MediaReady 5000

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by JUC

wayne, i am seriously considerring ditching my shuttle client and getting this. Bunch of questions though that maybe you or andy can help out with:

1. Is the UI just like Sage? or modified in any way? Any screenshots would be great if they differ. The UI in the specsheet looks different

Same setup, but a few changes to the selections. Some renamed, and some additional ones for burning CD/DVD's, etc.
As soon as I get a chance I'll grab some images of the menu's, etc

Originally Posted by JUC

2. Can you burn CD's from the My Music section? Rip them?
3. Any word on updating the software versions? I would only buy this if i can use it
as a client with a networked encoder and know that I can do this ahead of time with little effort on my part

Not sure if you can burn from the Music section. I don't really use music right now. I've got too many other options already set up for what little I listen to music. I don't think there's any way to rip Cd's from the MR 5000.

It "should" be able to be used as a client, but I haven't gotten that to work yet. They're using an earlier 3.x version of Sage prior to the ability for different, but compatible versions to connect.

Originally Posted by JUC

4. How is the remote--intuitive? and you mentioned smooth FF/RW?

Remote's not bad IMHO. All I use it for is to navigate the menus and ff/rew/skip/replay. It has many dedicated buttons for features and has a built in trackball for mousing. The handheld trackball can be rolled to move the mouse and then pressed down to "select" which works better than I would have thought. Not too hard to press to select, yet not so sensitive that you're always selecting while you're trying to move the cursor.
The trackball on the keyboard does not have the click built in, there are seperate Select and Option buttons on the keyboard for that.

I'll post pictures of the remote and keyboard also when I get a chance.

Originally Posted by JUC

5. what about using other STVs? any way to do this or have you tried?

The options for selecting alternate STV's is there, but I haven't tried that since so far it pretty much does what I want (record and watch)

Originally Posted by JUC

6. Any special 'media center' features like weather included?

Nope, although you can do Email and surf the web. There's FireFox for browsing and Thunderbird for Email built in.

Originally Posted by JUC

7. What about channel changes--can you hook up a USB-UIRT or Actisys 200L to this? If not, deal breaker!!!

Channel change on what, Sage, or your TV? There's an IR built in for the remote keyboard and handheld remote which can change channels in Sage just fine.

Originally Posted by JUC

That's about all i can think of for now and I understand you may not have all the answers yet but any info you can provide will be helpful. I am also curious about the Sage Media Center 3.0 that has been in testing since early this year but will start another thread on that.

I understand. I've got a lot of things to work on with the machine, but just haven't had the time lately. For instance a restore CD didn't come with it. (the first machines shipped didn't have the Cd because it wasn't ready according to David Novak at VWB) So I went out yesterday and picked up a 120gb Seagate Hd at Best Buy for $29 after rebates. I'll back up the HD in the machine so I can "play" with it.
I've been given some things to try in order to get it to connect as a client and did try some of it, but was afraid I'd screw up the machine and without a restore Cd I didn't play too much.

[JUC]

wayne, thanks for the info...please post shots when you have the time. Also, as far as channel changing--i was referrin to a STB---is this possible or are you tied into the built in tuner-in which case everyone wich STB's are out of luck. Thanks
JUC

[Narflex]

waynedunham, Didn't your MR5000 come with an IR blaster for use with the PVR150 card inside of it? Or did it not have a PVR150 card? That functionality should work.

CD ripping/burning/playback is also available (as is DVD burning/playback). Although they've modified the STV so I'm not sure where to tell you to look for it in the UI.

[Opus4]

BTW: Burn to CD should be available when you are viewing "Music Playlist Details" -- so create a playlist to burn a CD.

In terms of the UI, if you can get into the file system when SageTV isn't running, you should be able to copy the current jar & STV files (after renaming the original jar) to have nearly the exact same UI as on a Windows system, including the Weather screen. If they've added anything special to their STV, that might be missing afterwards, but you could keep their STV available to switch to it.

- Andy

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by JUC

wayne, thanks for the info...please post shots when you have the time. Also, as far as channel changing--i was referrin to a STB---is this possible or are you tied into the built in tuner-in which case everyone wich STB's are out of luck. Thanks
JUC

I've got pictures of the main and first level menu's. I'll try to get them posted tomorrow sometime. I'll drop a line here once I get them posted.

Sorry, can't be of any help with STB's. Don't have any, and think they're EVIL! At least the STB's available here in the NE with ComCast are JUNK, JUNK, JUNK!! Slow, unresponsive, sluggish, pokey, is there a theme here? Plus I have up to 6 recording devices going at times and can't afford the $$ for all those extra STB's, nor do I desire their clunkiness cluttering up my limited space.

Narflex, Just looked through the bag of cables (never opened it) and there's no IR Blaster in the bag. There is an IR Blaster port on the PVR-150 that came with the MR 5000

Opus4, I still want to do that. I've got an HD to do a full image to now and will be attempting that after I get the backup done. Been so busy lately I haven't even had time to install the last 2 Beta's on my main machine.

[Deadbolt]

Will the 5000 be able to serve as a client for HD files?

[_Demo_]

If you are asking about High Definition, the MR5000 supports only standard definition video.

_Demo_

[Deadbolt]

For $700, High Def playback over the component video would be nice.

[JUC]

Jeff, so is that a yes for supporting STB with a blaster?
thanks
JUC


edit: and BTW---CD ripping and burning is a really nice feature that I would like to see soon..wink wink, nudge nudge....

[hgilson]

All,

Music section worked just fine. I used it to reference my iTunes directory on a shared drive on my network. No problem at all. I haven't tried to burn a CD or DVD with but the option is available according to the spec sheet. I'll try to do it tonight.

Wayne, do you have a contact with VWB's technical support. I've been having a hard time getting anyone to answer me.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by hgilson

All,

Music section worked just fine. I used it to reference my iTunes directory on a shared drive on my network. No problem at all. I haven't tried to burn a CD or DVD with but the option is available according to the spec sheet. I'll try to do it tonight.

Wayne, do you have a contact with VWB's technical support. I've been having a hard time getting anyone to answer me.

The best response I've gotten is by Emailing David Novak directly. Not the timeliest, but better response than anything else I've tried. I never did hear from anyone from tech support with the two support tickets I opened on their website. But then again, I did get a response from David via a direct email, and a tech guy on the phone returning a call I made to their main #. These were concerning both of the support tickets I opened so that may be why the never went through the support ticket route since they'd already had direct contact with me.

I got David's Email because he was the one who answered my questions I had submitted through their website before ordering mine.

All I can suggest is that you call their main #, Email support directly, and open a support ticket. The squeeky wheel gets the grease and all that.

[waynedunham]

I've got a few pics of the main screens of the MediaREADY 5000's UI and a pic of the keyboard and remote up on my website.

MediaREADY 5000 Photos

They should be fairly self-explanatory. Basically the same as SageTV but they've moved a few things around, probably mostly to get their additions arranged in some semi-logical sense.

[ke6guj]

I see that both the remote and wireless keyboard for the MediaReady5000 have a PIP button, picture-in-picture?, and does it work?

[JUC]

One or two tuners? And if one--is it expandable to two?
Thanks
JUC

-I am getting ready to pull the trigger on this purchase but am still a little hesitant with the lack of support/updates...


edit: And thanks for the pics!!!

[Wheemer]

Why does the UI for this device look so much like Sage?

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

I see that both the remote and wireless keyboard for the MediaReady5000 have a PIP button, picture-in-picture?, and does it work?

Never even noticed those. The manual (skimpy as it is) says "Reserved" for Pip/Swap on the handheld and "Unsupported" for those keys on the keyboard.
I've had PIP on all of my main TV's for the last 20 years and can only recall using it very few times. Usually when there was a live sporting event on and I was also watching something recorded. But all of those times were back pre-pvr when I was recording with a VCR. With the ability to time-slip of a PVR I never use that feature. I just watch something else while recording the game (or whatever). Whenever I get back to live TV I just watch something else for a while and let the game go for a while longer.

So for now at least they do nothing, and neither the keyboard or handheld appear to have any ability to be a multi-function remote so it doesn't appear they would be able to support those functions of your TV.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by JUC

One or two tuners? And if one--is it expandable to two?
Thanks
JUC

-I am getting ready to pull the trigger on this purchase but am still a little hesitant with the lack of support/updates...


edit: And thanks for the pics!!!

Comes with 1 PVR-150 and there is a slot for a 2nd PCI card. Don't know of anyone trying a 2nd card though. Hmmm I've got my old PVR-250 laying around, I wonder.......

The skimpy support staff/responses have me a bit worried also.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by Wheemer

Why does the UI for this device look so much like Sage?

Ummm, because it IS Sage. It's just a Linux version of Sage that they've put their own custom STV on to support the features of the machine.

[Wheemer]

cool...

[waynedunham]

Update:

Good news.....:

I put Sage.jar and the default STV from Sage v4 onto the MR 5000 and that's working fine so far. I renamed the original Sage.jar on the MR 5000 so I can go back if necesary.
I also put all my channel logo's on and they work too.

I can now connect to the MR 5000 with a Sage Client on my Windows machine.

Bad news.....
For some reason I can get the UI of the Mr 5k on a Sage Client running on Windows, and everything seems to work EXCEPT playing a recording on the Mr 5k. When I try to play a file it looks like it wants to play, but sits at the beginning of the file showing pause. From there the only thing I can do is stop playback.
Same results whether using it locally on the Windows machine, or over to the MVP.

I haven't been able to get the Mr 5k to load as a client, which is what I'd ideally like to have it used as since the majority of my tuners are in the Windows machine.

-------

Anybody have a line on a good quiet Flex ATX power supply? The one in the Mr 5000 has a VERY (imho) noisy fan. Here's the link to the suppliers page for the PS in the Mr 5000.

Alternatively a quiet replacement fan might work, but would take some tinkering since it's wired internally to the PS.