Let's hear your opinions on the HD-200's

[rdefino]

I haven't ordered mine yet, waiting to hear what others think about it. Take the Poll and also let's hear your opinion about the HD-200.

Thanks

[Brent]

You'll likely find two groups of people with opinions on this.

1. If you use the HD200 primarily as a SageTV Extender - I expect you will find that this group should be extremely happy with the HD200 - especially compared to the HD100 at the same price. HD200 is faster, more memory, has active USB2 ports and as a bonus has stand-alone mode which adds some additional features.

2. If you use the HD200 primarily as a Stand-Alone Media Player - this group likely has different needs and probably more that are new to the SageTV user interface that is on the box. Plus SageTV is pretty new to the stand-alone "market" so they are still learning and updating the firmware for this functionality. My guess is, this group will be more mixed in their reaction although I really don't know for sure.

I'm in group 1 and can say I'm very happy with the HD200.

[TakeFlight]

I'm extremely satisfied with the HD200. So far I only use it with SageTV (not stand-alone). It does what it's supposed to do with no fuss and with the best picture quality I've gotten from SageTV ever.

[Apap]

I am very happy with my HD-200. I set it up in minutes and the picture quality is excellent and have had no problems with any file I've thrown at it. The UI is definitely faster than my HD-100.

[mayamaniac]

I'm lucky as with the HD-PVR, I have almost zero problems with the HD200. Not to say that the HD200 is flawless, it does have some flaws. Here are some of the pros and cons for me:

Pros:
- Navigation is a lot faster. Moving around the menus is smoother and noticeably more responsive than the HD100.
- USB support is really cool in standalone mode. Connect a USB hard drive and play your media files off it. Connect a USB media card reader and it will read all your pictures from the flash memory of your digital camera.
- Compact design. It's just slightly bigger than the MVP. More portable to pack if you decide to travel with it using placeshifter mode.
- HDMI cable included. The HD100 I bought didn't include one.

Cons:
- I hear a loud "pop" sound from the speakers when I turn on the unit. It doesn't happen all the time, but once a while. Not as annoying as the MVP's squeek, but it is similar. I use audio thru HDMI.
- It takes about 2 seconds for audio to come on after the video start playing on any show I watch, recorded or imported video.
- It takes a little bit too long to power up, roughly 15 seconds.

Originally Posted by Brent

You'll likely find two groups of people with opinions on this.

1. If you use the HD200 primarily as a SageTV Extender

2. If you use the HD200 primarily as a Stand-Alone Media Player

I'm in group 1 and can say I'm very happy with the HD200.

I still see the HD200 as an extender first and foremost. I see the standalone as an added feature, not the main purpose of the device. But that could change if they start adding true support for Hulu, Netflix, TVersity, etc.

Overall, I'm happy with it and will probably buy another one soon.

[tedson]

My wife has requested I move the 100 from the bedroom and replace the 200 in the den with it. She expects to turn the TV on and just have it work. So things like it randomly shuts off, the audio takes a while to kick in after changing channels, it takes a long time to start up compared to the 100, etc. make her dislike it. I think in the long run it will be a better unit when it is more stable, but for now it's getting a thumbs down from the wife. And honestly we could care less about the stand alone stuff.

[hockeyfan]

The *only* problem I've had is I can't play a ripped blu-ray of the dark knight, works fine using sagetvclient. Aside from that everything is a plus. The remote response is much better. That alone has vastly improved the WAF (gawd I actually used that acronym).

[rswoods]

The poll needs a fourth choice.

Of the one's who have it
1) Do you wish you waited for a more stable unit
2) Wish you didn't order it all together
3) Glad you ordered it and you like it
4) Glad you ordered it and you like it, but are patiently waiting for a firmware upgrade to fix the power on/off issue.

Every couple of days I have to powercycle it because the power button on the remote fails to turn it on. I contacted support and they say they are aware of this and it should be fixed in the next firmware upgrade.

Other than that, I like it a lot.

[Shield]

Originally Posted by Brent

You'll likely find two groups of people with opinions on this.

1. If you use the HD200 primarily as a SageTV Extender - I expect you will find that this group should be extremely happy with the HD200 - especially compared to the HD100 at the same price. HD200 is faster, more memory, has active USB2 ports and as a bonus has stand-alone mode which adds some additional features.

2. If you use the HD200 primarily as a Stand-Alone Media Player - this group likely has different needs and probably more that are new to the SageTV user interface that is on the box. Plus SageTV is pretty new to the stand-alone "market" so they are still learning and updating the firmware for this functionality. My guess is, this group will be more mixed in their reaction although I really don't know for sure.

I'm in group 1 and can say I'm very happy with the HD200.

Or, a 3rd group; long time Sage users who are getting their first extender and hate the fact it doesn't decode DTS or play back their non-perfect mkv files (unlike the full client)....

[Olias]

As a video player it's great, as a music device for playing back flac ripped CDs, it sucks.
The HD200 has the same problems as the HD100 when playing flac files; listen to a long enough playlist and the unit locks up. Rewind or fast forward within a song, the unit locks up.
Support is aware of the situation, but I guess they are busy tweaking the video side of things and not spending any time on the audio side.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Shield

Or, a 3rd group; long time Sage users who are getting their first extender and hate the fact it doesn't decode DTS or play back their non-perfect mkv files (unlike the full client)....

do you have any way you could share an example of a file or files like this that aren't working on the HD200 for me? I'm just curious about something...

[Shield]

Originally Posted by Brent

do you have any way you could share an example of a file or files like this that aren't working on the HD200 for me? I'm just curious about something...

I had a bunch last week, but fixed them all by re-encoding. The most surprising one was the home movie footage that I shot that locked up the extender. This was a HDV mpg file. I redid it and it's fine now. If I come across something again I'll let you know. The DTS thing is a bummer - I can have my sound card decode DTS in the full Sage client; I don't want to have to have a receiver at every TV that has an extender. Oh well, only a handful of movies I have are using DTS. There's an application called "Popcorn Movie converter" that I'm using to re-encode these back to AC3 and it's free.

[jasmithvr6]

First time Media Extender buyer, long-time Sage user. After hooking up the HD200 last night I'm pleased with the performance thus far. It's responsive and supports 1080p resolution. HD programming PQ is exceptional and silky smooth. Configuration was a breeze and I was up and running in about an hour. Being this is my first media extender, I have a few gripes:

1. Interface video resolution is set at 1080p and is crystal clear, however when viewing Program Guide, the channel lineup resolution/font is no where near that of the main menu. Almost looks like it is being pulled directly from Sage Server (which it may very well be...not sure). In fact it looks very primative IMHO. Not sure what is driving this, but something I will need to research further.

2. To continue on the PQ theme, standard digital PQ (nonHD) is less than desirable. Another work in process. But to be fair, this may have more to do with the tuner card than the HD200 itself. I'm running dual HVR-1600's.

3. While the remote control provides full functionality of Sage, it's cheaply made and poorly designed. I would strongly consider picking up another remote. I already ordered a Harmony 550 to improve WAF.

Overall I'm happy with the unit so far. I plan on running some stress tests this weekend before going live with the family.

[TexasTruck]

I love it! I have an HD100 which is used a lot. Solid unit, except for the HD aspects. I knew (hoped is more like it) Sage would develop a unit that is more reliable for playing HD than the HD100, introducing the HD200! I simply swapped out the HD100 with the HD200 the day it arrived, and aside from the AC3 issue (please fix this!), DVDs and now Bluray play perfectly. I'm on the fence with the UI performance increase, it seems the same to me, but I never complained about it using the HD100 either, meh..... I don't use the standalone mode, mainly because I couldn't get my Bluray movies to play, they still stuttered like the HD100. I switch to server mode (used the same client license the HD100 used) and walla, Bluray worked out of the box! I don't use the TV recording function (DVR) except for recording shows we're going to miss (a fancy VCR). But the shows I do record, I see the same behavior and functionality as the HD100 shows.

Anyway, like any new product there will be problems and with my experiance with SageTV the last year and half, they fix issues - period.

If I only had another HD TV, I'd buy another.

[tedson]

Since moving the HD200 into the bedroom, I have installed the beta firmware on it. Normally, I avoid betas. It has made a big difference in the number of random shutdowns and lockups.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by jasmithvr6

3. While the remote control provides full functionality of Sage, it's cheaply made and poorly designed. I would strongly consider picking up another remote. I already ordered a Harmony 550 to improve WAF.

You're right but I have Harmony remotes with all of my TVs that have more than one source so I have zero interest in paying $1 more for a better remote. In fact I would even suggest that Sage not include any cables and cut the price by $10-$20 dollars. I buy my cables pretty cheaply on monoprice.com and I sure don't need another red-white-yellow RCA cable to add to my collection. And HDMI is the most expensive of the cables and I am not using it as the HDMI inputs are full on my main HT and in the other two setups my receiver (or TV) doesn't have HDMI inputs. The cables that I needed, component and optical audio, are the only ones not included.

[Para]

The HD200 is well worth the money in my opinion. 1080P, silent, etc. I moved my pc out of the living room and now have a truly silent SAGE system feeding my Samsung 52". The responsiveness of the interface is sometimes a little slower than it was with my pc doing the job but the difference is minor. Generally, it is when the HD200 is downloading info from the server (like the video recording list, etc).

Thanks SAGE!