Beta Version 1.4.5 Now Available

[kevthor]

Attached is my Sagetv_0.txt file as my DTV serial does not work either.

A couple of things I noticed about the new beta. Audio sync works alot better "out of the box" I dont have to delay to speed up the audio, it looks right on.

And a couple of bad things that will need to be fixed:
The video is choppy, as the camera is panning around the screen you can see the video chop in the screen. (To me I cant even use the beta because of this)

The remote input seems slower. When changing channels are selecting a channel from the guide it take a lot longer to kick in. I dont have the dtv serial working so it would take even longer to change channes as sage would have to change which is slower then send the singal to the receiver to change the channel.

Anyone notice these?

[gplasky]

stanger89

Analog out on nForce2 board from Asus. I get 5.1 through the speakers. I thought Sonic supported that. If not then it must be the AC3Filter doing it.

Gerry

[KoolKat_Milw]

Ok, here's my log file which I hope will shed some light on the subject

Here's a line that stood out:

Wed 7/16 21:17:22.140 DTVSerial Unknown Command Response on handle 2628

Please have look at the whole log and let me know what you think.

Thanks again!

[debennett2]

Any word on the broken Directv serial control? I am a Snapstream user currently and have been since version 2. I will start using Sagetv if I can count on it working. Directv serial control should be one of the basics for you guys...come on. Also, not to sound like a newb, but what's with all the little icons on the bottom of livetv?

[justme]

About the the iconbar question:SageTV was designed to be easily controlled from either a remote or mouse/keyboard combo. The icons are for when you are using the mouse for control.

I ask about the ability to customize the iconbar a while back and Jeff said it was on the way along with a new more customizable UI. And true to his word Sage Studio(the current working name) is being worked on now according to Dan. I think he said they hope to have it out to users in late August/early September. Jeff or Dan said they hope to make an annoucement soon(I think he said in the next few days) on some of Sage Studio's features. This way we will know what to expect from Sage in the future. From the little I've heard we should really be able to remake Sage to our own personal tastes. I can't wait to try Sage Studio out. Edit: I found the post where Dan talks a little about Sage Studio here.

As for DirectTV: They have had DTVcon working for a long time. It's just in the most recent Beta(key word beta) it was more tightly intergrated in to SageTV. For some people it seems to work great for others there have been problems, but that's why you have betas. I'm sure Jeff will get it worked out well before the next official release.

You could easily use the tuner plugin method of the official 1.3.8 release to use DTVcon to control a DirectTV box. To my knowledge everyone who has had problems with the 1.4.5 beta was OK before using EXETunerPlugin and DTVcon. I'm guessing you could even use this method in the 1.4.5 beta as well, but this is just a guess since I lack a serial cable.

Please keep in mind I'm just another user. I just like to read all the posts I can. To my knowledge the info above is accurate. Of course it all comes from memory and different post, so please don't hold Sage responsible for my comments.

I hope I was able to answer some of your questions. Best of luck.

[debennett2]

justme, thank you for the lengthy reply. It is good to see that there are users with this much interest in the community. It says something for the product (I hope). It seems to me that the new serial feature does not work at all from my searches in the forum. Spending time adding a self-made plug-in of sorts is not only a pain, but should be unneeded considering what this application is geared toward. I am on the fence right now hoping someone will prevail. I have been using Snapstream for some time now and love it, but there are features that are missing that just don't seem to be in the near future that Sagetv has. On the other hand, Sagetv's interface is very lacking in comparison and the Directv control (i.e. serial) is obviously non-existent or time-consuming.

[justme]

I can understand your concerns, but you're right when you think there are alot of good people on this site. As for the pace of development consider that Narflex(Jeff) is basically the only programmer and things just keep moving forward. Take the USBUIRT for example. Til beta 1.4.3 SageTV never even used it. Now it is natively supported as an IR receiver. This I can personally vouch for since I own a USBUIRT. SageTV now works great with my Tivo remote and my wife's remote as well.

As for DTVcon, as said I have no personal experience with it but, the link I provided was for a plugin that Narflex(Jeff) made for DTVcon to interface to SageTV. All the people who currently have problems were fine using the plugin before the recent beta attempted tighter intergration. You really don't have anything to lose by downloading the SageTV 1.3.8 trial and spending a few minutes installing the plugin. I've read thru the instuctions and it's seems very straight forward. It has always worked for people in the past and I'm sure you won't regret it. You could download the official 1.3.8 release and EXEtunerPlugin and then if you feel that the plugin is making you jump thru hoops you could try the 1.4.5 beta. Or lastly you can linger a little while longer til the EXEtunerPlugin is properly intergrated into SageTV's next beta or official release.

I'm sorry if I come across as a SageTV zealot. I just really do love this software. In the three monthes I've owned SageTV it's kept getting better and better all the time.

However you decide best of luck.

[debennett2]

I guess I'll just hang out and see what I can see in these forums. I want to get a feel for the progress speed on this app and how responsive the developer(s) are/is. So far, I am impressed considering what I saw several months ago when the software was not even released yet.

[Mark Lamutt]

Dan, to give you an idea of the development speed: During the 6 month (or so) beta test period for SageTV last year, Jeff developed something on the order of 15 or 20 builds of the software, with each adding significant functionality. Since release, there has been a new RELEASE version on the order of about once every 6 to 8 weeks or so, and new beta versions about every 2 to 3 weeks. I've never seen any other company so actively developing the software as Jeff and Dan at Frey. Sometimes I wonder when they sleep.

As for the reponsiveness, Dan is on here everyday responding to questions. These days, Jeff is here every couple of days with answers. If a question doesn't get answered by Jeff or Dan, it either means that it fell through the cracks (not usually, but does happen sometimes), has been answered several times before on the forums (and should be reasonably easily found by searching), or has already been answered by one of the users.

I try to read all of the messages myself and answer what I can as well, but my main function around here is to keep the board running as smoothly as possible.

[Narflex]

kevthor,

It simply cannot open COM2. Do you have a COM2 listed in Device Manager?

Koolkat,
What kind of satellite receiver do you have? Have you tried DTVCon by itself, does that work? (You don't need to use DTVCon anymore for SageTV to work, but I'm asking for testing purposes)

[kevthor]

I have tried using all different com ports including com 1. Since I know my serial cable is on COM1. But it still doesn't work.

[KoolKat_Milw]

Narflex, I gave all that information in the initial posting on the first page

But here it is:

RCA DirecTv box model #DRD420RE

And yes, I have and still can use DTVcon to change channels and all that stuff.

-KoolKat

[debennett2]

By the way, I am just trying out Sagetv but would buy it if the built-in Directv serial function would work. I know the COM port and have also verified that it works with the utility you guys refer to. I also have no issues using Snapstream's built-in utility. I hope this can be fixed before the trial runs out because I don;t think I can pay for something that I haven't even fully had the chance to mess with and I think it would be a shame to have to configure outside apps in order to use Sage. Thanks.

[KoolKat_Milw]

Patience young grasshopper......Ye have little faith in the mighty Narflex

As a software developer, I can say with some authority that anything is possible......time is the only real barrier Give Narflex a little time and I'm sure the DirecTv deal will be closed....after all it was pretty much already working. Theres just the usual kinks that have to be addressed.

And more importantly, people need to realize 2 important things:

1st, this is a beta....not a final release.

2nd, this dev team is constantly interacting with customers and potential customers to iron out these minor probs. The amount of support that I've seen in just the few short weeks I've been using SageTv is most impressive.....this is what really matters.


-KoolKat

[justme]

Patience young grasshopper......Ye have little faith in the mighty Narflex

Oh boy, what's next. Do we start taking donations to build a temple where people can be trained in the Jeffian way of programming? Just kinding, I'm just as quilty of thinking Jeff can do anything.

Seriously though debennett2 does raise a good point about the trial. I understand that betas come out so fast that if every beta reset the trial almost no one would have to pay for SageTV. But at the same time there should be some periodic resseting of the trial. Particularly in this case where a major new "feature" failed to properly work.

debennett2 seems like the patient type who would wait and then try back at the next "official" release. But many people will try the beta and then never come back. It's unfortunate but, often first impressions are everything.

I'm not saying I have the answer. I don't know how Jeff implements his copy protection. Maybe a beta could reset the trial as long as it hasn't been reset before by another beta. This should allow a user to reset the trial if a new beta with a fix comes out, but should prevent the person from doing it more than once. This is all just guesswork on my part. I just don't want Sage to lose a potential customer due to a beta.

Keep up the great work guys.

[Mark Lamutt]

Maybe trial users should be limited to using only the release versions of the software? That would certainly avoid this problem, and I believe that it was the way things worked back in the beginning a few months ago.

A real double edged sword - you want potential customers to be able to try out the absolute newest, latest and greatest features to sell them on the software. But, on the other hand, beta software is by definition UNSTABLE and doesn't always work just right the first time for everyone. In this instance, the native Directv support has been in existence for about 3 days now, and is untested because Jeff doesn't have directv. He has no way of testing every possible configuration with a directv receiver that he doesn't have. The fact that it worked at all for some people as a first attempt I find amazing...

[Cazador]

I have two 250 cards in my computer. When I go back to watch a recording that was done when both cards recorded, I get video corruptions. More importantly, the corruptions is pieces of the second video recording gets inserted into it ... If you want i can create a clip of the corrupted video and upload it.

[debennett2]

Mark,
If the beta had not been available for my download with the feature to use serial-controlled Directv, I wouldn't have even bothered trying the software at all. I appreciate what is trying to be done here, I just think that this should have been a big priority from the start. I am a paying Snapstream customer who spent countless hours bugging and troubleshooting throughout THEIR beta cycles. I understand what beta is all about and am fully aware of it's disclaimers as well. I just think that this type of control should be concentrated on a lot more than it appears to have been in the past. I would love to find something better than Snapstream, but as it stands, I am drawn to stay until this feature is implemented correctly. I am sure I am not the only one by far....

[JasonJoel]

Disagree completely.

Why would you spend up front development time adding a feature that can be achieved very nicely with a 3rd party app???

It isn't like DTV couldn't be controlled at all serially, just not natively.

At beginning of deveopment you work on core features (and features that can reasonably be done with a 3rd party add-on certainly aren't core). After core features are done you go back and add some of these other things (like NATIVE support for DTV instead of 3rd party).

That being said, they are adding native serial DTV control now. If that is a 'have to have' feature for you, then simply check back in when the release version of v1.4 is released and all the kinks are worked out. If their previous betas are any indication, it will only be a couple of weeks.

Jason

Originally posted by debennett2
Mark,
If the beta had not been available for my download with the feature to use serial-controlled Directv, I wouldn't have even bothered trying the software at all. I appreciate what is trying to be done here, I just think that this should have been a big priority from the start. I am a paying Snapstream customer who spent countless hours bugging and troubleshooting throughout THEIR beta cycles. I understand what beta is all about and am fully aware of it's disclaimers as well. I just think that this type of control should be concentrated on a lot more than it appears to have been in the past. I would love to find something better than Snapstream, but as it stands, I am drawn to stay until this feature is implemented correctly. I am sure I am not the only one by far....

[debennett2]

If you are going to charge for an app (especially nearly the same as what your competitor's software was going for), it had best not need to rely on ANY 3rd-party software IMO. That just makes plain sense to me. I don't mean to be argumentative, but if I feel this way about it, I am sure there are several others. The fact that the feature is not there without 3rd-aprty support leaves a huge hole in their market as well. I am sure if I felt like it, I could just install and configure whatever 3rd-party apps I needed to and get it working but I just don't know if it is worth it. I haven't been able to test out the application the way I should because of this and most people who are using the trial would install it, figure out that they can't control their satellite without searching and probing for the answers on how to get it to work, and move on and never come back. Considering the large amounts of folks using Directv, I think that is a huge mistake as far as marketing goes. Just a shame really. It is probably a great app (or potentially) but there are a lot of us out there that think the same way I do...if you are paying for it, it better do everything an app of this nature should. Would you buy MS Office if it wouldn't open Powerpoint apps if that is all you were using it for?