Spill the beans already plus I need some backup..

[alton987]

After going extender only and dropping the cash for another HD300 the wife finally figured out my secret. SageTV\HTPC's isn't really to save money but its a $$ hobby. "If we are going to keep spending money on this stuff why not just get cable?" I was shocked to really not have a good response. I have stopped speaking of hopeful things and things I think might happen.

Don't get me wrong I still think SageTV with Diamond is the best looking\functional DVR you can buy right now. As my viewing habits change I find myself asking about the value of SageTV and what needs to change.

Streaming Music and On-Demand Video keep becoming bigger and bigger parts of our viewing habits. My video content is 80% OTA and 20% other media. 50% of the time the TV is on in the house its not watching TV\Movies its listening to music and finding new content on netflix.

I keep considering getting a roku box for Pandora, Netflix, UFC, etc. I just can't because it would seem stupid to me to put one of those next to a more capable box (HD300).

Don't get me wrong I don't expect Sage to equal the content of a Roku box but the fact that SageTV has a awesome set top box with still no real streaming partners is very disheartening and puzzling.

So SageTV please don't make me buy a Roku box, work something out and start using that license that you paid for to make me feel better about my investment and to get my wife off my back!

(Your first mission is a simple integrated Pandora application and yes I have tried Playon and think its a terrible temporary ugly solution)

[mayamaniac]

So in short, you want SageTV to natively support Netflix, I'm sure it has been requested a couple of times already in this forum.

In all honesty, if I don't watch live sports, I think I would cut the TV service a while ago. But then again, maybe not, FIOS is just too good.

[alton987]

I don't expect netflix now i just want to see a sign sage is looking forward.

[stuckless]

For me the investment into SageTV is more about centralizing my files (recordings and movies). I have satellite and TVs in 3 different rooms. Each room had a PVR and so I was either paying 20/month to rent the PVR or I could buy them out for ~$500. I opted to rent them, because I had been buying them, but then I'd buy a new pvr every year or so I wasn't saving much by buying them outright. So with 3 pvrs I was paying, in addition to my programming, $600 year.

On top of that, it was getting to be a nightmare trying to find out which PVRs had which recordings... poeple were schedulling stuff in one room and then a week or so later they'd go to the main room and get frustrated because they couldn't find their recordings

Initially my family was a little hesitant about moving to sagetv. (People hate change, and they already "krew" how to use the old pvrs)... but within a couple of weeks when they discovered that their recordings were on every tv... and on their laptops, all commercial skipped, they became quick believers

Now, I'd like to have Netflix on the sagetv box as well, but for now, I live with the fact that I need to use the ps3 to watch netflix. I don't watch a lot of netflix, so the 2-3 times a month that I watch something there isn't that bad.

I don't think I'm saving any money by going with sagetv (ie, I had buy the extenders, hdpvrs, stbs, etc), but the experience has been much better.

Online content is not much of an attraction to me, yet. In canada we get screwed over big time by the ISPs, which are also the cable and satellite providers. I'd probably use netflix more, but I have a 95gig plan, and by only watching a couple of netflix movies (combined with all other regular internet use) we usually get a notice close to the end of the month that we are getting close to the limit

[Brent]

Such a sign would really have to come from SageTV mgt and if you see such a "sign" that would mean it was coming out very soon and they were 100% sure it was happening. They don't pre-announce much (if anything) these days so I don't think you'll get much comfort in the short run. That doesn't mean they aren't doing something in that direction, it just means you (and I) probably won't know about it in advance.

PS: I'd love to see Netflix, AmazonVOD and other online content capabilities built into SageTV myself. Like Sean though I like SageTV because it acts as an excellent media server and TV capture platform with the most capability and flexibility in this niche market. Online streaming like Netflix would be a nice feature addition to their HD300's though and could help them sell more of them.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by alton987

Don't get me wrong I don't expect Sage to equal the content of a Roku box but the fact that SageTV has a awesome set top box with still no real streaming partners is very disheartening and puzzling.

I agree completely - I've been holding out for this for a while but I'm starting to give up hope. I just know, however, as soon as I go to another solution the next day Sage will announce some support for online streaming for the HD300...

[graywolf]

Originally Posted by cncb

I agree completely - I've been holding out for this for a while but I'm starting to give up hope. I just know, however, as soon as I go to another solution the next day Sage will announce some support for online streaming for the HD300...

Then PLEASE hurry up and go to another solution for the sake of the rest of us so that Sage will announce support j/k

[cncb]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Then PLEASE hurry up and go to another solution for the sake of the rest of us so that Sage will announce support j/k

You will have to wait a month or so when I have my annual debate about "switching" (when the tv season is mostly over and online streaming becomes more significant here).

[Brent]

Craig,
Please switch to Apple for all Media needs so SageTV will get their "online streaming" going and then switch back once that happens so Apple will get their heads out of the sand and do something decent with video.

Thanks!

[cncb]

I would switch to Apple but I don't have the "iBrent" preferred customer discount .

[Brent]

Originally Posted by cncb

I would switch to Apple but I don't have the "iBrent" preferred customer discount .

Ha! If only I got some sort of discount - could have saved me so much $! I definitely have been pulled into the Apple world when it comes to mobile devices, but I'm all PC when it comes to computers and laptops - so far at least.

[alton987]

Originally Posted by Brent

Ha! If only I got some sort of discount - could have saved me so much $! I definitely have been pulled into the Apple world when it comes to mobile devices, but I'm all PC when it comes to computers and laptops - so far at least.

Don't you have a SageTV opinion to write up?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by alton987

Don't you have a SageTV opinion to write up?

! My opinion is some people have too much time on their hands

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Brent

! My opinion is some people have too much time on their hands

And some don't have enough to write a review? er...

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

And some don't have enough to write a review? er...

no kiddin' I actually do have that one nearly finished though. Better late than never.

[panteragstk]

The online content argument is one of the main reason I chose to have an htpc in my theater room as opposed to an extender. With my htpc I can have any online content I want. I have a button in sage to open boxee for netflix, vudu, and whatever else I want. Then the hulu desktop for all things hulu. Playon gives me access to the same content on my future extenders where quality isn't an issue. All is accessible using my remote so I'm happy. Of course it would be better if sage supported all of these things, but with all the functionality we currently have these are small IMHO. I think (IMO) that sage is doing some interesting things in the background that when ready will make us all happy. We had no clue v7 was coming until it did and people were complaining that it wasn't ever going to happen.

With all the talk of "I'm going to switch to something else if they don't add it" I'm curious to see what that something else is. I don't know of any software out there that will do what we do with sage. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[wrems]

For the online content I agree about getting a full-fledged htpc. We're extender only in my family and while they are great they lack in a few areas. When I build a Sandy Bridge i3 client we'll be much better off. I've also been intrigued by this: http://kylo.tv/ anyone use it for browsing and such with a pc? I've basically given up hope for Sage on this front

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by wrems

For the online content I agree about getting a full-fledged htpc. We're extender only in my family and while they are great they lack in a few areas. When I build a Sandy Bridge i3 client we'll be much better off. I've also been intrigued by this: http://kylo.tv/ anyone use it for browsing and such with a pc? I've basically given up hope for Sage on this front

Haven't heard of that one. Boxee has everything I want so I'm happy until there is native support. I wouldn't give up though. You never know what will happen. I seriously doubt that the sage dev team would give us almost every feature we've asked for and then say "streaming video is stupid." I like to think that if it isn't ready we won't see or hear anything about it (like brent said) until it is ready. Would you be more upset if they said they were working on it and it never saw the light of day? I would.

[frontlinegeek]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

With all the talk of "I'm going to switch to something else if they don't add it" I'm curious to see what that something else is. I don't know of any software out there that will do what we do with sage. Correct me if I'm wrong.

And this is where Sage has us...

With streaming services becoming such a big draw, SageTV is quickly becoming "the most awesome piece of crap" out there. SageTV implemented with a dedicated server (Like WHS) and HD300 extenders is the unrivaled champion of media content management. Streaming, not so much.

What I am painfully considering is having an Apple TV2 at at least the most watched TV and then hold off and hope that Sage digs it out of their a$$. Up here in Canadiana, there are not man good options for Netflix that are not game consoles. We have the ATV2 and Samsung and Toshiba BluRay players and TVs. Boxee apparently works too but that is too much $$$ for a STB.

And to the costs too much, I think the real issue there is that many of us are tinkerers that have also started with Sage when HDTV was not a big deal. In that time, there have been many upgrades and replaced HTPCS. If you are starting out fresh as a new user of SageTV, I do believe that it is a FAR more cost effective and valuable setup than settling for whatever your cable or satellite company gives you.

And sorry to point and LOL Stuckless but you need to move out to Atlantic Canada... We have FTTH (Branded as 'FiberOP') and NO caps at all with Aliant.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by que3jxp

And this is where Sage has us...

With streaming services becoming such a big draw, SageTV is quickly becoming "the most awesome piece of crap" out there. SageTV implemented with a dedicated server (Like WHS) and HD300 extenders is the unrivaled champion of media content management. Streaming, not so much.

What I am painfully considering is having an Apple TV2 at at least the most watched TV and then hold off and hope that Sage digs it out of their a$$. Up here in Canadiana, there are not man good options for Netflix that are not game consoles. We have the ATV2 and Samsung and Toshiba BluRay players and TVs. Boxee apparently works too but that is too much $$$ for a STB.

And to the costs too much, I think the real issue there is that many of us are tinkerers that have also started with Sage when HDTV was not a big deal. In that time, there have been many upgrades and replaced HTPCS. If you are starting out fresh as a new user of SageTV, I do believe that it is a FAR more cost effective and valuable setup than settling for whatever your cable or satellite company gives you.

And sorry to point and LOL Stuckless but you need to move out to Atlantic Canada... We have FTTH (Branded as 'FiberOP') and NO caps at all with Aliant.

Good points. If I were looking for an HTPC front end and didn't want extenders then yes sage would seem to be behind as far as streaming media goes. I started when the netflix plug actually worked the same way netflix does on consoles and other devices. Netflix broke that functionality for us. It is nice to have everything in one box, but if you can use sage for TV/Movie/general video file organization and ATV2 for all your online stuff then you'd stll be doing well to only have only 2 sources. Think of those people with 10 remotes because they have specific devices for everything they do. I'm glad I have a client just for the simple fact that even though sage doesn't do EVERYTHING I want I still have everything on one box. Extenders are another ball game, but I don't have any yet so I'll worry about that when I get one.