Comparing Sage to Snapstream/Beyond TV?

[mlbdude]

I think Cayars request for deletion is fine for his needs. He accesses the file system extensively with his setup with other applications. Sage designed its system to act like a Tivo (more of a closed system) and for their clients only. It will make it odd of other stuff I am sure.

[Opus4]

When I tell it to delete a file from the info screen on the server, the file is deleted immediately from my disk. It only seems to be at the end of a recording, when you may be asked if Sage can delete the file, where the file isn't immediately deleted. Anyway... that's my experience. Then there's the usual: your mileage may vary.

- Andy

[falchulk]

Opus4, thats very strange. I have had sage installed on 3 diffrent systems and from 1.3 to 1.4.1, its never worked like that for me. I have not really paid attention to it in 2.0 so it may work diffrent now.

[Opus4]

In 1.4, I could only delete the file from within SageTV & have it deleted from the disk -- usually, if not always. If I did it within SageTVClient, it would remove it from the list, but never from the disk. In v2, I can delete it from the disk within either server or client.

Now, those live TV snippets never did get removed, since I never exited SageTV & I never let the drive get full. I ended up periodically looking for the small files & removing them via Windows Explorer. I think v2 is the same in this regard... but I've had to exit it a lot lately, so it hasn't been a problem.

- Andy

[Cayars]

Just to clarify. I like SageTV enough that I purchased it with SageRecord and the Client(s). I have it running in my network. However, I have 4 major issues that keep it from being my "main" machine connected to the Living Room TV.

1) The wife and kids don't like the look of it SageTV 1.4 compared with BTV (understandable). The Look and Feel won't be an issue with 2.0. Even without "skinning" 2.0, it is much improved. So I consider this problem as in the pipeline and soon enough will be "fixed".

2) The delete function . Yes I know that SageTV does delete shows from the hard drive when it needs to. However, if you have a problem and need to re-install SageTV and then add your video collection back into the libraries it's huge again with all the shows you "already deleted".

The real problem for me (and probably not a lot of other people) is that I use multiple applications (BTV, SageTV, Custom Developed, etc..) and they all point to the same libraries. So as an example if I delete the show while in BTV it is removed from the disk and SageTV doesn't show it anymore (good thing). However, if I delete the show in SageTV it really isn't removed from disk and will still show in all the other applications (not good).

I've got about 3.5 Terabytes of video files and it's a killer! I'd also prefer that when files are manually deleted they actually be deleted so that disk compression utilities can do there thing. I also wouldn't be backing up as much storage space (yes I do back up EVERYTHING). It would make general house cleaning easier to do.

To me this is really a trivial request to actually have SageTV remove the file from disk. This shouldn't be very hard to do as it's "pure code" with no GUI development involved so it should be like an hour "fix" if that. Maybe I over simplified it but it can't be that hard to do.

3) This one might be more taxing of the developer but I think is worth doing. I'd really like to see 3 folders/directories used instead of the one for manual recordings, Live TV/TimeShift and intelligent recordings.

I could live with intelligent records and manual records being in the same directory as I can choose to disable intelligent recordings. So really what I'm asking is for Live TV to be moved to it's own folder.

4) I'd like to see folder navigation in the user interface. I'm not alone on this and many others have asked for it so I haven't been verbal about it as I know it's on the horizon.

With this being said, I actually find SageTV to be closer to my "perfect" PVR application then BTV. If you think I ask for a lot here, you should see my requests in the BTV beta forum. <-- not pretty

While I'm not a fan of JAVA and would prefer to work in the NET framework I can handle JAVA just fine. So when Sage Studio is release I might be able to take care of any issues I have myself.

Face it, the only way to get some of these issues "fixed" is by being verbal about them. I think I keep my self in check on these issues and don't excessively knock SageTV compared to BTV. I just express "my" dislikes. Obviously, my "likes" far outweigh my "dislikes" with SageTV or I wouldn't be here.

Enough rambling for one day,

Carlo

[ErsatzTom]

My comments on deletions are in this thread. Additionally, I think a system for Live TV similar to the one for Deleted Shows would work too. Put them in a separate directory, and then have a list of Live TV shows (or partial shows) that gives us the option of viewing them, moving them into the Sage Recordings or move them to the library.

Again, just random thoughts... not anything pressing.

t

[Myth2Sage]

Originally posted by krwren
For me it was a simple choice. I have a tivo that I was very happy with. I switched for the multi tunner support. Beyond promises to support two cards in the future, but that is just not enough. For my needs I need 3 cards, maybe 4. I tried Myth for this but it just required to much work and upgrades and did not come with a good program guide (Screen scrapper that had to be fixed everytime they changed the website).

Wren

Krwren,

You sound just like me. For me, the issue has always been multi-tuner/STB support. I bailed from Myth because, as much as I loved tinkering with it and playing with it, it never got "done". Myth is an on-going hobby. It's like a Web Site. Never truly "finished".

That is why I am so frustrated with Sage at this point. It's beginning to feel a lot like Myth. I set it up, configure til I am blue in the face and it never get's to the point to where it is "done" and ready to be deployed.

That's why I am hoping we can get some black & white firm documention that specifically addresses the Multi Tuner Card/STB issue.


M2S

[justme]

Hi M2S,

That is why I am so frustrated with Sage at this point. It's beginning to feel a lot like Myth. I set it up, configure til I am blue in the face and it never get's to the point to where it is "done" and ready to be deployed.

With all due respect could part of this current feeling be because you are using the Sage2 beta? Which by it's very nature is undone.

That's why I am hoping we can get some black & white firm documention that specifically addresses the Multi Tuner Card/STB issue.

Unfortunately I don't think you'll see much documentation coming from Frey until the Sage2 beta goes to at least Release Candidate status. There would be little point in making docs for a soon to be outdated version(1.4.10) and by the same token Docs for the evolving Sage2 UI could be quickly made nearly useless. Of course then there's the issue of how the developers should spend their time. Personally I'd like to see it all put into Sage2's debugging/feature growth, but I can certianly understand why others would want different.

I am honestly not trying to be smart. I've been following your progress with your setup for a while. I was very glad to see you post that you had your multituner, multiSTB system up and working. Thats if I read your post(I think it was last night) correctly. I certianly hope it's not giving you problems again. Anyway I was going to ask you in that other thread if you would contribute your knowledge to the SageTV FAQ. Since multituner/STB situations are so complex your experience could really be of use to others.

I notice you've been helping many others on this site already. This would be another chance to share your knowledge. Anyway please don't take this as an attack/confrontation. It's soo hard to convey emotions/tone with just words. Best of luck with your setup.

[wheine]

I have had better luck with SageTV than BeyondTV. I downloaded both programs and tried each of them for a week. The Snapstream product locked my computer up a few times and SageTV ran flawlessly. I also liked the picture quality of SageTV over Beyond TV. I ended up purchasing the Frey Sage TV product.