Migrating from BTV

[jdamore]

Ah yes.. the free FF remote. Free if you purchase a license before "tomorrow". I fell for the free remote offer as it caused a sense of urgency to buy. Offer expires my @ss!

I migrated from btv to Sage because its a whole media center in one. No "seamless" integration which never really was seamless.

[jdamore]

Originally Posted by Khristopher

Right now I've been using Desktops to provide BTV Link to various TVs. The MediaMVP solution is exactly what I want and will be looking into purchasing a couple!

Do you use PC's because you want hidef? STV should be coming out with HD extenders soon as well.

[Khristopher]

Originally Posted by jdamore

Do you use PC's because you want hidef? STV should be coming out with HD extenders soon as well.

I use PC's because that's the only way to properly handle Beyond TV's software extender program BTV Link. My main server is hooked up to a Dell 1800mp XGA Video Projector and a 120" motorized screen in my livingroom. As much as I'd like to get into some HD content, it's just not a priority for me right now. With my setup now, it's like I'm always at the movies anyway so I don't mind too much it's only SD.

Users have hacked together a working MediaMVP for BTV but it doesn't directly integrate with BTV like the SageMVP Extender does.

[Khristopher]

Originally Posted by jdamore

Ah yes.. the free FF remote. Free if you purchase a license before "tomorrow". I fell for the free remote offer as it caused a sense of urgency to buy. Offer expires my @ss!

I migrated from btv to Sage because its a whole media center in one. No "seamless" integration which never really was seamless.

Having two separate programs (Beyond TV and Beyond Media) is a pain in the ass, and BM hasn't had any updates for almost 2 years, yet SS is still selling it for the same price they did when it was brought out. The only reason I purchased it 2 years ago was because at that time, SS offered a "Free Upgrade" to their integrated product for anyone who bought BM before a certain date. Yeah......still waiting for that Integrated Product.

Bundle that, with a number of other issues, and I'll be very glad to sell everything and go with Sage.

I completely agree with you about the FF offer that EXPIRES SOON. I guess SS has a different idea of what "Soon" means!

[Fluffdaddy]

Wow. I guess I picked th right company to play with going on 4 years now

[Khristopher]

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

Wow. I guess I picked th right company to play with going on 4 years now

Yeah.....sucks to be me!!

Oh well....better late than never!

[tmiranda]

Khris,

I'm also a BTV convert, welcome to Sage. Here are some pointers/concepts that you may find useful when planning your conversion.

- The Sage UI is configurable and replaceable. STVs are complete UIs, change the STV and you have a completely new UI. STVi's are "imports" that you apply to your current STV to enhance or change the default behavior.

- MVP support is awesome. If you are viewing SD content it is simple and much more cost effective than a client PC. A HD Media Extender has been rumored for months.

- The easiest way to get commercial detection and skipping to work is to first install ComSkip Monitor and then import the Comskip support STVi (assuming you are using the default UI and not SageMC.)

- Nielm's web interface is a "must have". One of the things you can use it for is to rename your BTV recordings so they appear in Sage as real recordings and not just imported MPGs.

- ALL of Sage's information is stored in a central database called the "wiz.bin". Lose that file and you lose almost EVERYTHING. A backup strategy is a must. You should also backup a file called "Sage.Properties" because that is where many configurable options are stored.

- If you are recording to multiple drives make sure you use UNC paths and not drive letters (even if the drive is local). There are lots of reasons for this and it is much easier to start out that way rather than try to convert from drive letters to UNC paths later.

- Intelligent Recording works great but it must be "trained". First off make sure you turn on the option to use "Aggressive negative profiling". If you do not Sage will record everything possible. Sage will interpret shows set to "watched" as shows you liked and will record similar types of shows. If you watch something that you do not like make sure you CLEAR the watched flag and SET the "Don't Like" flag. From my experience if both the Watched flag and Don't Like flag are set, Sage will record similar shows. Expect it to take at least a month of use before the IR gets trained.

Have fun and welcome to Sage.

Tom

[Khristopher]

Wow! Thank you for all those tips! Much appreciated!!

Edit: I've just installed the Web Client and have input all of my BTV Recordings. All I can say right now is WOW! I'm totally blown away by how easy it was to setup, how seamless the Web client works, and how much I'm looking forward to DUMPING BTV (maybe even tonight if I can get everything going).

I've also just got VLC running to stream media. I'm completely blown away! Why didn't I switch sooner?!

[Khristopher]

Thank you to everyone who offered help/information. I'm happy to say that I have rid myself of all Snapstream products (software and hardware)!!

[CollinR]

I love my firefly remote!


Here is how to get it working...

Uninstall the SS software and download the "drivers only" package, install that.

Download and install some free software called Event Ghost

Once you have EventGhost installed you may need to upgrade to a beta version to get the SageTV plugin, once installed the remote can be configured to do almost anything you can image.


Aside from controlling Sage, and emulating a mouse with on screen keyboard, it can also send commands to my automation controller. Combined with the dynamic main menu plugin I have lighting controls as well. Hopefully before too long I'll have thermostat control as well.


EventGhost is basically a glorified IO logger/sniffer/injector. It can sense meny changes to your system and react as desired.

It also fully supports the USB UIRT so you can recieve from the Firefly in RF and transmit from the USB UIRT, or change focus, or run command line, really almost anything.

Now whenever I pause or mute the TV my lights brighten. I haven't quite figured out how to dim them back correctly though.

[Khristopher]

I've wasted enough time with work-arounds, and kludging things together to bother anymore with Snapstream and their products.

I bought two MCE remotes ($35 each) and have no problems using them with sage at all.

Awhile ago I even bought an IR MCE Keyboard which now works PERFECTLY with SageTV!