Online Services or On Demand?

[Brent]

Last night I was watching a few podcasts from the SageTV "Online Services" menu and my wife walked in the room and said "how did you get that?" I told her - hey, that's under "online services" on the main menu and has been there since we've used SageTV. She started browsing what was in there and realized it wasn't just a bunch of geeky podcasts and there were movie reviews, Home & Garden etc etc.

Bottom line she said, so this is like Video On-Demand right? She said, well it should be called On-Demand or something more descriptive because she thought it was just a collection of silly YouTube videos.

What do you guys think? Would it make any difference to change the function name from "online services" to "On-Demand" or something more common?

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by Brent

Last night I was watching a few podcasts from the SageTV "Online Services" menu and my wife walked in the room and said "how did you get that?" I told her - hey, that's under "online services" on the main menu and has been there since we've used SageTV. She started browsing what was in there and realized it wasn't just a bunch of geeky podcasts and there were movie reviews, Home & Garden etc etc.

Bottom line she said, so this is like Video On-Demand right? She said, well it should be called On-Demand or something more descriptive because she thought it was just a collection of silly YouTube videos.

What do you guys think? Would it make any difference to change the function name from "online services" to "On-Demand" or something more common?

I've long been an advocate for arranging content within Sage based not on origin but on usage; I'd be even more radical than that, and make sure that all video (TV, online videos, and pre-recorded videos) were arranged closed together.

However, On-Demand already has a meaning to many cable users, and I'd be afraid that people might be confused.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

I've long been an advocate for arranging content within Sage based not on origin but on usage; I'd be even more radical than that, and make sure that all video (TV, online videos, and pre-recorded videos) were arranged closed together.

Nooooo!!!!

[Brent]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

make sure that all video (TV, online videos, and pre-recorded videos) were arranged closed together.

I'd be more for that if the online content included something Hulu-like or Netflix-like. But as it stands now I prefer it to be more separate. Just seems like the name "online" isn't quite right but that's probably just me.

[kurt711]

I had the same issue since it was buried under more along with settings, no one went there. if my gf wanted to watch a podcast, she would download it on PC, put it on server under videos and watch it from there. I gotta give it to her for that but I made it little easier by putting Podcasts link on main menu. I also created a new category for Fav Podcasts and put the ones we watch regularly in the Fav Podcasts category. Makes it easier to get to instead of hunting through all only to find alot of broken or non updating podcasts. I would push for cleaning out the links of shows that are dead.

The name thing is personal preference I think, we know podcasts so I went with that but you can edit the Main Menu to add On-Demand linking to Online Services.

Someday we will get to universal videos, combining hulu/netflix/recordedtv/videos/archivedtv into content based view instead of location based. Man can dream right!

[GKusnick]

Seems to me that with dynamic menus you can call it whatever you want on your system. If you and your wife agree that it should be called "On Demand", does it really matter what the rest of us think?

Originally Posted by sainswor99

I've long been an advocate for arranging content within Sage based not on origin but on usage; I'd be even more radical than that, and make sure that all video (TV, online videos, and pre-recorded videos) were arranged closed together.

I know you've been pushing this for a while, but to me this always seemed rather like gathering up all the books in the house -- cookbooks, dictionaries, physics textbooks, romance novels, computer manuals, Harry Potter, etc. -- and shelving them all together in one room, just because they're all made of ink on paper.

Personally I would much rather have separate browsing categories for episodic TV shows, movies, workout videos, home video of the kids' school play, and so on. The fact that they all happen to be video is (in my opinion) just a trivial coincidence, not some grand organizing principle.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

If you and your wife agree that it should be called "On Demand", does it really matter what the rest of us think?

Of course - because we care

You're correct of course - I can name it whatever the heck I want. Just wondering about others opinions on the topic.

[kurt711]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I know you've been pushing this for a while, but to me this always seemed rather like gathering up all the books in the house -- cookbooks, dictionaries, physics textbooks, romance novels, computer manuals, Harry Potter, etc. -- and shelving them all together in one room, just because they're all made of ink on paper.

Personally I would much rather have separate browsing categories for episodic TV shows, movies, workout videos, home video of the kids' school play, and so on. The fact that they all happen to be video is (in my opinion) just a trivial coincidence, not some grand organizing principle.

Greg, I know this is offtopic from Bren't question but you gave an awesome analogy so I had to jump on it. I agree lumping all videos together is a bad idea. What I would like is to Movies no matter where they are, recordedtv/videos folder/movies folder to show up under Movies. Same with TV shows, no matter which folder it is in, they show up all together. To tie in your analogy, it would be like seeing all technical books in one place even if they are in different rooms of the house physically.

This would atleast be one stop closer what I referred to as universal video browsing, bringing in online sources in future when they are available. Complete series of shows, season 1 and 2 from netflix view now, season 3 from ripped dvd, season 4 from recordedtv, filled in by Hulu since your gf decided project runway recording was more important.

Thanks.

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I know you've been pushing this for a while, but to me this always seemed rather like gathering up all the books in the house -- cookbooks, dictionaries, physics textbooks, romance novels, computer manuals, Harry Potter, etc. -- and shelving them all together in one room, just because they're all made of ink on paper.

Personally I would much rather have separate browsing categories for episodic TV shows, movies, workout videos, home video of the kids' school play, and so on. The fact that they all happen to be video is (in my opinion) just a trivial coincidence, not some grand organizing principle.

And it's been mischaracterized ever since I first put it out there, so let me try to set the record straight again:

I am NOT advocating a big folder with all videos lumped into it.

I AM, however, advocating that the storage and arrangement of videos shouldn't matter on how that media got into the system. Having a TV series that I recorded from cable stored seperately from that same TV series stored on DVD is as silly as (taking your analogy) having a Harry Potter movie that "belongs" to one child kept in that child's room, whereas the rest of them are stored in the living room (and I realize that this extention introduces a concept of ownership, but ignore that for now). I'd prefer an organizational system based on content, rather than source is all that I'm saying (which, interestingly enough, you seem to be advocating as well).

This would become even more relevant if services like Hulu ever become part of Sage (which may never happen; I said IF). You want to watch an episode of Warehouse 13; do you go the Recorded TV, or to the Media Center? As it stands now, it depends on where you acquired (or wanted to acquire) the source.

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by kurt711

Greg, I know this is offtopic from Bren't question but you gave an awesome analogy so I had to jump on it. I agree lumping all videos together is a bad idea. What I would like is to Movies no matter where they are, recordedtv/videos folder/movies folder to show up under Movies. Same with TV shows, no matter which folder it is in, they show up all together. To tie in your analogy, it would be like seeing all technical books in one place even if they are in different rooms of the house physically.

This would atleast be one stop closer what I referred to as universal video browsing, bringing in online sources in future when they are available. Complete series of shows, season 1 and 2 from netflix view now, season 3 from ripped dvd, season 4 from recordedtv, filled in by Hulu since your gf decided project runway recording was more important.

Thanks.

Bingo.

[Brent]

Ah. Understood Sainsworth and I think I agree. Some of the new plugins are beginning to accomplish this to some degree.

[Fuzzy]

At least with SMW and TVE, recorded/imported are lumped together. I fear for the mess you'd end up with by including massive online libraries like netflix or hulu in the mix though. There would have to be some significant filtering, and realize that about 66% of the DVD's available on netflix (and probably 90% of those available via watch now) are utter crap.