Cable company DVR or Sage

[greg544]

Is there a page somewhere that would let me compare the cost of Sage with other systems? Sorry if this is a basic question but I did not find something like this answered on the FAQ page I found here.

My cable company will give me a DVR and service for $6.95 a month. That sounds like a lot to me. I have a decent old computer I could repurpose. I think Sage sounds good, but I guess I am looking for a very basic noob page.

[dbfresh23]

I don't know of any such pages, but....

SageTV and the Cable DVR are two very different devices. Even if you have most of the parts for a system, at $6.95/mo, you would likely have to spend 2-3 years worth of that to turn your "old computer" into a usable HTPC. I doubt your Cable DVR would have the ability to share recordings over a network to other TVs in the house, play your music collection, play DVDs, play home videos or display your photo collection.

I don't think SageTV tries to advertise itself as price competitive to a Cable DVR, just much much more advanced. The big difference is that there is no monthly fee with SageTV right now, so once it is paid for there is no more cash out of pocket.

[Deadbolt]

I'm not sure if you are interested in recording HDTV for premium channels like HBO. Your cable company's DVR is still the best way to do encrypted HDTV recordings.

[paulbeers]

Greg544 -

Shhhhh....Don't tell my wife that the cable company rents pvr's for 6.95 a month. She will do the math and i will be on the couch in no time! Sage will never be "as cheap" as a cable companie's PVR. If all you want to do is a stand-alone PVR. Go get your cable co's box and don't look back. They are a great deal if you just want to have a basic PVR for one tv. There is nothing wrong with that. Part of the interest in Sage is I like to tinker with computers so I have that benefit, but the biggest reason I went this route is I wanted more....I wanted to be able to record shows and store MP3's on a cenrtralized Media server and play in any room in the house (or at least that are hooked into the network). That is how I ended up here. Plus it has a cool factor to it too and an "I built it" factor to it too....

Just my 2 cents worth.

[TakeFlight]

And then you have people like me who not only have a Comcast/Motorola DVR but also a SageTV server, a few SageTV clients and a Media MVP SageTV client (which happens to be hooked up to the same TV the Comcast DVR is hooked up to).

I record HDTV on both my Comcast DVR and SageTV (using a regular HD cable box). As it was mentioned above, the cable company DVR is a simple (when it works correctly) one box solution that lets you record both the encrypted and unencrypted HD/digital channels. I use SageTV to record the local (unencrypted) HD channels along with SD channels with two analog tuner cards.

SageTV definitely is way more powerful and gives you many more features but if you are just looking for a basic DVR which can record all digital channels regardless of whether they are encrypted or not, you really can't beat the cable company DVR.

[stevech]

I may be in the minority, but my cable TV costs per month would go up a lot if I wanted to get a PVR from them. We are happy with analog cable and the extended set of channels (HGTV, FOOD, et al). So we don't have a cable box.

The box + a higher tier of service + PVR would take the currently ridiculous monthly fee to the level of absurd.

Time Warner customer.

[teknubic]

My buddy that has the cable co's PVR calls it the 'shit-vo'. Be suspicious when all the advertising for it is about the 'pause and rewind of live tv' and nothing about favorites, media center, program guide or any of the other stuff that Sage gives you.
If you can control yourself, Sage can be very inexpensive. The minute you start building dedicated systems out of top-shelf parts, $6.95/mo in savings won't ever even out.

[TakeFlight]

The Motorola 6412 (Comcast dual tuner DVR) gives you a program guide and favorites (although it's not called that). Yes, there is WAY less functionality with this solution compared to SageTV but it works well nonetheless.

[jlindborg]

Also, keep in mind that Comcast and their ilk will bend to the whim of the media providers and pull stunts like limiting how long you can have a recorded show around before you watch it and such (i.e. as was attempted with HBO's 6 feet under) - this is one of the primary reasons I gave TiVo the boot and built my own. My media is mine - I'll do what I want with it, thankyouverymuch. Doing things like pulling comercials out of the playback automatically, burning DVDs, archiving shows to DivX on your network etc... etc... will never, ever be possible with a DVR from your cable provider. If that goofy "analog hole" legislation ever sees the light of day (or maybe even if not) you can count on the cable providers making sure their DVRs "comply" and have shows automatically remove themselves and such.