Why Sage?

[grandalf]

Again, your input is much appreciated, it certainly answered my question. I will certainly look at it again, even though the current version of M.P rocks for me. Thank you all.

[FidgetyRat]

For me, I'd rather pay a one time $80 fee for a fully supported product then use a free product that is full of bugs or patched together by tons of people. Probably why my sage system has been running non-stop for several years without a single crash.

What I like about sage vs. other software has to be its flexability with regards to the Extenders. It is so much easier to run a single ethernet cable to a a distant bedroom then run coax. Plus, the picture quality does not change at the least the further you go vs. the coax. I get to leave the server right next to the house drop and I use a drop amp to each tuner. The picture quality can't get any better and then that same quality is spread to every tv by use of the simple MVP..

If sage didn't have the extenders I wouldn't find it nearly as impressive.

For me, who does not own a single HDTV or even want to pay the high $$$ for the services, sage is perfect. But as time moves on and in the next few years when they stop sending analog service, I see products like this not surviving.

[Khristopher]

I wanked around doing everything on MP for a year before moving to BTV. After realizing that Beyond Media was crap and a waste of money, I ran MP in tandem with BTV for about 3 years.

MP was ok just for basic media playback, but the TV portion of it still needs a lot of work.

It boiled down to finally getting tired of using BTV and MP (and the crap that SS is pulling) before I switched to Sage.

I'm almost at the point where I'm going to migrate my parents from BTV/MP as well because Sage is just so much simpler and I've had next to no problems with it myself.

[grandalf]

I am pleased to hear that so many of you have a good reliable system with Sage. If you want to use media extenders, its probably the only way to go. On the other hand, I have never been able to get Sage to work well for me, and after some strong negative comments from the better half, I removed it. I will however have another go, I am sure with a bit of tweaking it could end up being just fine. I have never tried BTV as is will not support DVB-T which is essential in the UK. Both GBPVR and M.P work well for me with minimal setup. I agree that earlier versions of these programs were very flaky, not so these days however. Not sure that I agree with the comments that open source software is a bad thing, with everybody and his dog having a go at it. Most software of this type, such as Linux, is well documented and very reliable, just take time and combined effort, many hands and all that. It has been interesting to read all your comments, and I agree that this is a good and very helpful forum. Thank you all.