SageTV Mac Tuner support - does it exist?

[jelockwood]

Looking at http://www.sagetv.com/requirements.html?sageSub=tv one might conclude that SageTV effectively supports no tuners on a Mac (an exaggeration of course but not by much).

Is the list of tuners that work with SageTV Server on a Mac really that bad (i.e. practically none)? According to that list they support zero DVB-T/C/S/S2 tuners on the Mac and therefore don't support most of the Mac using world outside the US.

I would be wanting to use a DVB-S2 tuner. The Elgato EyeTV-310 (S2 version) is a rebadged version of the Digital Everywhere FireDTV DVB-S2, however I have genuine FireDTV DVB-S2 models which are supported by the Elgato software on a Mac. Remember it is effectively the same hardware but with a different paint job.

I remember when Sage made much noise back when they first released a Mac version, but judging by the very poor Mac related product information they provide on their website one wonders why they bothered.

[flavius]

Outside the US the Mac market share is even lower than it is here. Mac client and place shifter support is much more important.

[Fuzzy]

Agreed, the market share is pretty limited. I would guess more of the 'ms hater' crowd are using a headless linux server with mac clients or extenders. Really though, with bootcamp, you could just run xp on your mac hardware. It's not like you should ever be actually using the computer that is running as a sage server anyways.

[jelockwood]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Agreed, the market share is pretty limited. I would guess more of the 'ms hater' crowd are using a headless linux server with mac clients or extenders. Really though, with bootcamp, you could just run xp on your mac hardware. It's not like you should ever be actually using the computer that is running as a sage server anyways.

I do currently run Boot Camp on a Mac mini to run Microsoft Media Center, and this shows the flaw of Sage not providing a proper solution. If I have to run XP or (shudder) Vista, or soon Windows7 then why bother with Sage when I can use the 'free' and included Microsoft Media Center.

Sage's current Mac 'effort' is effectively useless, at least as a server.

[merneric]

Its true that tuner support compared to windows is limited, but the SageTV mac server does support the HDHomerun, which is probably the best ATSC/Qam tuner out there right now anyway (IMO). Also, if you are lucky enough to have open firewire ports on a cable box, the firewire encoder capture by Guho just cannot be beat. Right now, this is what I am running, and I can tell you that it is EXTREMELY reliable. I went from a pretty much unstable windows system that was running 2 HDPVRs, and 2 HVR-1600s. I would get lockups almost every other day. Now I get pretty much none. So, unfortunately, at least right now, the SageTV Mac server market is for a VERY limited audience (which understandably limits Sage's desire to upgrade it) but for those it does work for, it does a great job. The only thing that I would really really like to see at this point is support for snow leopard.

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by merneric

Its true that tuner support compared to windows is limited, but the SageTV mac server does support the HDHomerun, which is probably the best ATSC/Qam tuner out there right now anyway (IMO). Also, if you are lucky enough to have open firewire ports on a cable box, the firewire encoder capture by Guho just cannot be beat. Right now, this is what I am running, and I can tell you that it is EXTREMELY reliable. I went from a pretty much unstable windows system that was running 2 HDPVRs, and 2 HVR-1600s. I would get lockups almost every other day. Now I get pretty much none. So, unfortunately, at least right now, the SageTV Mac server market is for a VERY limited audience (which understandably limits Sage's desire to upgrade it) but for those it does work for, it does a great job. The only thing that I would really really like to see at this point is support for snow leopard.

Unfortunately for me, the OP & everyone else who lives outside the US neither of those solutions has any relevance to us.

Personally I am reconciled to running SageTV Server on a Windows system (either WHS or Windows Server 2003 for preference) as not only is the support for tuners better but the little software add-ons that enhance SageTV are generally Windows only e.g. importing XMLTV or using Digiguide for the EPG It's a stable system if run headless & used just for Sage & run without anti-virus or system updates.

[merneric]

Yeah you're right--I forgot that this thread was mainly Non-US folks--looking for specific DVB tuners. SageTV Mac users seem to be a pretty small group, and I would guess that Non-US SageTV Mac users are probably even more exclusive, which unfortunately probably does not generate a huge amount of incentive to support it much more than they have already.

As for stability, I am sure that alot of folks have managed to get pretty stable windows setups running well for them, whether by choice or in your case, necessity. I was running as a windows service on a windows 2003 machine, but was also running DVD profiler and Comskip with Comskip Monitor, and it was just too unreliable for me.

I guess one solution could be to run your main server on a SageTV Mac setup, and then you could run your DVB tuners and xmltv imports on a separate windows box, setup as a network encoder. This is sort of what I am doing with dvdprofiler.