The future of Sagetv?

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

the recording gap issue has been discussed at length. the lack of a memory buffer is not the problem. There are just FAR too many architectural changes to undertake that would break nearly every other part of Sage's core.

What I'm pointing out is that there is really only one point where a large change is needed -- the filter that saves the video stream to disk. That's not to say it is an easy fix, unless a filter that does what is needed already exists (and it may), but it hardly constitutes breaking every part of SageTV's core.

[samgreco]

Originally Posted by stevech

Live TV here means not using Sage at all - just the TV's tuner. Time-delaying just one hour (sports), doable, isn't done by us very often.

Sage records 5 or so shows per day, on average, for viewing hours/days/weeks later. It's extender-centric.

I assume this is typical usage.

I haven't used a tuner outside of Sage since I started using it years ago. What's the point? If I run everything through Sage, I can pause anytime. In fact I even watch news that way. I'll hit the pause button and go and do other stuff then come back and skip through commercials while I watch.

I CANNOT watch TV the "other" way anymore. Neither can my wife.

[sportera]

Originally Posted by toricred

I would also question your guesses at how many Sage users don't pre-record shows. I would hazard to guess that your numbers are probably close to the opposite of the users at least on the forums. I would guess that probably 75%+ here pre-record everything and only watch sports and news live.

I would beg to disagree on this one...

Telll you what. Since this thread is titled "the future of SageTV", I would think it would be in the best interest of the powers at be to start a thread to poll:

1. Users that use SageTV to watch "live TV" 75-100% of the time using a second tuner to record shows on other channels scheduled at the same time.

2. Users that use SageTV to watch "live TV" 50-75% of the time using a second tuner to record shows on other channels scheduled at the same time.

3. Users that use SageTV to watch "live TV" 25-50% of the time using a second tuner to record shows on other channels scheduled at the same time.

4. Users that "record TV to watch at a later time" most of the time (greater than 25% of time).

That should at least settle much of the augument as to developmental priorities to fix the "on the hour and half hour studder issues" that some of you aficionados seem to think are trivial.

Bet you'd be surprised!!!

At any rate I'm one user who, before spending another nickle on SageTV upgrade software and hardware, is looking elsewhere to put those $$$ if I don't start reading some "good news" soon.

One big question though, before I run off at the mouth anymore, does this "on the hour and half hour studder" occur when using networked (to WHS) HD-200's vs PC Clients???

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by sportera

One big question though, before I run off at the mouth anymore, does this "on the hour and half hour studder" occur when using networked (to WHS) HD-200's vs PC Clients???

Yes it does, its the way Sage works.

You can also put me down as a 1 for your poll

We watch live TV everyday and the stutter is most annoying, its more annoying to my daughter with her 5 - 10 minute childrens TV shows.

Cheers

Ben

[viperdiablo]

I have yet to use Sagetv with a tv tuner. I only use it for watching my backup dvds, music and pictures. I have been considering using the hauppauge hd pvr. But after reading this "on the hour or half hour studder". I think I will hold out. Regardless if the majority of people use Sagetv to record their programs and watch it later. This would be an annoying problem for the people who watch live tv. To me this is a problem and should be fixed. Thats just my two cents

[bastafidli]

Just a reminder for everyone. Last time the discussion ended by SageTV's Narflex himself voted that this is a problem and should be fixed. So there is no doubt how SageTV feels about it.

[49studebaker]

If you want the pause between shows to be eliminated then vote here:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43017

[Fuzzy]

Let me just clear this up. I'm in no way saying it SHOULDN"T be fixed... I'm saying I'm not sure I'd want it that high on the priority list at sage. There are other things that I feel are far more important, and of use to MORE of the sage user base.

As for viperdiablo's response about not using sage for tv because of this, do you actually understand WHAT this issue is? Are you sure it would even be something you would see? It really only comes into play when watching two shows live, on the same network, back to back. there is a studder in the middle between shows. It's not like it's something that occurs on EVERY half hour... just in between shows... It's certainly not something that outweighs the benefits of having a versatile DVR.

[viperdiablo]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Let me just clear this up. I'm in no way saying it SHOULDN"T be fixed... I'm saying I'm not sure I'd want it that high on the priority list at sage. There are other things that I feel are far more important, and of use to MORE of the sage user base.

As for viperdiablo's response about not using sage for tv because of this, do you actually understand WHAT this issue is? Are you sure it would even be something you would see? It really only comes into play when watching two shows live, on the same network, back to back. there is a studder in the middle between shows. It's not like it's something that occurs on EVERY half hour... just in between shows... It's certainly not something that outweighs the benefits of having a versatile DVR.

I do not use sagetv for tv, you are correct. So I have never actually seen the stutter. I guess its not a huge issue if it only occurs between shows. However I think it would be, at least a little, bit annoying.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

There are other things that I feel are far more important, and of use to MORE of the sage user base.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find another issue, other than the aging UI, that universally affects more SageTV users. No one "likes" it -- some have just learned to be more accepting of it than others.

I also think that many that have decided to accept this fault are over-estimating the work involved in fixing it, or are under the wrong impression that fixing it will somehow negatively effect their use of SageTV.

And to be clear: this is not just a "stutter". Video is lost during this time, and there are times when that can be very annoying.

[Fuzzy]

For starters, i think both cablecard support and bluray support would be of far more use to most people. I think a standardized installing system for plugins would be of great use to then entire community.

And the amount of video 'loss' with the HD-PVR is more an issue of the HD-PVR itself, not sage. The delay introduced by sage when creating the new graphs is less than a second. It is the HD-PVR that takes forever to reinitialize on a new stream. Other encoders have FAR less of a problem than this.

[KarylFStein]

I do remember trying BTV a few years ago, noticing how it just "continued on" and thinking that was neat. But we haven't watched "live" TV in ages now except for maybe some news-type stuff, and the kids aren't into that except for things like New Years that are already blocked off anyway. I'm the only one that watches sports and got in the habit of padding them pretty quickly, (I should try SRE, I know--I'm just paranoid that something would happen and I'd miss seeing the Lions pull defeat from the jaws of victory yet again). The complaints I get now are when I fiddle with something and forget to reinstall commercial skip or the custom menus. Well, except for that nasty capacitor issue a little bit ago ...On the other hand, it doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to fix .

[sportera]

Originally Posted by brainbone

I think you'd be hard pressed to find another issue, other than the aging UI, that universally affects more SageTV users. No one "likes" it -- some have just learned to be more accepting of it than others.

I also think that many that have decided to accept this fault are over-estimating the work involved in fixing it, or are under the wrong impression that fixing it will somehow negatively effect their use of SageTV.

And to be clear: this is not just a "stutter". Video is lost during this time, and there are times when that can be very annoying.

Agreed Brainbone. I don't think Sage has seen the total impact yet of this "annoying" issue due to the fact that many have yet to upgrade to HD tuners. Like I said initially, no problems noticed before going to HD-PVR's other than a very brief screen freeze on the hour and half hour watching live TV. Now that "very brief freeze", which did not annoy me at all for years, has gone to a 3-5 second video freeze and audio studder (It's the audio studder that really drives me nuts). And as more upgrade to using SageTV with true HD, this issue will become reported more by users. And anyone blaming the HD-PVR should maybe back up awhile. I'm not so sure Sage isn't causing some HD-PVR issues. I've tried to reduce and lock in the HD-PVR to a lower "constant" GB transfer rate to maybe improve performance, but something keeps resetting it back to variable. Also trying to change the video sharpening and other default video setttings keep getting reset back to defaults. Is Sage resetting the HD-PVRs? Yeah, I know, this issue belongs elsewhere and I don't want to be the one to start moving this thread into another direction.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

For starters, i think both cablecard support and bluray support would be of far more use to most people.

Cablecard and bluray is more of a licensing issue.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The delay introduced by sage when creating the new graphs is less than a second.

For analog/SD tuners, maybe. My HVR-2250 takes much longer than a second on QAM.

[tvmaster2]

I'd have more confidence if Placeshifter was made to support Hauppauge HD PVR files. That device is a couple of years old and is in wide use, yet there doesn't appear to be any development on being able to play th h.264 files smoothly from Placeshifter. If there has been development on this and I missed it, then apologies, but I haven't found that info.

[hufnagel]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I'd have more confidence if Placeshifter was made to support Hauppauge HD PVR files. That device is a couple of years old and is in wide use, yet there doesn't appear to be any development on being able to play th h.264 files smoothly from Placeshifter. If there has been development on this and I missed it, then apologies, but I haven't found that info.

I'd think the issue with Placeshifter and HD streams is one more of bandwidth than anything else. I successfully installed Placeshifter on my NetBook over the Easter Weekend while at my family's house, connected it to my Sage server via the internet and was watching the F1 race in under half an hour. that included remoting into my router to activate a port forwarding. Granted the video quality was medocure at best but that was due to the barely-call-it-broadband at the locale I was at moreso than Placeshifter.

The live TV gap/skip/blankout issue is annoying but I haven't decided HOW annoying it is personally. I only really use the live TV viewing in the morning for the news and "background" stuff occasionally (we're trying out doing away totally with the DVT's Comcast has given out and going purely to Sage and MediaMVPs) since anything I really care about watching is already marked to be recorded and I have default padding on both ends for that. I should see how bad the gap/skip is if I pause my live playback for say 30 seconds and see what happens.

[Taddeusz]

Placeshifter, or rather the transcoder used for it on the server side does support HDPVR recordings only if they are progressive, i.e. 720p or 480p. If the recording is interlaced, 1080i or 480i, it won't play properly, or at all.

[hufnagel]

well that's kind of a bummer... seeing as how most of my HDHR HD streams would be in 1080i at best.

[Fuzzy]

I wouldn't say 'most'. I know about 50% of my HD stations are 720p. It's not specifically a sage issue, it's an issue with the h.264 decoder in ffmpeg (which is what sagetranscoder is pbased on).

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by hufnagel

well that's kind of a bummer... seeing as how most of my HDHR HD streams would be in 1080i at best.

HDHR recordings, which are MPEG2, no matter the resolution work fine. It is interlaced H.264 recordings that fail to play properly.