stv with most future

[aoehlke]

hi, i'm looking into using an stv, but I see cayars has disappeared from the planet, and that most other "all in 1" stv are closed/stalled.

can anyone recommend a good one to use that is still being worked on(aka bugs fixed)

[dbfresh23]

I think most of them have had huge slowdowns in development, at this point in my opinion Cayars is still the nicest UI. Even if development has stopped for it there still isn't another that i'd rather use. And as a poll somewhere on this board shows that ~ 50% of the people that replied to it are also using Cayars. SageMC looks pretty nice too, but Cayars is my fav.

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by aoehlke

hi, i'm looking into using an stv, but I see cayars has disappeared from the planet, and that most other "all in 1" stv are closed/stalled.

can anyone recommend a good one to use that is still being worked on(aka bugs fixed)

Mine is still being updated every so often. If someone points out a bug, I'll fix it ASAP. There aren't too many left and it does use the XML menu system that Nielm wrote. Comskip is also in there too.

I know that Cayars and SageMC are excellent ones to use too, as are many others. Mlbdude (from SageMC 16x9) created the original STV that most of us, if not all, are basing ours on so it might be worthwhile to use his.

Whatever you decide, it's better to have many choices than one. Mine might not be the most popular, but it serves me well and I had fun making it (and still enjoy tweaking it from time to time).

Lauren

[cmaffia]

Question:

Is the reason for slow STV support due to the pending SageTV 3.0 or has user/developer usage declined THAT dramatically?

Is everyone jumping on the MS MCE bandwagon??

Just curious to know these things.

Personally I have no problems with SageTV now and I am eagerly awaiting for 3.0 to be released (mostly for the native MVPMedia support)

[JasonJoel]

My opinion:

It isn't usage that has declined, but rather energy. People are still using Sage, they are still using the STVs. But as the developers (and most users) get 95% of the features they wanted in a given STV, there is little initiative to continue after the last 5% of features. Mainly because they are usually the ones that are very time consuming or difficult to program.

Now, if v3.0 comes out and makes things easier on developers (better plugin system maybe), I think you would see a renaissance in developer interest...

Jason Bottjen

Originally Posted by cmaffia

Question:

Is the reason for slow STV support due to the pending SageTV 3.0 or has user/developer usage declined THAT dramatically?

Is everyone jumping on the MS MCE bandwagon??

Just curious to know these things.

Personally I have no problems with SageTV now and I am eagerly awaiting for 3.0 to be released (mostly for the native MVPMedia support)

[cmaffia]

Being that Studio is not for the faint of heart and not released to the public BUT is an actual product that does exist and is being used, I am discouraged that those users that DO have Studio are not employed by Sage.
My point being is that in addition to select users releasing STV's, I believe Sage has a responsibility in a way to release their own recommended customizations. There are plenty of great but slightly broken STV's out there that Sage can "offcially" fix and release.

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

My opinion:

It isn't usage that has declined, but rather energy. People are still using Sage, they are still using the STVs. But as the developers (and most users) get 95% of the features they wanted in a given STV, there is little initiative to continue after the last 5% of features. Mainly because they are usually the ones that are very time consuming or difficult to program.

Now, if v3.0 comes out and makes things easier on developers (better plugin system maybe), I think you would see a renaissance in developer interest...

Jason Bottjen

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by cmaffia

Question:

Is the reason for slow STV support due to the pending SageTV 3.0 or has user/developer usage declined THAT dramatically?

I think, as Jason pointed out, much of it is because they STV devs have "finished". They've done everything they really want. I'm pretty sure that's where mlb is, he went as far as he could/wanted to.

My point being is that in addition to select users releasing STV's, I believe Sage has a responsibility in a way to release their own recommended customizations. There are plenty of great but slightly broken STV's out there that Sage can "offcially" fix and release.

How is that? What company officially supports 3rd party plugins? If you want something officially supported by Sage, you should request it be added to the official STV. Officially supporting all the 3rd party STVs would be a nightmare.

[cmaffia]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I think, as Jason pointed out, much of it is because they STV devs have "finished". They've done everything they really want. I'm pretty sure that's where mlb is, he went as far as he could/wanted to.



How is that? What company officially supports 3rd party plugins? If you want something officially supported by Sage, you should request it be added to the official STV. Officially supporting all the 3rd party STVs would be a nightmare.

STV's are created with Studio, a Sage product unless I am mistaken?
I am saying that it would be nice if Sage created an alternate robust STV (Other than the Originalv2.stv) even if as a demonstration of how powerful Studio is (And SageTV is!)

I think we'd all agree that without STV's, SageTV out of the box would be incredibly boring and less functional. It's only because of the available STV's that most of us use the product. Sage should take notice of these STV's and make some of these features core. Hopefully 3.0 will address my point somewhat.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by cmaffia

STV's are created with Studio, a Sage product unless I am mistaken?
I am saying that it would be nice if Sage created an alternate robust STV (Other than the Originalv2.stv) even if as a demonstration of how powerful Studio is (And SageTV is!)

At this point (due to it's limited availability mostly, and also it's purpose) it's more like an SDK than a "product". It's a development tool.

I think we'd all agree that without STV's, SageTV out of the box would be incredibly boring and less functional. It's only because of the available STV's that most of us use the product.

Maybe not all of us I know I'd use Sage even if there weren't any custom STVs.

Sage should take notice of these STV's and make some of these features core. Hopefully 3.0 will address my point somewhat.

Like I said, if there's anything specific, you should make a feature request, expecting Sage to cherry pick stuff out of other's STVs is probably not realistic, and also could be on tricky ethical ground (using someone else's work).

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by stanger89

At this point (due to it's limited availability mostly, and also it's purpose) it's more like an SDK than a "product". It's a development tool.



Maybe not all of us I know I'd use Sage even if there weren't any custom STVs.



Like I said, if there's anything specific, you should make a feature request, expecting Sage to cherry pick stuff out of other's STVs is probably not realistic, and also could be on tricky ethical ground (using someone else's work).

I remember when Sage first started up. The STVs were basic, but they did what you expected them to do. When Sage 2 came out, Custom STVs became available making Sage even better. I loved the original STV and I still love the custom STVs too. It's better to have a choice than to not have one. If someone doesn't like the custom STV, you can always stick with the original one. Or better yet, make a suggestion to the STV author to keep them interested and to improve on the STV.


Not only that, but I think that if Sage didn't have the custom STVs, we wouldn't have a choice of features that we liked. We probably wouldn't have Nielm's XML Menu, Malore's Comskip, etc... That's what Studio is for. It's basically a programming language. SageTV is a great program, but the additional plugins and STVs give it more life that it would have without it.

I agree with JasonJoel's post about the 95%. Add on top of that the fact that you don't get paid for it. It basically becomes something creative to do.

Lauren

[mogrinz]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

Now, if v3.0 comes out and makes things easier on developers (better plugin system maybe), I think you would see a renaissance in developer interest...

I think there is already tons of pent-up developer interest (regarless of ease-of-use). The problem is, these are developers who don't have Studio