Considering migration from mythtv... any missing features?

[bbqninja]

I am intrigued by the possibility of moving to sagetv from myth for a few reasons:

-multiplatform support (myth technically supports OSX, but it's not a primary platform, and windows support is still pre pre pre alpha)
***-HD200 extender thingie... keeps me from having a linux box in each room
-professional support. No random changing of protocols without a set direction for API/etc
-better/faster new media support (ffmpeg merges in myth are far and few between unless you want to run the dev version)

I LOVE myth, but eventually all the time spent tinkering instead of using finally comes to a head.


So, what will I miss if I jump ship? If any of this is FAQ (I've searched/read for about 2 weeks before posting this to try to avoid this...) please feel free to slap me, and include a link so i can RTFM
-I know there's no (default) commercial skip, but honestly here in Australia commercial skip works so poorly (and 95% of what I watch is on the commercial free ABC).
-Is there advanced weighting options like in mythtv? Where you can say "this program is weight +5" and "channel X is weight -3" etc?
-What about expiration of programs? FIFO, or does weighting apply here?
-(this seems like a FAQ but I can't find it)Is there a web interface for scheduling?
-How about an iphone interface for the same thing?

Finally:
My BIG concern (and what I searched the forums for originally) is multirec support. Does sagetv support recording multiple recordings from the same multiplex on DVB? 99% of the time my use for this is overlapping recordings.

If it supports this, does it support it on the DVB HDHR?

If it doesn't, is it planned for the (near?) future? It is a killer feature of myth (and a few other PVRs) and would be something that keeps me from even trialing sage as I can't afford (or physically put into my server) 3-4 more tuner cards to cater for overlaps and ABC1/ABC2.

Is there anything else I've missed that isn't feature matched in sage?

[lotusvball]

One feature that I had when using an earlier ver. of MythTV was Picture-in-Picture. Sage does not have this. It still didn't keep me from moving to Sage, but I wish Sage had it.

[himay]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that MythTV can see local uPNP servers and stream content from them (i.e., it's possible to view content from MediaMall's PlayOn via MythTV).

I don't believe this is possible from the SageTV software, unless you've purchased the HD200 hardware, which can see uPNP servers in it's "standalone mode" only.

I'm not a MythTV guy, but having tried to shoehorn Hulu into my basic SageTV Client installation with little to no success, I'd say this is a feature to strongly consider before abandoning MythTV.

[bbqninja]

Originally Posted by himay

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that MythTV can see local uPNP servers and stream content from them (i.e., it's possible to view content from MediaMall's PlayOn via MythTV).

Myth CANNOT do this. The backend DOES act as a upnp SERVER, giving any upnp client to ability to act as a streaming frontend, but this is something i've wanted from mythfrontend for a while that it doesn't do. So a negative mark for both products

I'm not a MythTV guy, but having tried to shoehorn Hulu into my basic SageTV Client installation with little to no success, I'd say this is a feature to strongly consider before abandoning MythTV.

I'm in Australia, thus no Hulu to consider.

@lotusvball:
I forgot about PIP as I've never used it! I NEVER watch livetv apart from 3-4 sporting events a year, and myth hasn't supported PIP for recorded tv in a while.

[aflat]

Comskip isn't included, but it's dead simple to add.
I don't use show favorites, so you may be able to weigh shows. You can assign weight to tuners though, which can come in handy.

There is a web interface,
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8426 in combination with the webserver, you could use the iphone as well.

There is some MultiRec functionality, but I've never used it so I can't vouch for it
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30442

[bbqninja]

Originally Posted by aflat

Comskip isn't included, but it's dead simple to add.
I don't use show favorites, so you may be able to weigh shows. You can assign weight to tuners though, which can come in handy.

There is a web interface,
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8426 in combination with the webserver, you could use the iphone as well.

Awesome, thanks. This looks good

There is some MultiRec functionality, but I've never used it so I can't vouch for it
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30442

I'm not sure I understand the point of this thing... from reading the documentation it DOESN'T support multirec It simply uses this other program to record from dvb... doesn't sagetv natively support DVB?

Or does this just (really) add the ability to record DVB-S with a CI?

[dinki]

Originally Posted by bbqninja

-Is there advanced weighting options like in mythtv? Where you can say "this program is weight +5" and "channel X is weight -3" etc?

It's been a couple years since I've run Mythtv, but similar functionality is built into SageTv for programming priority. IIRC, the weight was used to determine which program to record if two or more programs were to be recorded at the same time and an equal amount of tuners were not available. SageTv allows you to create a favorites list which allows you to prioritize the programs in order of importance. I do not think that you can prioritize channels but you can assign a specific channel to specific recordings.

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by bbqninja

I forgot about PIP as I've never used it! I NEVER watch livetv apart from 3-4 sporting events a year, and myth hasn't supported PIP for recorded tv in a while.

I still watch live tv when it comes to sporting events like football or baseball. It would be nice since I have 6 turners to be able to have 6 games up at once and be able to switch the sound between them. Not a necessity, but nice.