Media extender extened right into toilet

[perry59]

Just got the "SAGE" media extender. The "SAGE" media extender does all kinds of wonderful things. The "SAGE" media extender is easy to setup. The "SAGE" media extender works with any modern computer.
Note the emphasis on SAGE here, just like in there web ad. No where do I say "hauppage". So, its not hard to imagine why I was pissed when I opened the box and found a Hauppage. The ad on the Sage website is not merely misleading. Its a downright lie. Note how they even carefully removed the Hauppage logo from the picture of the unit. Is this the act of a reputable company?
Not like I havent been lied to before, probably could have let it go at that.
I decided to give it a try anyway. To add injury to insult the thing would not even work (the easy setup part). There were zero instructions from Sage and the Hauppage manual is just about worthless. So, I hit the forums and find that just about everyone has had propblems with this thing.
Next day, went home with a cat5 cable and wired it right into my router (the extra 50 bucks for wireless just went down the drain) and it worked, sort of.
The only part that works decently are dvd's ripped to the hard drive. They look pretty good, just cant to any chapter skipping. Mpg1 movies on the hard drive hardly work at all. Most of them come up with a "filesystem error" of sorts. Although Most of them will play off the server machine.
Music playists play one or two songs and stop. I dont even think I'll attempt to go wireless if the wired performance is this bad. I also hear, in here, that sage will not refund money to its customers. What a brilliant policy, that should make a lot of people happy.
Needless to say, I'm pretty disappointed with this thing. Its as about as impressive as Britney Spears last performance.

[dvd_maniac]

Although I understand your pain, since I was originally dissapointed with the MVP Extender as well, these forums and the people in it as well as Sage Support are wonderful in helping you troubleshoot any and all problems.

The inherent problem with PC based applications is that they can not account and test for every possible combination of hardware and software. Sage is no different....

If you want to spend a little time in troubleshooting your issues on this forum or with support I'm 99% sure that your issue will be resolved in a reasonable amount of time.
If however you are the type that just wants to plug something in and have everything work 100% all the time...then a PVR might not be the answer for you (IMHO)

As far as the Sage MVP actually being a Hauppauge? I'm sure they have Hauppauges permission to OEM their product.
The MVP is Hauppauge hardware but is modified by Sage and only supported by Sage. Hauppauge would hate it if they had to receive support calls/emails to try to fix something that has been modified by someone else, wouldn't you agree to that?

[GbrNole]

wireless extenders just don't work it's simple as that but my wired mvp's have been flawless.

the SD extenders always have been MVP's and it's pretty obvious regardless of the logo. the new HD extenders are specific to sage though.

[autoboy]

One peek into the forums would have alerted you to the fact that the wireless extenders do not work wirelessly. However, mine has been working fine wired. Sage should remove the wireless from their store.

[Fluffdaddy]

Where's my popcorn?




This is going to be good

[VikingCrown]

Is this enough?

[mdnttoker]

lol...yum, popcorn.

Yeah, the hauppauge MVP's work wirelessly just fine, as long as you don't use the native MVP wireless chip.

Pick up a wireless bridge (I like the modded wrt54g's), and the MVP will work flawlessly.

Also, note that the MVP outputs some real nice SD tv (better than a computer video card), but you may want to invest in the new HD extender for future use...

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by perry59

No where do I say "hauppage".

I refer you to Appendix M of the SageTV manual, where the words "Hauppauge MediaMVP" appear in big bold letters, and all the setup instructions talk in terms of the MVP. Users of this forum routinely use the terms Extender and MVP interchangeably. So if this came as a surprise to you, it's not because of some deliberate campaign to mislead you.

Originally Posted by perry59

There were zero instructions from Sage and the Hauppage manual is just about worthless.

Again, see Appendix M. When I bought my MVP, I got an email from Sage directing me to read that appendix. It's been a while but I'm pretty sure the box also contained a sheet of paper with similar directions.

Since you won't be installing the Hauppauge software (per Appendix M), you won't need the Hauppauge manual.

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

The MVP is Hauppauge hardware but is modified by Sage and only supported by Sage.

The MVP hardware has not been modified by Sage. Sage provides software that runs on the MVP in place of the Hauppauge software, and that's why you should seek support from Sage in case of problems.

[perry59]

Originally Posted by autoboy

One peek into the forums would have alerted you to the fact that the wireless extenders do not work wirelessly. However, mine has been working fine wired. Sage should remove the wireless from their store.

True, but I usually dont scour the forums until a problem arises.

What really bugs me about this, is the way this device is hyped on the sage website. It states very specifically, numerous times, that this is a sage extender. This implies that it is a device made by sage and optimized for their software. It also implies (implicitly and explicitly) that it will then be "easy" to set up. None of this is true. If they had stated on the websites ad that the device was actually the Hauppage extender, then this would all be moot and I would not be angry with sage. Again, why did they remove the Hauppage logo from their picture?? It still seems highly misleading at best.
Do we really need to get back to the old "well, it depends on the meaning of 'is' " debate.
What of the people who bought an extender, along with their initial sage purchase, and thus did not read appendix X in the manual?

I dont mind Sage using or rebranding someone else's hardware, why re-invent the wheel. Thats perfectly ok, they should just make that fact CLEAR.

All that being said, I'd like to forget being mislead.
Now what bugs me is the performance of this thing.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by perry59

Again, why did they remove the Hauppage logo from their picture??

If I had to guess, I'd guess that Hauppauge lawyers had something to do with it, given that Sage is selling the box for "off-label" use (running Sage software instead of Hauppauge software).

[perry59]

Well, I'm done with my venting. No sense beating a dead horse.
My priority now getting it to work acceptably. Most people ended up hard-wiring it, as I have, then report it works pretty well.

So why do 90% of my mpg1's not play at all, why does music playlists play one or two songs and quit, why can't it navigate chapter points in dvd's?
Time to start scouring the forum again...

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by perry59

True, but I usually dont scour the forums until a problem arises.

What really bugs me about this, is the way this device is hyped on the sage website. It states very specifically, numerous times, that this is a sage extender. This implies that it is a device made by sage and optimized for their software. It also implies (implicitly and explicitly) that it will then be "easy" to set up.

Lots of companies do this, re-brand a product and call it their own. This is not unusual. I have no idea why they removed the logo in the pictures though. They used to have the SageTV logo there, now its just blank. I agree, they should leave the Hauppauge logo there since the actual shipped product has it.

Have you contacted SageTV? Ask if you could exchange for the wire version and get the difference in price back.

Concerning wireless, I wouldn't blame this on SageTV. Almost every wireless device I use have some sort of quirks in them. They are fine for most usage, but streaming video isn't one of them. The wire MVP works great for me. It plays most of the files I threw at it, from divx, Xvid, mpeg, quicktime, etc.

[toricred]

Frequently the performance problems with the extender are caused by the version of Java on the server. Make sure it is version 1.6 and you should see an improvement in responsiveness.

[paulbeers]

Some people have actually gotten the wireless to work. Granted I use all wired, so I have no experience but there are some cases where it works. Unfortunately wireless networking is just not reliable enough for streaming video. Even a basic packet drop will cause the video to skip.

And I am still trying to figure out what is the issue with it being made by Hauppauge. Do you really think the Sage HD Extender is being made by Sage? I am sure its manufactured by someone else and Sage is just throwing their name on it.

[evilpenguin]

It sounds like Sage was much more involved in the creation of the HDextender. Either they have their own internal hardware team now (doubtful) or they designed the requirements and contracted it out.

In other words, with the MVP Sage took a tool that already existed and figured out a new way to use it vs with the HDextender Sage invented a completely new tool to do exactly what they wanted.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by perry59

So why do 90% of my mpg1's not play at all, why does music playlists play one or two songs and quit, why can't it navigate chapter points in dvd's?
Time to start scouring the forum again...

I maybe wrong but I thought the MVP was only capable of playing MPG-2 Video and MP3 audio files without transcoding!

[perry59]

I certainly do appreciate folks trying to help out here, and if that doesnt work at least I know there are people who sympathize with my plight!
I know that wireless network devices are not exactly simple to set up, but I did get my home network set up, so I figured I could do this thing.
True, streaming video over the net does push the limits but since it plays ripped dvd's ok (the only thing it does ok) I dont see why it has such a problem with all my music videos which are mostly mpg1&2. After all, a dvd movie is essentially an mpg2 file wrapped up in a VOB as far as I know.
Music should play easily, which it does, for one or two songs.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I maybe wrong but I thought the MVP was only capable of playing MPG-2 Video and MP3 audio files without transcoding!

I forget starting what version, maybe v5, the server can transcode most popular video formats to the MVP. It can even transcode HD to the MVP. How well this works depends on the speed of your server. For SD, I think a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz and up is needed. For HD transcoding, you need a lot more, like a quad-core.

As for Perry59's problem, he needs to go into more details or attach a sample mpeg file that won't play. But his best bet is to contact tech support. MY MVP does not exhibit any of those problems.

[perry59]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

And I am still trying to figure out what is the issue with it being made by Hauppauge. Do you really think the Sage HD Extender is being made by Sage? I am sure its manufactured by someone else and Sage is just throwing their name on it.

I dont care about it being made by Hauppage, thats not the point and I dont have any problems with Hauppage.

No, I did not expect sage to actually fabricate this thing.
Where I work, we build industrial scanning/controls. Fairly sophisticated stuff and very, very expensive. Do we create every single bit? Of course not, we dont have multi-axis milling machines, plasma cutters, etc in our fab shop. We farm that out to specialized fabricators. However, these people DO fabricate those items to our standards & specs or they must redo the work and eat the cost.

[perry59]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I maybe wrong but I thought the MVP was only capable of playing MPG-2 Video and MP3 audio files without transcoding!

Are not dvd's essentially mpg2's? These play just fine, yet my music vids, funny commercials etc are in both mpg1 and 2 formats and it croaks on both. Thats whats so strange. Much of my music is in wma lossless as opposed to mp3, but they play well to if picked singly. When they are in a playlist it just stops after a song or two.
I could post a short mpg here and see if others can play it ok, and I have a hunch they would play it ok...
I dont have a top of the line quad-core as a server, but my Dell M60 isnt to shabby either. Im running Sage 6.2 and the latest java.