Moving to SageTV

[toonz]

Hey everyone,

A bit of background: I'm currently running Vista Media Centre and the WAF is very high. Lately however I've been wanting to setup a 2nd TV and it just isn't a clean solution.
I'm using MediaBrowser for all my Movie/TV archive needs and this is a fantastic project. Very impressive indeed. However in regards to having a central database or shared TV tuners so I don't need tuners at each TV, VMC is really not good.


So I'm looking for a solution that is easily expandable, has shared tuners so they can be cabled to a single location in the house, has "watched" status for the shows that is shared amongst all locations.


Will SageTV handle my needs? The quick look I've had says it will, my main concern is I can't seem to find any nice interface for handling our movie/tv archive. Currently over 300 movies and over 40 different tv series.


Are there any good guides or anything out there? It seems very difficult hunting through the forums to find the best setups/guides/plugins etc.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by toonz

Hey everyone,

A bit of background: I'm currently running Vista Media Centre and the WAF is very high. Lately however I've been wanting to setup a 2nd TV and it just isn't a clean solution.
I'm using MediaBrowser for all my Movie/TV archive needs and this is a fantastic project. Very impressive indeed. However in regards to having a central database or shared TV tuners so I don't need tuners at each TV, VMC is really not good.


So I'm looking for a solution that is easily expandable, has shared tuners so they can be cabled to a single location in the house, has "watched" status for the shows that is shared amongst all locations.


Will SageTV handle my needs? The quick look I've had says it will, my main concern is I can't seem to find any nice interface for handling our movie/tv archive. Currently over 300 movies and over 40 different tv series.


Are there any good guides or anything out there? It seems very difficult hunting through the forums to find the best setups/guides/plugins etc.

From a server / client standpoint Sage excels at that. I have my server tucked away in my basement and use Media Extenders throughout my house (but you can also use full clients).

As far as good interfaces for movie collections, I will let someone else chime in with that one. My wife and I just use the normal Sage interface mainly because it is what she is used to and we don't want to upset the WAF.

[matt91]

As far as good interfaces for movie collections, I will let someone else chime in with that one.

See if any of the UI skins shown here look like they'd meet your needs. They are all for the "SageMC" replacement UI. There is also a SageMC movie wall (here) that I use.

[sic0048]

SageTV also takes the whole idea of media extenders that MS tried to make work with MCE and actually has a great working product.

So if you are just starting to look at SageTV, I would highly recommend that you look at the HD Theater high definition extender for the devices needed at each TV. Then you can have a single computer running as the Sage server anywhere else. It will record all the TV shows you want as well as house other media such as ripped DVD, music, pictures, videos, etc. You'll use the extender to actually play any of that material. This takes the workload off the server. You also don't have any reliability issues with the extenders like you might have with a HTPC.

If the stock interface doesn't do it for you, you can always try the SageMC interfaces as suggested. I think in the end, you can find an interface that pretty closely matches your MCE experience right now. I'm sure that would help with the WAF.

[toonz]

The main concern I've currently got with SageTV is the TV Library / Movie Library functionality.

All the TV setup looks awesome, its mainly the handling of watched/unwatched items and the full TV banners/fanart etc from thetvdb. The better half really loves having it look flashy as well as being functional.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by toonz

The main concern I've currently got with SageTV is the TV Library / Movie Library functionality.

All the TV setup looks awesome, its mainly the handling of watched/unwatched items and the full TV banners/fanart etc from thetvdb. The better half really loves having it look flashy as well as being functional.

SageMC has built-in fanart support. To get auto thetvdb support and movie metadata support there is an addon you install, then any media you add after that automatically adds the metada. Setting it up takes a bit of work, but it works very well - I use it and love it.

[toonz]

Originally Posted by Brent

SageMC has built-in fanart support. To get auto thetvdb support and movie metadata support there is an addon you install, then any media you add after that automatically adds the metada. Setting it up takes a bit of work, but it works very well - I use it and love it.

What's the addon called? I don't mind the setup work involved to make it work properly. That's part of the htpc hobby.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by toonz

The main concern I've currently got with SageTV is the TV Library / Movie Library functionality.

All the TV setup looks awesome, its mainly the handling of watched/unwatched items and the full TV banners/fanart etc from thetvdb. The better half really loves having it look flashy as well as being functional.

Take a look at the my Movie Wall Matt pointed you to or in my signature.

Especially the new screenshots. I came from Media Browser as did you and loved it and it was my inspiration for most of my work. It is not where media browser is but it is getting better and I intend to keep working on it.

[toonz]

I checked out the Movie Wall addin ... I really need time to sit and play with this. I just have no idea how to get it all functioning with fanart and genres etc.

The other one - it looks like there's some really good 'recorded tv' addins for tv show info and fanart for tv shows, how do I use something for my TV show archive? Not sagetv recorded stuff, just downloaded stuff?

I remember why I never went to Sage before - I just got royally confused trying to setup my video library. In VMC, I currently user Media Browser with a start screen showing Documentaries/Animation/Movies/TV Series.
From there, you go in and get the banner type views for Doco's, Animation and TV Series with full fanart and information. For Movies I user DVD covers and fanart and information.
I can't seem to find a way to get something similar to this, and I'm very confused about the setup for metadata etc. Are there any guides for a how to set it all up? Or is it just from time spent stuffing around and reading heaps and heaps of forum entries?

[PLUCKYHD]

Go to BMI batch medadate importet there is a good guide download that and import into the latest beta version of sagemc.

Once setup to auto download all the fanart fetching will be automatically downloaded for all your movies/tv shows

My wall uses that information to display the covers automatically.