Giving up on Sage

[SageGk]

I have been running PVR's for about 5 years (BeyondTV and then SageTV). I am considering selling all of my hardware and putting a DVR cable box in each room, and using PS3 for my media server needs. Lately, it has just been a lot of little things, like my MCE blaster not working properly while I was on vacation and missing all my recordings, the HD-PVR messing up with 5.1 audio, etc etc....the WAF is reallly low and I can't seem to come up with one good reason to keep running a PVR when I can use my PS3 for media and a DVR for recording. Okay, I'll admit, I'm posting this because I can't pull the trigger yet, I need some comments/opinions. Am I nuts to scrap SageTV?

[davephan]

You could put a cable DVR in each room, but it might be very expensive on a monthly or yearly basis if there are many DVRs. You might not like the results either, if you are forced to watch certain programs in different rooms. Or, if you have to continuously run around to every room to program the same recordings.

Since there are many SageTV systems that are reliable, it should be possible for your system to also be reliable too. If you've been using SageTV for many years, you probably had a system that was reliable for years, unless you have a very high tolerance for long-term pain. Maybe you could describe what kind of system you have, the problems, and when the problems occur.

If you are using a HD-PVR, I would start with the IR blaster. If you are not using a USB-UIRT, then you should use a USB-UIRT as your IR blaster. The HD-PVR is not reliable and stable if you use the Hauppauge IR blaster, but is reliable if you use the USB-UIRT. If you do not have a UPS on the computer, then you should have a UPS on the computer. The location you live might also be important and the time of the year you take your vacation. If you set your temperature too high during your vacation, your computer system might not be staying cool enough. Your computer system needs to keep cool while you are gone, even though it costs more money to keep the temperature lower, especially in hotter climates.

Another thing you can to have a dedicated computer for the SageTV system, and avoid using that computer for other things, like surfing, etc. The extenders should be HD-200, and not MVPs. MVPs are just not as reliable as HD-200s. You should be taking periodic disk images of your C drive. If you don't want to buy imaging software, you could use a free package like PING, Partition Image is NOT Ghost. Then, when a problem occurs, you can quickly recover back to a point-in-time when the system was working properly if you periodically take images. The images should be stored on a hard drive, or two separate drives, one normally detached, such as a USB hard drive. Do not store the image files on DVDs, since recoveries with images using DVDs sometimes fail.

You don't mention if the HD-PVR is your only recording device. I found the best system for me is to partition my cable channels among different devices. I have an HDHomeRun for over the air locals (2 tuners). A 2250 for cable analog channels (2 tuners). A PVR-350 for cable non-HD digital channels (1 tuner, PVR-350s are not reliable for many people, but my PVR-350 has been reliable). HD-PVR for digital HD channels (1 tuner). I do not get a lot of conflict using the partitioned channels. If a channels exists as an HD channel, it is excluded from the other tuner channel lineups. If a channel exists as a digital channel, it is excluded from the analog channel lineups. Local channels are excluded from the cable tuner lineups.

Since I partition the channels with different tuners, if one of the tuners fail (such as an IR problem), then I do not lose all the recordings. If I was using Satellite TV (I am currently on cable TV for two years), and a rain event occurred, I would still get the locals with the HDHomeRun.

Having said all that, my system is reliable, and the USB-UIRT IR blaster, currently using two IR zones of the three IR zones, is reliable. But I do proactively take steps to make the system more reliable, and have a method to quickly recover the system if the SageTV should fail.

So, the choice is up to you. You may not like the results using cable DVR boxes. I had a cable DVR box for a couple days recently. The cable DVR boxes are very crude and limited compared to SageTV. The channel lineups are also annoying with using the cable set top boxes directly, including the cable PVR boxes. With Dish Network or DirecTV, you can setup custom channel lists. You will never see shopping channels or channels you don't subscribe each time you turn on the satellite box using the programmed channel lists. With the cable box, you have to hit 'favorites' each time you turn on the cable boxes, otherwise you will see the channels you never want to see, such as shopping channels or channels you don't subscribe. I think the favorites are also very limited to only 25 channels too, instead of the entire list of channels you want to see, excluding the 'garbage' channels. My cable TV provider, Comcast, charges about $15 per month for each one after the initial six months, so it is not cheap to have several of the cable DVR boxes either.


Dave

[SWKerr]

You did not post your setup which might be helpful for people that might recommend reliability improvements.

For me reliability has been great since I moved to WHS for the Sage Server. Separating the recording and playback functions just makes sense from a reliability standpoint.

If its working don't upgrade. (get a test system if you want to play)

Therapeutic reboots. (We do this at work for most servers) Schedule or reboot the server weekly.

UPS\surge Protection. (This got me more than anything) That half second blip in the power grid would not be enough to cause a reboot but would hose the system.

I use DirecTV to serial now but before that I had a USB-UIRT that was much easier to configure and more stable then the MCE and Hauppauge solutions I started with. (MCE and Hauppauge experence was with BeyondTV, not Sage)

I had Dish DVRs for years and even overlapped them with my BeyondTV days. Lost recoding with bad Hard drive on one. Missed shows for other various reasons as well although was generally more reliable than BeyondTV. You are also fairly limited on Hard drive space for most. Recording generally limited to the one device and not shared across multiple TVs. Overall UI tends to stink. I have seen both the latest Dish and DirecTV offerings and they are lacking in user experience. You can't add plug-ins or change the GUI. You have to live with it. Unless you get a Tivo you will be giving up a lot more than you think. Tivo is better but cost more money.

What will you do with all the time you spend tinkering with Sage?

[SageGk]

Yea, you guys are right, I am running a reliable system, just had a couple of issues recently and kind of got tired of trying to get 5.1 to work the the HD-PVR, even with the new drivers. To add to the mix, I have been using netflix on the HD-200 in stabndalone with mixed/slow results. I like the idea of scheduling a reboot once a week, buying a dedicated server and I'm actually considering a Roku box to stream netflix (after I read reviews of course). Thanks for the talk guys.

P.S. My setup consists of SageMC, 2 STB's, one HDPVR and one HVR-1800, which timewarner has recently destroyed my QAM lineup. PC:Intel core 2 duo @2.2GHZ, 3.25gb RAM PAE, MCE blaster with LM gestion controlling it.

[hingepin]

The Roku device is pretty good, I must say. I've had it about a month or so and have only used it a few time. Haven't played with it much. The limitation is 2.0 sound (if I'm wrong, please correct me). No worries there cause I have it hooked to a Sony soundbar (HT-CT100 in the bedroom. Pretty good) Haven't searched on how to use it on the HD200 in standalone. Someone is working on a RSS fix in extender mode from the posts I've been following.

I still can't get over the flexibility of Sage. The wife has just recently started playing with it cause I've been playing with it in the basement for a long while to see if I can make it a positive WAF. So far, so good. I just use my 2 duets with QAM. here (Baltimore) isn't finalizing the switch until the end of the month, so that will decide if I go back to a STB or MCE. I'll most likely continue to use the HD200 in standalone to watch my archived DVD/music/pics.

I'd love to be able to use WHS with my Duets but haven't been able to get QAM working with them.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SageGk

Lately, it has just been a lot of little things, like my MCE blaster not working properly while I was on vacation and missing all my recordings,

My USB-UIRT has been flawless for probably 4 years now.

Okay, I'll admit, I'm posting this because I can't pull the trigger yet, I need some comments/opinions. Am I nuts to scrap SageTV?

How are you planning to manage your recordings across rooms? You're going to be stuck watching a recording in the room with the DVR that recorded it, or you're going to end up recording everything on every DVR, and the associated maintenance nightmare.

Originally Posted by SageGk

Yea, you guys are right, I am running a reliable system, just had a couple of issues recently and kind of got tired of trying to get 5.1 to work the the HD-PVR, even with the new drivers.

Try using the 1.0.5.3 WHQL drivers.

I like the idea of scheduling a reboot once a week, buying a dedicated server and I'm actually considering a Roku box to stream netflix (after I read reviews of course). Thanks for the talk guys.

You should NOT need to reboot regularly. If you do, you have an unsolved, undiagnosed problem with your system.

P.S. My setup consists of SageMC, 2 STB's, one HDPVR and one HVR-1800, which timewarner has recently destroyed my QAM lineup. PC:Intel core 2 duo @2.2GHZ, 3.25gb RAM PAE, MCE blaster with LM gestion controlling it.

Just get a USB-UIRT and be done with it. Or try firewire for channel changing.

[bcjenkins]

I would also suggest that running a dedicated Linux server and HD100/HD200s for clients will give you the most hassle free environment. For IR Blasting I would recommend a Command IR II.

B

[SageGk]

Ok, you guys convinced me. I just did a fresh install of the latest version, and I'm configuring it now. Thanks again guys. My only unresolved issue is how to handle Netflix (roku or wait to see what happens for sage).

[davephan]

After it is fully functional again, take an image of the C drive, and store them image files on another hard drive. If you don't own imaging software, try using PING, Parition Image is Not Ghost, which is free. Periodically keep taking new images of the C drive. Then if the system fails in the future, you will be able to recover very quickly, with little hassle, and keep the WAF high.

Dave

[hingepin]

Spend $100 now or hold out a little longer to see if the free thing comes around.

[MrVining]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You should NOT need to reboot regularly. If you do, you have an unsolved, undiagnosed problem with your system.

Shouldn't "need" to but I like to for auto software updates.

[stanger89]

Software update is one thing, but I'm talking the "I reboot my PC once a week to fix stability".

You should not have to reboot your server once a week for it to work right.

[petereader]

Originally Posted by SageGk

My only unresolved issue is how to handle Netflix (roku or wait to see what happens for sage).

Didn't you say you have a PS3 in your first post. I don't have one, but I believe you could get that set up to do Netflix for you, at least until things get figured out on the Sage side:

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/...playstation-3/

[pat_smith1969]

I must say I am slightly on the same boat as you. I would put stability at about %98, which is pretty good IMO but not as good as the servers at where I work (redundant this and backup that...).

In the end the things that get me are things that are going to happen to any computer. Power outtages that last longer than my UPS can handle (my ups's only have 10 minutes or so uptime on them, they are old).

Lost a CPU fan that crashed the system. Wife turned off the air conditioning, and opened the doors. Had a nice cool breeze upstairs but the basement got hot. System went down then.

and my favorite... Some stupid idiot (me) went to a site they shouldn't have gone to and infected the sage server, which deleted all the Hal.dll NTOSKRNL.DLL and the other three hugely important DLLs. Which caused a complete ground up rebuild. If I find the idiot who did this (me) I will have words with him. The bad thing is this person (me) knows better...

NONE of this is Sage's fault though. and I can say that after a year of using the USB-UIRT, it has been flawless. Not one single mis-tune by it.

As far as rebooting the system, DON'T. I had mine rebooting but found that it was actually causing problems. The HD-PVR wouldn't always come up right after a reboot, so one out of 5 or 6 times the tuner wouldn't work. Just leave the thing run.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by pat_smith1969

and my favorite... Some stupid idiot (me) went to a site they shouldn't have gone to and infected the sage server, which deleted all the Hal.dll NTOSKRNL.DLL and the other three hugely important DLLs. Which caused a complete ground up rebuild. If I find the idiot who did this (me) I will have words with him. The bad thing is this person (me) knows better...

If you had an image of your C drive, you could have easily recovered the system with the image, stored on a normally detached USB hard drive.

Dave

[SageGk]

[QUOTE=petereader;380673]Didn't you say you have a PS3 in your first post. I don't have one, but I believe you could get that set up to do Netflix for you, at least until things get figured out on the Sage side:

[URL]

Yes, and I wasted $40 on playon, which is inconsistent and aggravating when your movie locks up halfway through it. The FF/REW is also glitchy and not usable at all.

On a side note, why didn't anyone tell me 6.6 was so much better? QAM setup was actually fun!

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by SageGk

On a side note, why didn't anyone tell me 6.6 was so much better? QAM setup was actually fun!

Shh...

[gplasky]

[QUOTE=SageGk;380774Yes, and I wasted $40 on playon, which is inconsistent and aggravating when your movie locks up halfway through it. The FF/REW is also glitchy and not usable at all. [/QUOTE]

Make sure you take a look at where you are running Playon. I had some of your symptoms and found out my C drive was getting close to full or full because the file will stream to your C drive. Once I located it to a different machine (with more drive space) those symptoms stopped.

Gerry

[SageGk]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Make sure you take a look at where you are running Playon. I had some of your symptoms and found out my C drive was getting close to full or full because the file will stream to your C drive. Once I located it to a different machine (with more drive space) those symptoms stopped.

Gerry

Think I tried just about everything. I have 48GB free on my C: drive where playon is. Their support don't know what the problem is, and their forums have quite a few posts about these errors (too frequently IMO)

[Tokendude]

I know you've already decided to stay with Sage, but let me just add that I just recently tossed my Directv DVR because it was a major headache for me. I can't tell you how many times a program did not record like it was supposed to. My sister has a comcast dvr and she absolutely hates it also.

I've only had Sage up for about a month, but I absolutely love it! I would never even consider going back. I run a very basic system so far, but I've never had any trouble except updating the firmware on one of my HD200's and that was an easy fix once I found out how.

I will say this was not a cheap install for me though. Counting the HD200's it has cost close to $2k, but I believe I've got a system with staying power...

Roy