MissingRemote.com's SageTV Review

[sticky]

We have just posted our SageTV Version 6.0 review.

Link to review

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions about the review. We are always looking to improve our review process.

Regards,

Alan
MissingRemote.com

[lobosrul]

Wow, thats a detailed review. I went thru it pretty quickly, but I like how you actualy gave SageMC a try.

I didnt see if you mentioned the Sgraphrecorder. This allows basically any dshow device to be used in Sage, including HD Firewire capture from a cable box (which I use). I dont belive any other PVR software can do this.

[millers_35]

Just a few tips.

"I'm assuming this section is handy if you have a DVD changer? If anyone wants to donate me one, I'll be happy to test it out."

This is for your ripped HDD DVD's ripped in the structure format video_ts audio_ts.

Click on the artist & you have the options to play. While it's nice to have this control, you'll see having to multiple click to get anywhere gets annoying fast.

You will notice that if you are on an item and hit the right arrow it will automatically advance you to the next screen instead of bringing up the menu. Same way for playing a song, just have it highlighted and click the play button.

No mini-guide (note: There is

SageMC has a miniguide with it.

All in all good review I enjoyed the read. I love alot of Screenshots in reviews.

Miller

[Opus4]

You might want to make it say 'preview' since it is still in beta... for example, based on a quick scan, I saw this comment:

Originally Posted by review

One note of frustration, is that if you have multiple tuners, you must individually configure each tuner's guide. While this is great if you need multiple guides, it gets annoying if you simply want the same settings used for every tuner.

There is already a change in the source setup process where you can choose "Use an Existing Channel Lineup with this Source". You will completely skip the process of selecting a provider, lineup, and seeing the Channel Setup screen. There are various other tweaks done after the screen shots were taken.

And, about the complaint about having to constantly click on options throughout the music library... I believe you are using a mouse there, so that does require going through options menus to make selections. The options menus lead a new user through the various things that can be done with an item so they don't miss out on what can be done. But, you'll notice those little icons next to various menu items in the pop-up... they indicate command shortcuts that can be used instead of using the pop-up (using Right to go into details about an item isn't listed there, but that is a standard thing on most menus), so when using a keyboard or remote you can just about skip the options pop-up except for teh moer advanced items that don't have shortcuts, such as adding to a playlist & so on.

The screen shots show the basic & advanced options for an entry in the Program Guide... and notes they are the same, but this was done for a "No Data" entry in the Program Guide, which doesn't have a lot of options. There are more things that can be done with an actual airing or a recording.

The video conversion selection process is now a single dialog for ease of making your conversion settings choices.

Anyway... as someone connected ot the beta, those are a few things I noticed in a quick scan.

- Andy

[JUC]

nice review......and why no youtube anyway???

[sticky]

Andy,

I would encourage you to leave that feedback on the discussion thread at MR. You are preaching to the choir here .

Thanks for the input.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by sticky

I would encourage you to leave that feedback on the discussion thread at MR.

<sigh> ... you're just trying to get more people to join the forum over there, aren't you? OK, OK, I'll go put my post in the appropriate place.

- Andy

[SHS]

Alan not to mean an any way but I don't like the site all much
1: It to dark
2: The fonts are to small
Which why I haven't join the forum over there.

[xred]

Originally Posted by sticky

We have just posted our SageTV Version 6.0 review.

Link to review

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions about the review. We are always looking to improve our review process.

Good review. A big part of the reason I use SageTV is the great functionality offered by the plugins and I am glad to see you mentioned them in the review along with the Sage 6.0 beta.

I also agree with the comments regarding the Sage UI starting to look dated. It no longer meets even most users basic expectations for what a media center application should look and feel like. Power users will always be drawn to the feature set offered, but it will be hard to draw in new or casual users who are migrating from the MCE experience looking for more functionality.

BeyondTV has recentlly won two awards for "best software PVR" and don't tell me its because their functionality is better than Sage's (or MediaPortal's). They're winning those awards on a balance of looks and functionality and its working, so as much as Sage's functionality kicks ass, the real world lesson that "looks matter" still applies.

Or at least that my .02 =)