SageTV Media Center 3.0 News???

[RedCoat999]

Wheres the "SageTV Media Center 3.0" news from the CES show. I've been looking for threads about this but can't find any

[mlbdude]

I think CES starts tomorrow. Hopefully we will see something then.

[RedCoat999]

The "SageTV Media Extender", will be something I am very interested in if inexpensive. There are a couple of TV's in my house that I don't want a full blown computer running 24/7 by them.

[dcdave]

This just came across the wire....

January 05, 2005 09:01 AM US Eastern Timezone

Frey Technologies Announces Plans to Support DivX Connected Certification Program

LAS VEGAS, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 5, 2005--Frey Technologies, LLC a pioneer in the personal video recording and home media center industry for the PC, today announced plans to support the upcoming DivX Connected Certification Program from DivXNetworks, Inc. Through the program, Frey's announced plans to work with DivXNetworks to enhance the pioneering SageTV Media Center to be compatible with DivX Connected services and devices, enabling users to extend digital media experiences throughout the home.

SageTV is an industry-leading software technology that allows users to create and operate complete media centers from an existing PC. Building on the concept of personal video recorders (PVRs) such as TiVo(R), the SageTV Media Center adds complete control of home media such as TV, movies, music and photos through an easy-to-use PC interface. The DivX Connected program is a comprehensive technology initiative that will bring together online service providers, independent software vendors, integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers and consumer electronics (CE) original equipment manufacturers to create interoperable products and services that enable consumers to easily access digital media from networked devices.

"SageTV is a great product that gives users greater control over their media experience, and by joining the DivX Connected Program Frey Technologies will allow consumers to extend that control from a PC in one room to an inexpensive CE device in the living room," said Paul Sarena, Product Manager, DivX Connected Program at DivXNetworks. "Intuitive, user-friendly interfaces like SageTV's will be an essential part of the connected home."

"We believe the DivX Connected Program is a great step toward unifying and enhancing the digital media experience for consumers," said Dan Kardatzke, CEO of Frey Technologies. "There is a strong fit between our home media center products and the DivX Connected vision, and we are excited to work together to bring that vision to users everywhere."

DivX Connected Certified products and services will carry a special DivX logo identifying their interoperability among software, devices and services from a variety of vendors to ensure consumers a seamless experience, whether listening to their digital music library or getting new movies from premium content providers. The first DivX Connected products are expected to hit the market in the second half of 2005. More information is available at: www.divxnetworks.com/connected. For more information on Frey Technologies, see www.sagetv.com.

About Frey Technologies

Frey Technologies is a pioneer in the personal video recording and home media center industry for the PC. By developing SageTV for the PC, Frey became the first to introduce multiple tuner support, networking and Intelligent Recording to PC PVR users. This innovation created a true networked media center environment never before available to PC customers.

About DivXNetworks

DivXNetworks is a consumer-focused video technology company positioned at the center of multimedia convergence. The company's core offering is the DivX (R) video codec, among the world's most popular video compression technologies with over 160 million users worldwide. Often called "the MP3 of video," the patent-pending DivX video technology offers DVD-quality at 10 times greater compression than MPEG-2 files, enabling full length films to easily fit on a CD or be delivered over broadband connections. DivX video technology powers a range of applications that span the convergence value chain, from a secure IP-based video-on-demand solution to next-generation consumer electronics products and video software applications. DivXNetworks is headquartered in San Diego, California.

Contacts


DivXNetworks
Tom Huntington, 858-882-0672
thuntington@divxnetworks.com
or
Frey Technologies
Elizabeth Ash, 847-415-9342
eash@sspr.com

[RedCoat999]

I'm getting excited!!! (that takes a lot by the way...)

[dkardatzke]

I'll post it tomorrow when it's released at the show.

[RedCoat999]

Originally Posted by dkardatzke

I'll post it tomorrow when it's released at the show.

In some parts of the world, tomorrow is already today!

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by RedCoat999

In some parts of the world, tomorrow is already today!

OK then for you guys he'll post it the day after tomorrow...

[falchulk]

Um, this whets my appetite. Now I am going to go nuts to know just exactly what this means.

[Ralphjb]

I thought this had gotten past me until today. I was about to post a question about 3.0.

I guess this is hot news. I am very curious what they have in mind. I just posted a question about this product in another thread. Wonder if 3.0 will have these capabilities:

http://www.orb.com/

[Crazedz]

Oh divx

Well as long as freys doesn't dump mpeg2 ill be happy cause divx video is a bear to convert to dvd. And i want to be able to put some of my recorded shows that i wanna keep onto dvd so divx is not an option for me nor is windows media format.

Well ill hope for other sage improvements.......

Just as long as sage doesn't come out with a drm model

[sudipto]

Originally Posted by Crazedz

Oh divx
Well as long as freys doesn't dump mpeg2 ill be happy cause divx video is a bear to convert to dvd. And i want to be able to put some of my recorded shows that i wanna keep onto dvd so divx is not an option for me nor is windows media format.

Or you could keep up with the technology (if that is even possible ) and get one of them sleek new DivX certified DVD players

That way you remove the hassle of conversion altogether and burn the DivX straight into DVD (and also cram a lot more shows on a disc in the process).

I like everything about DivX except the quality ... and unfortunately that is the BIGGEST issue for me. So far I have not been able to get MPEG2 comparable quality from DivX even when using the highest bitrates within Sage

P.S. I personally use the Philips DVP-642 DivX certified DVD player that I got for under $50 from Amazon. Have been very satisfied with it, but now I am eyeing the brand spanking new AVel Linkplayer2 DivX HD player

[Crazedz]

Originally Posted by sudipto

Or you could keep up with the technology (if that is even possible ) and get one of them sleek new DivX certified DVD players

That way you remove the hassle of conversion altogether and burn the DivX straight into DVD (and also cram a lot more shows on a disc in the process).

I do have a divx certified player it does Divx wma mp3 mpeg4 etc... and accepts memory sticks. XV-NP10S

Thats not the problem the problem is that no one else in the family does nor do any of my friends so if i want my dvd's to work on any of their players it has to be in a format that theirs can play.

That was always divx's problem that only divx players could play divx and dvd was more prevelent so it was the one that became the standard and divx all but died.

Well ok their were other problems with the old divx players but i only needed that one.


Edit:

Originally Posted by sudipto

but now I am eyeing the brand spanking new AVel Linkplayer2 DivX HD player

Oh man i did not know about this one. I got that jvc for her as a christmas present but i may just have to return it for that. Hmm if i still can darn you sudipto you can't just keep things to yourself can you.

[zz5]

I also have the Philips DVP-642. I wouldn't advise getting it because you want to use it with Divx. It won't properly play files over 2GB. The playback will lockup, when you try to fast forward it jumps ahead 30 minutes, can't rewind, etc. Even for files smaller than 2GB, the fast forwarding/rewinding is very jerky. There's no smooth playback even at 2X like you get with DVD's.

[LegolasX21E]

Dose Sage plan to support HDTV Capture?

[Crazedz]

I would hope they start soon because others like Beyond, MCE 2k5 and Gam(Got All Media) are already working on it.

From what i have seen the fusion hdtv cards are working albeit in a buggy fashion at current in Beyond.
MCE has got ATI's hdtv card working in it as well as vbox's $330 hdtv card working in it as well as the fusion dvb-t but not the fusion 3 cards.
Gam has support only for the fusion 1,2,3 hdtv cards at current but they are also running kinda buggy at the moment.

This i guess all started breaking out with the Broadcast Driver Architecture (BDA) Device filters drivers that came out because MCE 2k5 supports them. I haven't had time to find out much about it but from what i gather it's supposed to allow multiple hd tuners to work in 1 pc. The probelms with the fusion cards has been dvico having problems making the bda drivers work with their cards so they have been in beta since july. They just came out with their final release of the drivers today for the dvb-t cards so i guess they should be comming out with their final drivers for the other fusion cards as well.

At any rate i haven't looked at how well beyond has them working but i have been looking into hd since thursday as the bug started hitting me. And through my hours long trip over the web i came across a free pvr i hadn't heard of before called Got all media. It looks nice and seems to have been out for some time and they have a large number of tuners supported in their software as well as a very nice list of features which i haven't had time to look to closely at as i was more interested in their hdtv support and how far it has come along. They have been going at it since back in may or before and have gotten some success. So once the drivers are finalized they should be able to get it working pretty solidly.

So if Freys doesn't start working on getting HD to work then their going to rapidly slid int the others dust so since jeff and dan have got their little top secret project a linux sage box from the looks of it pretty much ready to go with sage media extenders (sage on mvp) as well as a new version of sage aka sage media 3.0 at least up to show status at ces they may now have some free time to work on getting things like this going. It might also be posible that they have also been working on this on the QT as well since they have been big on the secrets lately. Not that im apposed to them keeping that little project hush hush but i just wish they hadn't been so cloak and dagger about it. And being more up front about studio (not trying to get another studio rant thread going) couldn't have hurt either.

Anyway i have decided to pull the trigger on a fusion hdtv3 gold after looking at a video demo of hd on my pc and comparing it to my recorded shows at their highest quality i was just floored by how much clearer sharper and more detailed it looks than my shows recorded off either of my tuners. So i decided i wanna get at least 1 HDTV card before the hollywood b**** slap finally comes down on em. That way i have a chance at being able to record and archive hd shows without having to put my lips up to the mpaa nazi's hindends for their approval (Yes i consider them Nazi's or more likely commies trying to control us like this).

Anyway if sage doesn't do it their are at least three other competiters on the pc side that are already on the way or are already their. The fact that MCE has at least a couple HDTV tuners working means that they claim in first place in that race and even a free pvr project like Gam is ahead of sage in this area. It's kinda sad when you think about it.

Not that i blame freys as i never really thought much about it before myself so i guess i feel partly to blame as well.

[Cayars]

Part of the problem is that there isn't any standard per say on the HD cards. With BDA filters being a "standard" that companies will write to, it will make Jeff's life a lot easier.

I really don't blame Jeff for not getting to HD yet as there isn't a big market for it (previously) and even today you still can't capture anything that is C5 encoded/protected so really the only shows you can record are Over the Air channels and their equiv. channels on some cable networks.

I do see the time as here or very close to being here for HD support. I wouldn't doubt we'll see something HD related soon on the Frey front. <-- no inside info here, just a gut impression.

[sudipto]

I have the ATI HDTV Wonder working wonderfully in my other MCE2005 machine. I must say that once you see the quality of the same channel on SD vs. on HD, you realize what you are missing ! It is kind of like going from a 56K dialup to T1 broadband ... once you make the move, there is no going back

I wish Frey supports at least a few of the current stable OTA HD cards in Sage in v3.0. I still love Sage a little more than MCE, but I must say that the gap is VERY FAST closing in !

I am with most others on the Linux support issue. I do understand that Frey needs it from a business point of view ... but for me (and I can safely guess for most other Windows users) it means absolutely nothing !

We, the current user base, may not be a huge source of direct revenue, but without a doubt we are the biggest marketing force Frey has out there.

[Crazedz]

Yeah i debated it and asked about it as i wasn't sure but after getting off my rear and doing some research on it i decided i wants. Well at least one of em though i did see someplace that their is now a dual tuner hdtv card out their but it's beyond my price range so i passed on it. Wish now i could remember the site that has it but it's to late for me i ordered the fusion 3 card.

I hope frey's does as well cause i really don't wanna go with mce to get an HD pvr because i just think the interface well sux it's worse than the sage 1.4 interface was. And beyond just isn't as good as sage it doesn't have a favorites selection plus they wanna charge you for every tuner past the second which is just plain bull hockey.

I know they had to do a linux one for a set top box but i agree with others on this that a linux install version would be more headach than it's worth with compile issues and other programs that might be needed and all the configuring. It would just end up flooding the boards with all the linux posts. Their are enough of us on the windows side for windows posts like that hehe. J/K

[jake_friz]

I would love it if the server portion of Sage is released to the general public on Linux. Then I could finaly dump my windows server (which does nothing but run Sage to serve TV to my other PCs) and have only 1 server running linux. Ah, the joy of Linux. Anyone know if this Linux version will:

1. server to Windows based SageTV Clients?
2. be available to end users?