Geektonic review of HD200

[emveepee]

Thanks Brent, hopefully they can it is important and I now it is in TV in NZ, Norway and Brazil as a minimum. Syabas has been saying support is in the newer Sigma libraries and the HD200 uses newer libraries than the PCH.

Also another question about the review. Does the HD200 support DVR-MS or WTV format? Both are pretty important to many users. I was told the WD HD supports DVR-MS so the chip should be capable.

Martin

[Brent]

Originally Posted by emveepee

Does the HD200 support DVR-MS or WTV format? Both are pretty important to many users. I was told the WD HD supports DVR-MS so the chip should be capable.

Martin

I think so, but not positive. I'll try to snag a sample and try both of those out - if anyone else knows the answer to this please post - thanks!

[wayner]

When I tried playing dvr-ms files before the video played fine but no audio. However there has been at least one firmware upgrade for the HD-200 so they may play now.

edit - see this thread http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=38036. And it appears that this was a problem on the HD-100s as well.

[topperdude]

Brent,

Thanks for the review.

Under the section:

TV/PVR functionality
[snip].
I use the HDHomeRun Qam dual tuner and the Hauppauge HDHomeRun to get my HD channels.

Should that be Hauppauge HDPVR?

-Topper

[Brent]

Today is the last day to enter the SageTV HD Theater giveaway. We're giving away the HD Theater used in the GeekTonic Review (thanks SageTV team!). Get your entry in by the end of today - winner will be chosen and announced Saturday a.m.

SageTV HD Theater Giveaway

[Brent]

Engadget Reviews the SageTV HD Theater

Ben Drawbaugh posted his review of the SageTV HD Theater. Check it out here

Quotes from the review:

When we first heard about the new SageTV HD Theater, we thought it was just a smaller version of the HD100, but boy we're we wrong. The reason is simple, the new HD Theater from SageTV does everything we loved about the HD100 -- like extending HD from SageTV DVR software to any TV in the house -- but is now smaller and adds a great new twist: it will work as a standalone media streamer.

the thing that makes the HD Theater so attractive is the SageTV tie in. If you haven't been keeping up, SageTV is DVR software that might be the De Facto standard of DVR software for geeks.

Both the server and the client will run on just about every platform out there including; Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows Home Server -- something Windows Media Center fans would die for. And finally it is fully customizable and skinnable. To put it simply, it rocks.

He posted several negatives as well, but overall the review was quite positive. In the end he's staying with Media Center for the flashier UI, but I think this review will bring even more creditability to the SageTV platform. If you have a HD200 I encourage you to comment on the Engadget review and let them know how you like it.

[voidpt]

Nice review from Engadget. I find a some points in the Conclusion very interesting:

And overall we have nothing but good things to say about the new SageTV HD theater or SageTV in general. ... You see as much as we love the features and functionality of the SageTV hardware and software, we can't get past the looks. It is not that it is ugly, ... So while we really do appreciate everything that SageTV has to offer, we're just too superficial to make the switch in our own household.

I have been on the sideline watching discussions about the STV's in other threads. But I think this speaks volumes about this issue. I, myself, have no problems with the classic GUI. It does everything I need. A new smooth / flashy / bling (take your pick) STV would not bring any really new stuff to me. But it would bring an easier 'sell' to other persons. Looks together with functionality. I especially like the last statement from Engadget. Yup, we are shallow, some more than others. But nonetheless, it needs to be taken into account. Maybe SageTV are afraid they'll get too popular if they rework the GUI

I know about SageMC. Nothing but good to say about it. Just that I like to run the 'base' to be sure about even less compatibility problems.

[vexhold]

Now where can I sign up to win the review unit????

Congratulations to GeekTonic Reader "Clift" who won the GeekTonic SageTV HD Theater Giveaway

I take it you found out where to sign up.. You lucky bastage. Congrats.

And thanks again Brent for the Review and give-away.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by vexhold

I take it you found out where to sign up.. You lucky bastage. Congrats.

And thanks again Brent for the Review and give-away.

Yes,

Thanks Brent and the SageTV crew!
The HD200 was delivered yesterday morning and, luckily, I was busy at work so I didn't have to watch the clock till I got home.

When i got home my daughter wanted to play so the box sat there till she was about ready for bed. I thought I couldn't get to it but I just disconnected everthing from under the TV (HTPC, Cable Box, HD PVR) and moved them to the office (HDHomerun was already in there). Then i hooked up the HD200 to the network connection the HTPC was originally connected to and fired it up. At first it didn't find the server, but then i realized I didn;t have server turned on. So I VNC'ed into the HTPC, configured server and service mode and it was a go after that. The HD200 immediately used the SageMC BlueTwo theme I was running and even loaded up my dynamic menus. Very VERY easy to install. And it worked perfectly out of the box. I also ended up programming my MCE remote to work with it for the WAF - which I expect can only go up from here.

And I also must add: the video decoding is top notch. HD Homerun recordings were immediately apparently better to me. HD PVR recordings were about the same. But then again, we were only watching HGTV-HD, which isn't really "HD" anyway. Not like ESPN or HD Net, anyway.

The only down side is that the HTPC was also my Blu-Ray player. So now I am faced with a dilemma... Move the server to my old desktop that I don't use, and move the HTPC (It's a silverstone case) back to the living room only to be used as a BD Player, rip all my movies, or buy a stand alone Blu-ray player. Not sure which way I will go, but I'm leaning towards ripping. The only downside I can see to that is when I buy a new movie it will not be readily available to watch.

One last thing: I now have the ability to perform maintenance on the HTPC any time of day without interrupting TV viewing, which is great. And I can have comskip running all day as opposed to part of the day!

Once again thanks to Brent, Geektonic.com and SageTV for making an excellent product and for the giveaway!

[wayner]

Don't forget that when performing maintenance that your HTPC has to be up and running SageTV service in order to record or to stream to the HD-200. This is often a problem for me as I want to do something that requires restarting Sage but my daughter is watching her episodes of Dora the Explorer and won't be too happy if daddy cuts them off.

[PLUCKYHD]

I think ben's review regarding the interface is harsh.

He didn't spend time with MC interface nor did he use the new fanart feature. If I am going to review something I think add-ins like these need to be considered.

As a Vista and windows 7 media center user currently converting. The interface is harsh difference but after a week or so of tweaking I find the features far outweigh the lack of eye candy. With Sagemc and some good themes and customization you can take this thing farther then every possible with Media center.

To me the only flaws are the picture interface is lacking behind. As well as I wish there was a better view for the main video libray screen were all the movies are listed. I love the movie infor add-in but wish there was a way just to show allot of coverart for movies and no filters and the such on the side. I do miss media browser's interface.

my 2 cents

[Taddeusz]

I just ordered an HD200 to replace my HD100 in the livingroom. I'm moving my HD100 into the bedroom to replace a near useless for my needs MVP. Supposed to show up on Tuesday. I can't wait to pull it out of the box and hook it up!

I also can't wait till they begin adding Hulu support and such. I'm very excited about that. I hope they also have Netflix Play Now in the works.

[Brent]

Funny thing. I sold both of my HD100s over the past months and now have two HD200s, a HTPC client PC and a MediaMVP all in use.

The MediaMVP is one I was going to sell, but decided to use it in my "evil, mad, scientist lab" where my test PC is located. That way I can watch TV, Movies and listen to tunes while messing around with the Frankenstein test PC that has a dual-boot XP/Windows 7 OS and BeyondTV, Media Portal, GBPVR, XBMC, SageTV, Boxee and of course Windows 7 Media Center all on it. Yeah talk about a mess of conflicting programs on one PC......

The MediaMVP really does an awesome job for most of my needs in that room. It can't handle the HD-PVR h.264, but my heavy-duty server handles the HD transcoding to the MVP quite nicely.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Brent

The MediaMVP really does an awesome job for most of my needs in that room. It can't handle the HD-PVR h.264, but my heavy-duty server handles the HD transcoding to the MVP quite nicely.

Yea, that's the reason I'm replacing mine. A lot of my favorite recordings are from the HD-PVR. Then I have my BD rips which are in 1080p. Neither of which are capable of being transcoded by my server in real-time. I have been getting by with it since most of my recordings are from the HDHR. Since they introduced multi-threading in the transcoder I can now use high quality mode to watch 720p and 1080i MPEG2 recordings. HD H.264 is a no-go though.