Is Sage for me?

[chackett]

I've been a happy user of Tivo for many years, and I LOVE my dual tuner DirectTivo.

I'm about to move into a new home, and am starting to consider home automation and AV distribution for the new home. Somehow my research has brought me here to Sage. Maybe I got here as a result to looking into media servers that are controllable via Home Automation panels and or software.

So ... all this to ask... I've been a very happy user of Tivo, and the wife is happy with it. We LOVE our dual tuner, and it's very reliable. We almost never have any problems with it. But in our new home, I might be willing to try something like Sage out if it's stable and offers some benefits that will lend themselves well to the home automation slant ..

Thanks all ... looking forward to your comments!

Chris Hackett

[lobosrul]

Sage is good for convergence, music, recorded/live tv, dvd (including stored on the hdd), pictures, and downloaded content all in the same place.

If your looking to do a multi-room setup Sage is definantly worth thinking about. Only problem is, its a bit difficult/expensive to setup with cable or sat for hdtv.

[malbec]

IMO ... Sage is AWESOME!!!!

However, prepare yourself for constant "tweaking." Not as a result of things not working, but rather as a result of constant new features, this or that.

Stability, at least for me, is driven more by having Windows up constantly and running into issues there.

[jbarr]

I don't have a TiVo background, but am a long-time ReplayTV and moxy HD DVR user, and I can say that SageTV is what ReplayTV would have been had they listened to their users. SageTV handles things very well, but as said above, it will require a bit of work to get everything set up correctly and tweaked to your liking. because it really is a "roll your own" deal, there is no real "out of the box" experience. But for just about EVERYONE who I have talked to, read on the forums, etc. the verdict is that the end result is very worth the effort.

And as many will attest, the Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF) is very high.

[stevech]

If you don't mind the monthly fees, and since you are happy with TiVo, why switch and put the WAF at risk?

[chackett]

Therein lies the question

On the one hand, I'm pretty excited about the new house and all the options I have now for home automation and av routing / distribution through the house. My current setup doesn't seem conducive for that at all. I suppose that I could use some sort of RF / IR remote system and just control my existing devices from where ever I happen to be, and just use a patch panel or video distribution deal to send the signal to all the rooms in the house.

That solution doesn't offer me too much in the way of "integration" with the rest of the HA devices / components. My Tivo, even though it's a series 2, doesn't have any of the "media" features that my folks have. It doesn't communicate on a network, and it doesn't play pictures and mp3's like my folks.

I don't suppose I mind "tweaking' so much .. but I definitely don't want to spend much (or any) time "troubleshooting" my TV. I just sit down, pick up the remote, and start watching TV. It's easy, reliable, and I don't think about it.

I used to run a LRP Linux Router from a floppy as my home networking router and, so I don't mind rolling my sleeves up and getting into a project. It's worth noting though, that after about a year or so, I thew it in the trash and got a store bought router, and I'm glad I did. Now my home network is like my TV. It just works.

I'm generally an early adopter, and I don't mind tinkering with technology. I do want it to be reliable and stable though. Espeically with something as important and frequently used as TV.

Where can I go to read and learn about hardware configurations and recommendations for Sage?

Thanks All. I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Chris Hackett

[Mark SS]

You'll fiddle with the initial installation, tweaking, installing customisations and plugins etc etc. Once you're done its a surprisingly stable product that you can just leave to do its job.

[rfutscher]

Having a central video server with multiple tuners is awesome. Then you can have clients in several places in the house. You can store your DVDs / CDs on the hard drive and play them back on any client. All over the computer network. No RF cables needed. If you have three clients you would want at least three, possibly four tuners. Then you would then always have one for recording.

Are you going to playback in SD or HD?

I think you would be a little disappointed if you play back to an HD display. You will have to have a computer at each playback screen. Once you have direct digital SD & HD, analog SD will no longer do.

The Beta version of Sage will be able to control a QAM tuner to receive NON ENCRIPTED cable channels. Sage is having problems with the program guide matching the channels. You have to manually match the channel and guide every time the cable company shuffles channels. You can also hook a cable company supplied set top box up using fire-wire, but this limits you to one channel.

If you are an OTA (over the air) kind of person you will want an antenna/separate tuner for each direction. The problem is Sage expects all tuners to receive the same OTA channels. Where I live they have three channel lineups so I can only have three directions, two digital and one analog.

Sage is not perfect, but it is the best there is. It just keeps getting better and staying ahead of the pack.

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by rfutscher

You can also hook a cable company supplied set top box up using fire-wire, but this limits you to one channel.

Surely you can use an IR blaster to change channels?

[psicat]

If you really want to live dangerously and have some Linux experience, you might want to check out MythTV and KnoppMyth.

http://www.mythtv.org/
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/

Sage is faster/easier to get setup and running and has great vendor support (read:drivers)... but you have to deal with Windows. Some are not comfortable with 24/7/365 operation out of a Windows desktop (count me as one). In my experience, Windows 2003 Server with almost nothing installed is very stable. It's the blessing and curse of Windows drivers that makes things unstable in Windows IMHO. A lot of vendors write crappy drivers especially for the kind of hardware media boxes use.

Once you get your MythTV box running (which takes a good amount of time), then it just keeps on going. Lots of stuff is built-in (like DVD ripping with IMDB lookup and such), but over all not as polished as Sage. Customization seems unlimited as long as you don't mind getting your hands dirty (it also does not hurt to know a scripting language like Perl).

I'm also having to make the decision between Sage and MythTV and it's not easy. I have both installed right now and I'm toying with them. I am still undecided. Whatever I choose needs to ultimately stand up to the wife and kids test.

[mayamaniac]

chackett, SageTV is for the power user and you seem like you can deal with technical stuffs in terms of setup and maintenence. Plus, this forum is filled with helpful people if you have questions. I say go for it.

There's even a thread about home automation inteface for SageTV by bohica if you are interested: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17177

[blade]

Originally Posted by psicat

If you really want to live dangerously and have some Linux experience, you might want to check out MythTV and KnoppMyth.

http://www.mythtv.org/
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/

Sage is faster/easier to get setup and running and has great vendor support (read:drivers)... but you have to deal with Windows. Some are not comfortable with 24/7/365 operation out of a Windows desktop (count me as one). In my experience, Windows 2003 Server with almost nothing installed is very stable. It's the blessing and curse of Windows drivers that makes things unstable in Windows IMHO. A lot of vendors write crappy drivers especially for the kind of hardware media boxes use.

Once you get your MythTV box running (which takes a good amount of time), then it just keeps on going. Lots of stuff is built-in (like DVD ripping with IMDB lookup and such), but over all not as polished as Sage. Customization seems unlimited as long as you don't mind getting your hands dirty (it also does not hurt to know a scripting language like Perl).

I'm also having to make the decision between Sage and MythTV and it's not easy. I have both installed right now and I'm toying with them. I am still undecided. Whatever I choose needs to ultimately stand up to the wife and kids test.

First off there is a linux version of Sage.

Secondly a lot of people would argue with the statement linux is substantially more stable for a dedicated media server. In almost 2 years of running a Sage server on windows XP I've never had Sage miss a show due to a server crash nor has my server ever crashed or locked up during playback. On occasion I do have a client go down, but with the server/client setup it doesn't affect recording. That usually happens because I've been doing other things on the PC or switching in and out of fullscreen with FSE mode enabled.

Also even hardcore linux nuts admit the decoders for linux aren't as good as what is available in windows (no purevideo).

[psicat]

Blade: Not trying to start an OS flame war. I am fairly agnostic. I have and support Windows, Linux and OS X. All have good and bad points. Glad to hear that XP is stable for you. What capture hardware do you have?

[blade]

Originally Posted by psicat

Blade: Not trying to start an OS flame war. I am fairly agnostic. I have and support Windows, Linux and OS X. All have good and bad points. Glad to hear that XP is stable for you. What capture hardware do you have?

I was running dual PVR500s on an ancient Intel BX motherboard with an ata 100 controller card, d-link nic, and permedia2 agp card. Nothing expensive or fancy, just left over junk I had lying around. The plus side is all the hardware with the exception of hard drives and capture cards had been running trouble free for years doing other duties so I knew it was stable to begin with.

I recently upgraded to an nforce4. Using the same capture cards, but of course I'm using all the onboard nic, sound, etc... It has been just as stable as the old server.

If you run reliable hardware and the box is a dedicated machine that you're not messing around with all the time. Windows should be stable, many people have rock solid windows servers. I totally agree back in the win9x days linux was far superior.

I don't have anything against linux, I just don't think the stability gap between it and windows is all that great anymore. I'd personally choose a PVR app based more on features than what OS it ran on.

[malore]

Does anyone know what it would take to duplicate the DirectTivo's ability to record two mpeg-2 streams directly without re-encoding? I would think it would require a fair amount of effort and expense.

What are your HDTV plans?

[chackett]

Thanks,

I definitely don't mind getting my hands dirty and getting the initial setup done right, and I can wade through the technical stuff ok. Seems like support is good here in the forums, so I'm sure I'd be ok with that.

Once it's up and running though, it would need to be pretty darn stable. Right now I've got a Dell something or the other. It's a 2.4Ghz / 512MB machine, and it sits idle most of the time. It could probably use a good window washing to increase stability. About the most complicated thing we use it for is a print server for an HP all in one type job.

Ok .. so let me see if I understand this.

If I stay with DirectTV, then I would need to buy a reciever for each tuner on the sagetv system? Seems the 100-150 or something like that is the workhorse for this job? I guess I pay DirecTV for each tuner? If I go with cable, will the tuner cards do the job of the set-top box (I have no premium channels).

Also, how are the wireless media extenders? I only have one HD plasma tv now, and will probably purchase another in the next couple months. I don't have any HD content now, and have not subscribed to the DirectTV HD services.

I didn't quite follow the earlier bit about SD vs HD and what I would be happy with. Can you go over that for me again?

Thanks everyone .. I appreciate it ..

Chris Hackett

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by chackett

Once it's up and running though, it would need to be pretty darn stable. Right now I've got a Dell something or the other. It's a 2.4Ghz / 512MB machine, and it sits idle most of the time. It could probably use a good window washing to increase stability. About the most complicated thing we use it for is a print server for an HP all in one type job.

Ok .. so let me see if I understand this.

If I stay with DirectTV, then I would need to buy a reciever for each tuner on the sagetv system? Seems the 100-150 or something like that is the workhorse for this job? I guess I pay DirecTV for each tuner? If I go with cable, will the tuner cards do the job of the set-top box (I have no premium channels).

I think most PC tuners are only cable ready, not for satellite. For DirecTV, you'll need a set-top box (STB) receiver for each tuner even if you are only subscribing to the basic channels.

Also, how are the wireless media extenders? I only have one HD plasma tv now, and will probably purchase another in the next couple months. I don't have any HD content now, and have not subscribed to the DirectTV HD services.

I suggest to go for wired MVP extenders if possible, your mileage will vary with wireless extenders. The wired MVPs are great for SD contents.

[PGPfan]

If you go with DirectTV, try to make sure you get the D10-100 receiver. That is the best one (by a wide margin) to use with Sage. It is controlled via serial port (much more reliable than IR) and it's internal 'menu's' can be suppressed so that the ONLY interface you see it the Sage UI.

You will need one receiver per tuner (best to hook up via s-video) and DTV charges $5/month for each additional receiver.

Can't advise on cable, but with satellite Sage is the way to go.

As for extenders, DON'T get wireless. You are just asking for trouble! Since it's a new home, just have cat5e run anywhere you might like a TV - it should be very cheap to do. The extenders are incredible for watching TV (and DVD's now, with Sage v.6.x BETA).

-PGPfan

[Polypro]

I too haven't missed a recording in the year I've had Sage running. If you do the research on the components (here, HTPCNews, and AVS's HTPC forums...check our sigs too) and do a fresh OS/Sage/Support Files install...it's rock solid. Obviously you can add stuff like DVD tools, MP3 taggers, etc...but don't load up the kitchen sink just because it's a computer and you can. As far as Analog Cable .vs Cable/SAT STB's, I have 80 channels of analog coming from the wall and 10 channels of OTA HD. I couldn't imagine watching anymore...especially combined with the 6 video netcasts I get a week. The analog RF quality is fine for me, and all the primary shows are in HD. I had DirecTiVo from '02-'05...never watched anything I couldn't get from the wall. If I want the Soprano's, I NetFlix it. Not dealing with IR Blasters/Serial Control is a plus. The only negative is stuff like out of market sports teams (NHL Center Ice) and PPV, like UFC fights. I still get to watch them on Sage however, if you get my drift

P

[stevech]

Originally Posted by psicat

In my experience, Windows 2003 Server with almost nothing installed is very stable. It's the blessing and curse of Windows drivers that makes things unstable in Windows IMHO. A lot of vendors write crappy drivers especially for the kind of hardware media boxes use.

I am NO lover of Micro$oft's monopoly. My job was centered on Unix for years.

At home, I have a home automation PC that uses XP Pro. It runs 24/7, has run for 6 months before I rebooted it. On it are a web server, home automation program, several disks, IR to serial, USB to 8 port serial, Dallas 1-wire, etc. Perhaps it's stable because it does no inbound email, does not use Micro$oft's IIS, and web surfing is done ONLY via my VB6 application wrapper on the IE engine. That app enables web surfing on the TV using the standard TV remote - but only to a canned set of websites chosen from a menu.

Sage here runs on XP Pro on a 1.6GHz laptop stuffed away behind the TV (quiet) with USB drives and USB Hauppauge Tuner. No other apps. Pretty reliable as long as I don't try the latest Sage or latest Java - let 'em cook for months first. If I make a habit of exiting Sage and starting it up again once a week (memory leaks), it has been very stable (was unstable on an el-cheap-o ECS motherboard in an ATX chassis (and was too noisy).