Yahoo buys Meedio

[domc]

Yup it's true, check out there website:

http://meedio.com/

[nielm]

Originally Posted by meedio web site

Today is a big day for the team here at Meedio; we have sold most of our technology to Yahoo!
...
If you are an existing user of Meedio Pro or Meedio TV, we will continue to provide EPG data until July 1st.
...
You will no longer be able to download or buy Meedio from this site and the Meedio Support Center will be closed effective immediately.

Ouch! That must be a nasty kick in the pants for all those meedio users / plugin dev's...

[JUC]

Bad news for meedio users, potentially good news for SageTV. Hopefully, some will make the switch to sage and also contribute to the great development efforts going on in this forum. There are polls going on over at the meedio site about which software people are going to move to--sage is getting a few votes..

JUC

[dagar]

http://meedio.com/forum/about29396.html

[aperry]

This news seemed like quite a shock, until I started thinking about it... Development had not really been progressing a whole lot (until recently interestingly enough, 3 releases in the last month or so). And I read in one of the threads that insiders have known about this since last fall (Sceneo or something referenced that they knew).

[sleonard]

I'm glad I decided to wait for Sage to provide a better media center (still waiting, BTW). I'd be awful mad if I had just spent $$ on Meedio and immediately after lost all support and EPG data.

[aperry]

I think Sage ought to offer a "switch and save" offer to entice over the former Meedio folks.

By the way, I find it interesting over on their forum that many are refusing to give up, they'll continue using Meedio, despite that Meedio is now a defunct, non-existent product. No more updates, EPG going away, heck you can't even download their current version any more...

[Hades]

I was kinda hopeful that it could have been a meedio / sage venture(Yes .wishful thinking, i know) , the media abilitys of meedio are pretty much endless,and it looks amazing once you get it setup to your tastes, the achilles heel for meedio was the TV part,i never gelled with it,so sought an alternative.
Now i use Sage as the TV part,and Meedio and the media part...kinda best of both worlds.

I think quite a few users use that combo of apps, i have noticed a number of users,i recognize from the meedio essentials forums.

[ben_95sl1]

It's pretty sad that they couldn't support it for atleast a few months more, instead of instantaneously turning all the lights off when the announcement was made. Any big company could just as easily kill sagetv, beyondtv, etc. I have a feeling only linux open source stuff will make me happy in a few years time, as everybody else will be flattened by M$ + DRM, or some other such nonsense. I first started with myHTPC....it worked pretty well, but I didn't have enough pc to use my sw tv encoder, so it was just for media playing.

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by aperry

This news seemed like quite a shock, until I started thinking about it... Development had not really been progressing a whole lot (until recently interestingly enough, 3 releases in the last month or so). And I read in one of the threads that insiders have known about this since last fall (Sceneo or something referenced that they knew).

Yep, its been in the works for a while. Do a search and there were a few people who noticed how Yahoo's product looked similar to Meedio when it was announced in January. As far as releases go however, none of the last ones didn't really add anything at all except small bug fixes or tweaks such as being able to run from a restricted account.

At least according to this link they plan on moving the maid to yahoo's site eventually so it wont really go away. I still bet the TV part is dead however. http://www.meedio.com/forum/about29405.html

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by aperry

By the way, I find it interesting over on their forum that many are refusing to give up, they'll continue using Meedio, despite that Meedio is now a defunct, non-existent product. No more updates, EPG going away, heck you can't even download their current version any more...

Well, I will continue to use it too. Disappointed about Sage's media center capabilities (especially the music part) I gave Meedio a try a couple of months back (only Essentials without TV) and do not regret having paid for it, even now after this somehow shocking turn of events. I use it for everything but TV (where Sage is still simply the best), it is stable (again, only speaking about the non-TV part), and there are some really nice plugins available. Integrated with Sage TV via Girder this is quite an acceptable solution for me right now, and the recent events won't change anything.

Of course, I would prefer having everything in one central application, and I am still dreaming (and hoping) that some day Sage will offer the same qualities in regards to media center functionality as it does now with TV recording.

Dirk

[jcato]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Well, I will continue to use it too. Disappointed about Sage's media center capabilities (especially the music part) I gave Meedio a try a couple of months back (only Essentials without TV) and do not regret having paid for it, even now after this somehow shocking turn of events. I use it for everything but TV (where Sage is still simply the best), it is stable (again, only speaking about the non-TV part), and there are some really nice plugins available. Integrated with Sage TV via Girder this is quite an acceptable solution for me right now, and the recent events won't change anything.

Of course, I would prefer having everything in one central application, and I am still dreaming (and hoping) that some day Sage will offer the same qualities in regards to media center functionality as it does now with TV recording.

Dirk

Yep, me too. I don't see that changing soon. Meedio the company is gone, but it's not like my installed product is going to just stop working. Atleast not immediately. Once Sage improves its media management and I can use it for everything. For now Meedio/Sage combo is working fine (as it as for the last couple of years).

[mikesm]

I agree with the last few posts. I do not see people moving from Meedio to Sage. PVR was never the driver for Meedio customers, and Sage is lousy at exactly the things that Meedio was very good at. I think it's much more likely for non-PVR Meedio users to move to MediaPortal, or perhaps MCE (with the right set of plugins - like mymovies) since it's got decent media center functionality.

Sage is the best PVR product out there now, but that isn't why people bought Meedio. A combination would be fantastic, but I doubt it's worth the work to integrate the code bases. Media portal and a lot of other open source efforts have been out there for some time, but we haven't seen any of that code show up in Sage yet - why should Meedio be any different?

Also, a lot of folks are finding it hard to resist the cable company's or DBS provider's PVR product. It's cheap, and records digital content without going through a analog SD conversion step. MCE might have a chance to compete if they get cablecard support, and defeinitely Sage, but right now the mass market isn't going to PC based PVR's, despite what us enthusiasts would like. Heck I even have a Comcast 6412 because I want HD PVR for encrypted channels.

All this means I don't think Sage gains much from the Meedio failuer - if the Yahoo product is good, it may take users away eventually. Yahoo has teh clout to get cablecard style deals if they want to.

Thanks,
Mike

[mayamaniac]

So now the question is who's gonna buy SageTV, Google?

Anyone know how much Yahoo paid for Meedio?

[dagar]

Whatever it was it was too much

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by dagar

Whatever it was it was too much

That's unfair. The Meedio product was very good and Yahoo is getting a lot of value from the team. Remember Yahoo isn't really interested in a PVR as much as a digital media center.

Thanks,
Mike

[Ryokurin]

http://go.connect.yahoo.com/go/tv/get_started a beta is out.

[JUC]

advertisements on all VOD stuff! Yuck! I guess it was to be expected. I admit-i downloaded it this morning and took a look at it (not the TV part though). But-the integration is pretty neat---movie listings, music videos on demand, news reports on demand and a bunch of other stuff. You are forced to watch a 15 sec ad before watching any of that though. I doubt that it will look good on a big screen because of the quality and that is going to be their problem--I don't think it will have any value in the living room especially without a client or extender option.
JUC

[aperry]

Still, pretty nice looking and it is free after all...

Interesting that they only support a few cards, and what those cards are:

· ATI TV Wonder Elite
· ATI HDTV Wonder
· AverMedia UltraTV 1500 MCE
· Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2
· NVidia Dual TVmce

Three things surprise me here. One, they support the DualTV. Two, they don't support the Hauppauge PVR-150 or 500. Three, they have some HD support.

[JUC]

I believe they support more than that just not 'officially'. It picked up my Rosyln and PVR 150 and also the actisys 200L and the PVR 150 blasters. I think it probably supports all of the Hauppauge cards --maybe not 350 yet though. Its pretty neat for the novelty factor.
JUC