I can't see myself giving it up at all....

The meedio package is mighty tempting no doubt...

All we can do is wait and see..

Frey has good reason for not releasing an unpolished product.. It will be here in good time I am sure.. They are smart business men and I am sure they know time means money hehe..

[mtnwing]

RE: Using Sage for Phone/voicemail.

I currently use a Cybergenie which runs phone communications through a PC. There are two different webserver interfaces avaialble for it and guessing it wouldn't be too hard to wire this into the Sage TV interface. www.cygnion.org

The best part about these cybergenie's is you can pick them up on ebay for under 50 bucks and they rock!

Add a Way-to-Call box to it if you want to add live conversations as well.

Let me know if anyone else tries to wire one of these in. Better yet, if one of the dev guru's with the beta copy of studio is listening, "I'll send you a Cybergenie for free" if you agree to wire this up and release it to the community.
Email me at - carbonbikes (at)mountainbikes(dot)net

-mtnwing

[Crashless]

JUC,
I will probably not move to MeedioTV when it is released. SageTV is just way too stable, and the intelligent recording feature doesn't exist anywhere else.

That said, I have to idea what features MeedioTV will have, when I find that out, I'll make my decision, but it'll take some serious features for me to ditch Sage, and I don't see that happening in a 1.0 release.

Meedio is infinitly configurable, especially when coupled with Meedio Housebot, it seems that one could make it do anything they wanted.

mtnwing -

I've been thinking about integrating some sort of VM system into my HTPC for a while now, though I haven't found something that does everything I want. Does this Cybergenie email VM? I'd love it if I could be emailed the messages as they come in and listen to them on my Treo, now that would be awesome.

The other catch for me is compatibility with the Caller ID plugin with Meedio, it would be great to get a popup when a call comes in.

[DynamoBen]

Caller ID functionality is super easy and free. I have been using CallerID Sentry for years.

Not only does it provide a OSD pop-up but it broadcasts that information over the network all the the other clients. When someone calls my sage server picks the caller ID info off the line. Its displayed on sage then is displayed on the other two computers on my network. (including my 3com audrey)

http://home.houston.rr.com/jeffkohn/callerid_sentry.htm

I've been dying to get some type of VM system on the server. I have seen cybergenie but I don't want the hardware I just want the software. I also have been watching http://www.thephonebot.com which now has a beta release. However I have yet to see anything that has a decent WAF. Ideas?

[technix]

now if only that caller id sentry could be in an stv so it could pop up in the mini browser with the background and overlay to be output in the pvr350 card tv out

[jennyfur]

Originally posted by Droid
Just trying to get a read from you all.
It seems as we move into a digital world with everything media related running from Sage, wouldn't it be great to use the TV as a hub for everything. Listen to voicemail, read email, control my x-10 environment, see who is calling, view a family calendar etc... Not having seen what Studio allows access to, I was curious if anyone liked this concept and if you know anything about Studio is this possible?

Well since a lot of people have mentioned using Meedio as a frontend to Sage, I took a look at the current plugins being offered to see which can do what you're asking. There is a caller ID plugin with skinnable overlays. There is also an outlook xp/2003 data importer which can can import tasks, contacts, email, appointments, and notes. There are also a few plugins that just do email alone. And like someone already mentioned, HouseBot does home automation and x-10. So the only thing that seems to be missing is voicemail. There's a lot of other interesting looking plugins besides those. I've been thinking of installing the trial and checking them out.

[falchulk]

You dont even have to use a plugin for x10. I use to have it configured in myhtpc by launching a dos batchfile that launched the dos app from active home. It worked great. It just turned out I never used it after setting it up.

[psychoholica]

thephonebot that dynamo mentioned with the remote client addon is really nice. i have my modem and telephone line upstairs but clients installed on 2 machines plus my sage system. when a call comes in i get the incoming call popup on all computers plus it sends the callers voice to all the pc's as well- kind of line calls screening on each machine, its actually kinda neat.
http://www.thephonebot.com as was pointed out above. definitely the best so far for answering your telephone

[AndyS]

I control Sage, MyHD, TheaterTek, a NAD T762 Receiver, 5 sets of lights via X10 and my Extron Switcher/Marquee Projector centrally using CQC (http://www.charmedquark.com). I have a nice front-end running on an AirPanel - it's really very slick.

You might want to check this out. Drivers currently exist for all the above (although the MyHD driver isn't publically released yet) and many more. This is a pretty beefy HA solution, not just an HT front-end. It would require more work than Medio but I'd think it's far more flexible generally.

Andy.

[insomniac]

Great...another time/life killer! Now that I cant resist trying this product...Everytime my wife bitches me out, I will blame you. :P

Originally posted by AndyS
I control Sage, MyHD, TheaterTek, a NAD T762 Receiver, 5 sets of lights via X10 and my Extron Switcher/Marquee Projector centrally using CQC (http://www.charmedquark.com). I have a nice front-end running on an AirPanel - it's really very slick.

You might want to check this out. Drivers currently exist for all the above (although the MyHD driver isn't publically released yet) and many more. This is a pretty beefy HA solution, not just an HT front-end. It would require more work than Medio but I'd think it's far more flexible generally.

Andy.

[nicktripp]

As long as we're talking hopes, wishes and dreams...

I have Vonage VoIP phone service. I already have access to my voicemail as .wav files via their site, and it is possible to use their software client for phone conversations. I don't have the know-how, but man that would be really hot.

I don't expect it to happen. I'm just saying.

[kevthor]

See I'm sure all these 3rd party applications work great, but it doesn't help us PVR-350 users. Since I've purchased my 350 I will not go back to a software decoder because the quality just isn't the same but I do miss having the ability to play with some of these features. Does anyone know of or know when a Caller ID feature will be integrated into someone's STV?

Thanks
Kevin

[mtnwing]

Cybergenie can be setup with email Microsoft Outlook integration. I don't have this portion of the software setup on mine as it's a bit finicky for setup. It only works properly if you start by installing an older version of Outlook and then upgrade as it needs some older libraries which aren't included in newer versions of outlook. I did have it working at one point and it was pretty neat.

Option 2 is to use the webserver and access the cybergenie messages this way via your phone which seems like the better route. I know there are two different web server implementations available for Cybergenie. The one I'm using is .net code and aspx pages so it may require a microsoft phone or browser to play nice - not sure about the second one but Cygnion.org has the details of both free downloads. I haven't gotten that far to try out phone access but hope to at some point. I've been waiting for the much hyped Motorola MPX to come out and rumour has it it should be shipping in the first half of 2005.


As for full home control software, those who are looking into this might also want to checkout HomeSeer.com which seems like a popular option.