SageTV Official Blog - Accepting Submissions

[hanesian]

I agree with the suggestion to not emphasize the HTPC references. I suppose most folks here are pretty tech savvy and probably have HTPCs. You frankly would probably quickly understand what Sage is without much explanation.

But there are many more like myself who do NOT want a full fledged, dedicated HTPC, and the notion that Sage may be ONLY that route is wrong and will scare off many prospective customers who more fit this profile: already own a computer (everyone) and are just looking to cut the "cable" and/or watch stuff on their big screen TV (most everyone). If someone said I needed to go with a HTPC solution, I would close my ears as I don't want to buy a dedicated PC, and go through the time, hassle and cost just to watch stuff on my TV.

BUT, if someone said all I need to do to watch stuff on my big screen is buy another software application and a fairly inexpensive piece of hardware (HD300) ... I'm all ears.

Emphasize BENEFITS, and what I can DO with the product, not acronyms and specs. There is time for that later.

Just my .02 worth.

[panteragstk]

Lots of great ideas so far. As far as the htpc thing goes. Spin it like this: For those that want htpc functionality without the htpc. IE: a current computer with tuners added and a few extenders isn't an htpc setup at all it is a whole home DVR that does way more than any DVR ever thought about doing.

As far as comparisons go I'd put kaleidescape in there as well. I don't think most people understand how expensive other solutions like sagetv can really get.

BTW, I love the idea of a newbie coding guide to studio. I'd use that today.

[mightyt]

Not sure if this is a blog idea, forum idea or a SageTV web site idea ... But I always love to see "How To" videos on the net. Manuals are great, but at times I just want to be shown how to do something. SageTV is pretty mature now. I have been a user since 2004 with v.2.x. It would be great to even see a CBT ....

A Tips & Tricks blog would be great too.

[Brent]

What's the ETA on the blog going live?

[Dontstaylong]

Brent, we're working on getting this live within the next few days. I've gone through the suggestions and I think we've got several really great topics to focus on:

• Meet SageTV
o A Brief History of SageTV

• Developer’s Corner – Guest posts on in-depth technical details
o Writing plugins
o Using java
o Code optimizations
o Coding best practices
o Using APIs

• Getting Started
o How to get started with SageTV
o Instruction manual walkthrough
o What content providers you can get through SageTV
o Compare to similar systems
o SageTV Software/Firmware Updates.

• Customizations
o Highlight 3rd party plugins
o Sage Studio walkthrough series

• Hardware Highlights
o HD300
o Hauppauge PVR
o TV Tuner cards

• Tips and Tricks
o Digiguide with SageTV as an EPG source for Europe
o DVR with over the air TV
o Placeshifter How-to

• User-written guest posts
o How do you use SageTV? User-submitted posts describing how you use Sage in your home theater setup
o Why do you use SageTV? Why was SageTV your first choice for a set-top box/media extender setup vs. other options?
o User Showcase – Show off your setup! Include component diagrams, photos, etc. as needed. Show how flexible SageTV can be.

Definitely enough to have something new to read every few days for the next few weeks! These suggestions have been great, thanks a ton.

We'd love to have the community help out with the Dev's Corner and "How do you use SageTV" posts - the more of these, the better. If anyone is interested in taking any of the other topics, PM me and I'll mark it as being claimed so nobody's doubling up.

Of course, feel free to keep suggesting any other posts that would make for a good fit.

[matt91]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

One thing that is usually overlooked - because most people using Sage are fairly PC-savvy and also willing and able to spend $$$ on tech gear - is the fact that it's possible to set up a SageTV installation that is SIMPLE and NOT TERRIBLY EXPENSIVE, depending on what you already own.

I think this is a great idea too. I can almost envision a 'video challenge' to the SageTV folks to setup Sage with the least expensive, least powerful components they can find. Show that you can setup sage with an old PIII available on craigslist (or your basement), a HD Homerun, OTA antenna, a 1TB harddrive and a HD300!

This could spawn other educational pieces like showing a video walk-though for putting Ubuntu + Sage on a new HD.

[ehanekla]

I think that SageTV has a lot of benefit from its great vivid community. I am not sure if a blog would help users to get started with some of the more complex user plugins for example.
SageTV itself works fine and is well documented, but the user provided plugins need additional information and howtos. I spent a lot of time "picking" pieces of information from forum threads.
So what do you think about setting up a wiki, where we would have easy and structured access to user provided content? I think of howtos and so on.
Several years ago I spent a lot of (too much) time here: http://www.gbpvr.com/pmwiki/

What do you think?

Eyk

[PGPfan]

In general the idea of a Wiki is great, however in practice (we've tried several times already) the spambots were just too overwhelming and eventually the wiki's all died off.

If you have any ideas that might help with that, however, please let us know!

-PGPfan

[Nelbert]

I'd also request all posts are date and version stamped.

This becomes especially important in the Dev section. Having worked with dev teams for so long, could I request that the dev guides explicitly state the minimum version of SageTV supported and are written from the viewpoint of I have a clean install of SageTV with no extra apps or libraries installed.

Everyone in IT is so used to running their own system with additional apps, libraries or plugins for years, it is easy to forget that it might not be part of the base setup. This quickly becomes frustrating when someone else tries to follow a guide and it doesn't work because it wasn't mentioned that app x, library y or codec z also needs installing.

[ehanekla]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

In general the idea of a Wiki is great, however in practice (we've tried several times already) the spambots were just too overwhelming and eventually the wiki's all died off.

If you have any ideas that might help with that, however, please let us know!

-PGPfan

There are a lot of working wikis out there which don't suffer too much from spambots. But I don't have any experience in administrating a wiki.
I am sure an "official" SageTV wiki would not die off! I guess it would be used as regularly as the forums!

I have to admit, that I don't have a proper imagination, how a blog for SageTV could look like. Is there a comparable example out there that you have in mind?

[Brent]

Thought of another topic that would be useful to many existing and all new users:
How to get help - where to find the user manual, where are the important FAQS on the forums, official help versus user-to-user help, How to submit a bug report, the difference between beta versions & official versions.

That sort of stuff would be invaluable with this sort of project and could also be linked to from the forums as well as the main SageTV.com site.

PS: I know this sort of thing is out there and has been repeated many times, but it never hurts to say it again.

[Skiier__Dude]

One of the suggestions I'd make is a Blog or Forum aimed something along the lines of "SageTV for Dummies". Sage is a fantastic product, however, until recently, users have needed a very strong background in Windows, Mac or Linux to make things work.

My vision here is to get away from talking in TLA's or technical jargon that intimidates users, and trying to make things as simple as a few button pushes (and never once mention Java Heap Monitoring or Wiz.bin)

Could even go as far as spec'ing a dedicated server and OS and creating a very simple guide that provides the step-by-step in non-technical language. Even better would be a pre-packaged server/OS combo that comes with Sage Media Center pre-installed -- but that's for a different discussion.

Create a few how-to videos -- post them on YouTube and link.

How about on the blog a live "Click for Help" button that could be potentially manned by Sage users like us? There are always people online willing to help and I am sure that this type of assistance would be appreciated by a non-technical crowd. Maybe if a user scores X "help points", they are entitled to Sage 8 at no cost

[Brent94Z]

I'd suggest under the Getting Started section a "Common Acronyms" listing. This would be a live document (updated regularly) with the acronyms that run rampant in the forums. One of my biggest problems when I first got started with Sage was simply trying to figure out what was being talked about in the forums (because I didn't even know what the acronyms meant).

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

I'd suggest under the Getting Started section a "Common Acronyms" listing. This would be a live document (updated regularly) with the acronyms that run rampant in the forums. One of my biggest problems when I first got started with Sage was simply trying to figure out what was being talked about in the forums (because I didn't even know what the acronyms meant).

Probably something similar to this: Acronyms for SageTV

Gerry

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Probably something similar to this: Acronyms for SageTV

Gerry

Well, yes and no But, that even more so shows my point. The list only has a fraction of the acronyms out there and is rather jumbled. A blog section which has the acronyms in a continuous alphabetical list which are updated would be a really big help to new users IMO.

This also wouldn't need to be just for strict acronyms but could also be for common Sage terminology such as extender, client, server, even Diamond. When a new user reads a post which might be something like "The OSD of Diamond looks great on not only the server but also the extender and client. Oh, I forgot to mention the HD PVR and HDHR recordings I Placeshifted had good PQ too!" they don't immediately think "WHAT THE???" LOL That's a broad example but you get the point

[SomeWhatLost]

just as a 'break' or something from the serious blogs, you might want to throw up a entertaining review/overview/something of a 'Extreme Mega-Sage system' ie 6+ tuners, plus many, many clients (preferably HDx00's from my point of view, but really anything or a bit of everything is good)....

then maybe do a minimal (or average? whatever works better I guess...) server/client setup

and maybe a minimum setup...

preferably someones real setups... with real world experiences... ie try to make it an interesting "this is what you can do, but don't just take our word for it, here is an example of what someone has really done" type thing...

[trallyus]

Something I would like to see as someone who tends to lurk on the forums is a good write up with pictures or videos of how to use the new feature mentioned in this thread - http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50213

I tried to set up a user category for just this years pilot shows that I recorded this year but never figured out how to do it. I never read the new version 7 manual yet to see if it explains how to do it.

Also I would love to see a featured plugin of the week that more experienced users tend to use to make life simpler.

Also I would love to see how to control the intelligent suggestions better then I can now. I have sage tv web interface plugin installed and tried setting the shows under intelligent suggestions as don't liked but it does not remember my choice and keeps thinking i would like mike and molly or the raising hope due to me recording the pilots for them.

I really want to turn on intelligent suggestions but for some reason sage tv does not remember shows I don't like and I would love to see a write up on how to use that feature of sage tv without losing control like I am now.

Also maybe have some experienced user or programmer answer a noob question of the week like the one I posted above about how to get the best use out of intelligent suggestions A noob question of the week may bring out some of the lurkers who refuse to post much and it would help others out that have had the same problems when starting out on sage.

Trallyus

[starfire]

Originally Posted by Dontstaylong

Brent, we're working on getting this live within the next few days.

Any news?

[Dontstaylong]

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay. We're continuing to work on getting things going, and I'm pleased to report that we are going to create a SageTV wiki to supplement the blog and the new site.

The building blocks for it have been started, but since the nature of a wiki is to have multiple people working on it, we'd love to have some help in getting things fleshed out ahead of the new site's launch.

Just to reiterate - this is a bare-bones version of the Wiki and needs a lot more content, but this has a lot of potential to be a great resource.

SageTV Wiki - http://sagetv.wikispaces.com/

[makko]

Hi Dontstaylong,

This is a great idea. I'm just getting into SageTV now and have lot's of reading learning ahead of me.

I'm currently planning my server and am finding it difficult to find compatibility info on tuner cards.

I think it would be great if the site had a one-stop-shop database of all tuners that have been tried/tested in STV and which ones work/don't work along with issues and links to material to help installation. This would be community driven of course but I think it could work.

The DD-WRT router database works pretty well.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database

Thanks.