Suggesting features for the next version of SageTV

[Alfiegerner]

How about formalising the encoder_prioity feature? I understand at the moment it is not even offiicially supported.

I would like to have two settings, one to be able to specify encoder priority seprerately for live tv and one to specify encoder priority for recorded tv.

At the moment there are number of external tuners that may require a very long time to change channel. Whilst they may have good quality this makes them not very good for using for live tv.

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I forgot to add a comment that I've posted in the past: SageTV does not monitor the forum for feature suggestions, just like tech support doesn't monitor the forum for support issues. While such posts may be seen, SageTV has asked that feature suggestions be submitted directly to them. They are not going to be making a public list of all feature suggestions & their implementation plans for future versions.

Edit: Oops, I don't mean that to sound like you aren't allowed to talk about what you would like to see added; I just mean that SageTV may or may not notice such posts.

- Andy

Not at all, that's good to know. Not being arround so long I didn't realize that there was a line between the Sage people and the forum. I'm off thetry and find where I need to make an official feature request and bug report..

[Vlar]

I'd like to see two little obscure requests..

1) client mirroring of the server.. Mulitzone audio and video!
2) for those with larger video collections, quicker navigation. eg. thumbnail loading after you find your place not before

[gumbo]

Another vote for a better music library.

One that I haven't seen anyone mention, but it would be huge for me, is the ability to resume playback of an imported AVI file where it was left off. If I copy a movie or TV show in AVI format to the media library, it start playing at the beginning each time I play it, rather than where I left off last time like regularly recorded shows. This seems like it should be easy enough to add, but it's not in there.

[briands]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I forgot to add a comment that I've posted in the past: SageTV does not monitor the forum for feature suggestions, just like tech support doesn't monitor the forum for support issues. While such posts may be seen, SageTV has asked that feature suggestions be submitted directly to them. They are not going to be making a public list of all feature suggestions & their implementation plans for future versions.

Edit: Oops, I don't mean that to sound like you aren't allowed to talk about what you would like to see added; I just mean that SageTV may or may not notice such posts.

- Andy

What is the proper venue for this?

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Opus4

SageTV has asked that feature suggestions be submitted directly to them.

Ya, but where? They don't exactly advertise that like they do for bug reports.

That was my point. Sometimes, I feel like we are talking to ourselves here and what good does that do us? New customizations are great, but I now have 10 different ones that I install after an upgrade, some of these should be in the core stv plain and simple. Why can't the top ones be added to the list of unofficial secret extra unsupported features.

I can understand wanting to keep some upcoming features secret for competitive reasons, but their focus should be on competing for the loyalty of their customers not for what a other PVR software companies may or may not be doing. If their prime concern is keeping us happy they will eternally be competitive. You can tell by the activity in these forums that the users care about this product. Because of that, I feel like we rely on our community to get things done more than maybe we should. Sometimes, I get confused by the direction Sage takes. Placeshifter is neat but how long have we been asking for a CD player or FM radio support?

Then Opus tells us they arn't interested in tracking feature suggestions, or sharing any future features they are working on. Is that supposed to be a test of our loyalty? People leave and move on to trying other products for more trivial reasons than that. How top-secret would adding support for FM-tuners be that they wouldn't be willing to talk about it?

I just don't get it, is this an intellectual property problem? Is Sage obligated to pay a customization developer in order to implement some bit of code they created to make Sage better? Shouldn't every bit of code developed through Studio belong to SageTV LLC no matter who developed it? We can't keep taking the work of Neilm, Mlbdude, Cayars, and all the others for granted. We know that people can and do get burned out and disappear from time to time which has left voids in development in the past.

I think Sage is obligated to give us some indication of what we can and can not expect from them. If they made the statement that they only have resources to commit to working on adding support for new hardware, bug fixes and feature set (a-c) then we would know how much attention and effort to put into our own customizations. Are we duplicating our efforts, are we pioneering new idea's that will eventually make it into the core product, or are we making our own tools to meet our own needs and maybe if we are lucky somebody else can use them too?

If Sage wants to off load possible new feature stuff to the community then at least tell us officially that "SageTV LLC can not officially pursue development of feature X because of ___, please look to the customization community for support and development of this feature." or "SageTV does not currently have the resources to work on feature X, We have put it on our list and possibly in a future release we can dedicate some time to it. Thank you for your suggestion."

There should be somebody at Sage whose job is to plot the future of development. I would think they would want to know what their audience thinks is a priority. Why do future features have to be a secret? Its called marketing.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by gumbo

One that I haven't seen anyone mention, but it would be huge for me, is the ability to resume playback of an imported AVI file where it was left off. If I copy a movie or TV show in AVI format to the media library, it start playing at the beginning each time I play it, rather than where I left off last time like regularly recorded shows.

Check out Flachbar's customization
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16519

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by briands

What is the proper venue for this?

The forum.

OK, OK, just kidding, but I couldn't resist!

Before I was involved with SageTV, I sent requests via tech support or the bug report form.

- Andy

[GTwannabe]

Another thing I'd like out of SageTV is an improved ability to flip back and forth between tuners when watching live TV. My buddy's DirectTV TiVo did this and it was a great feature.

A more useful "Watch Live TV" button would be a great help too. Currently, all it does is take you to whatever's currently being recorded on a random tuner. If Sage isn't recording anything, it just dumps you into the last frame of the previous thing you watched.

What I'd like "Watch Live TV" to do is to show you tiled previews of all the streams Sage is currently recording. Highlighting the preview would activate the sound and you could select your desired show from the list.

While I'm thinking of wishlist features, PIP (with swapping) would be a good one too!

[dblaine2]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I don't agree with this. Judging by this thread, the Sage devs will be hard pressed to find time to implement even a fraction of the feature wishlist. Duplicating work that's already been done by third-party developers seems like a poor use of their time. They should be looking for ways to leverage third-party devs even more than they do now.

Customizability is what sets Sage apart from competing products, so what I'd like to see in future versions of Sage are big improvements to the customization tools:

* Better Studio features for abstracting and modularizing widget code.

* Better ways of separating style from function, so that third-party add-ons work across a broad spectrum of UI styles.

* Better tools for maintaining customizations across upgrades, and for automatically generating STVI import scripts.

We need more customization, not less. That's the only way that everybody's favorite wishlist items are ever going to get implemented, because the Sage devs simply don't have time to do it all themselves.

Just like they did with malore, they incorporated his customization into the core product.

I fully agree with the customizable aspect of Sage. No doubt its one of its strong points.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by dblaine2

Just like they did with malore, they incorporated his customization into the core product.

Not really. Malore's code is in the standard STV, but it's unsupported and turned off by default. If you have a problem with it, you still need to go to the third-party devs for help.

Since I don't use those features myself, that code is just dead weight as far as I'm concerned. I'd much rather have a leaner core product with a wide choice of optional add-ons than have the core devs spend time incorporating a bunch of third-party features they're not going to support and I'm not going to use.

[malbec]

One more feature request....

Originally Posted by Opus4

... I just mean that SageTV may or may not notice such posts.

Can this be changed to:

... I just mean that SageTV will notice such posts, but may or may not implement the suggestions.

[insomniac]

Did you just try to reference common sense and reason with a female in the same paragraph??

Originally Posted by Opus4

There is a sleep timer in the customizations forum (check the sticky index post) & live TV will get deleted first anyway.

As with any new tool, there is some learning involved. Remind her that she wouldn't just leave the car running in the garage when closing the garage door & coming inside, or leave the stove on after boiling some water & taking the kettle off the stove, or leave the kitchen faucet on after filling a pot & taking the pot out of the sink, or... well, maybe you wouldn't use those words. But, there is a new usage pattern to get used to now that an extra tool is in use for TV viewing.

- Andy

[dstern]

ooops, not sure how this answer got dropped here...guess I need to work on my Forum postings.
To not fill up the space when channel is left on...
Set the following option to "Yes"
Setup>Advanced Setup>Custom>Delete live TV when not using intelligent recording

Since I am here..
I would like to see the ability to output the DVD to the Hau350 output. They say it cant be done because of the format but I think it can be done if the format is converted to the required format for the decoder card on the fly. A translator table

[Fallen Kell]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before or not.

I would love to have the ability to record shows that the origional air date was of a specific year. So instead of just "First Runs & Reruns" add "First Runs & Reruns from YYYY" where you set the "YYYY" in an advanced menu or something. I can't tell you how many times I simply want to grab the reruns of a specific year since I know I missed a bunch of shows from that season and not have to have SageTV record ALL the reruns for a show, especially when that show is on 2-3 channels all showing different re-runs...

[aperry]

Playback of Quicktime MOV files.

[bbroerman]

How about support for the FM tuner in the Hauppauge cards...

[Mark SS]

Although its obviously not what customers want to accept, we have to keep in mind that Sage is going to concentrate on developing features that will reel in new customers, rather than those that current customers want.

Case in point: Placeshifter rather than improving the media library

[aperry]

Sad but true...

[GKusnick]

Why sad? Without new customers, they go out of business. That would be sad.