I hope sageTV is prepared for some competition. Next-gen Comcast Xfinity coming...

[mkanet]

I honestly didnt think Comcast would come so close to what sageTV can do so soon. Facebook share, Pandora, personalized weather, IMDB-like XMBC style integration for On Demand/DVR/Program Guide movies (cast, rating, etc), intelligent searches, fanart posters for movies/actors, and much more.

UI/functionality/content upgrades done automatically without user user having to do anything using cloud computing. Promises playback/access on ALL devices. Comcast will also offer support for 1Gbps Internet. I'm not sure if it it has media center playback capabilities... Im still watching the video:

See demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBnLC...layer_embedded

[panteragstk]

I have to say that is pretty cool. We could totally make all of that happen with sage if we could integrate everything more seamlessly.

[jaminben]

Yep, that looks really cool.... when does it come to the UK?

[pjpjpjpj]

Slick... and a default RF remote to boot.

[davephan]

The Comcast demo shows some of the benefits similar to SageTV. The demo isn't clear that when you record a program if the software has the intelligence to record similar programs. It only suggests similar programs that you can record, rather than record it for you without having to manually program the recording.

The facebook part looks like a gimmick and is not necessary. Just because a 'friend' like a program is not an indication that you would like the same program.

The demo did not say anything about the annoyance that has been going on with cable TV for a long time. You could have 200 channels, but 90 percent of them are crap that you never want to see. With cable TV, there's never been an easy way to remove them from you lineup so you never have to see them again. There's nothing in the demo that says that the 'packages' will go away, so you don't have to pay for all those channels you never watch.

The demo boasts that they downloaded 23 episodes of "30 Rock" in one minute and 39 seconds. The demo does not mention the restrictive download caps of 250 gigs per month for Comcast subscribers.

Dave

[SprDtyF350]

I could probably like the cable company again if it worked like that. No more tuners to worry about, neat. If only it could skip commercials.

[jptheripper]

This is just a fail. Let see

max tuners? likely 2.
OTA - no
multiple mixed sources? no
charges at every corner (ppv, etc..)? you betcha
monthly fee? guaranteed
stream from PC? not likely, if you could, you wouldnt buy their ppv
stream to another DVR? sure, xtra monthly rental fee included
archive off? never
placeshift off intranet? HIGHLY unlikely (been tried and networks pull shows)

PASS

[jreichen]

Geektonic retweeted an article about this: http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2011-06/...cast-xcalibur/

According to that it will have 4 tuners and up to 1TB storage. The first commenter has a link to several more YouTube videos.

There's a link to a WSJ article that says Comcast will be testing the ability to stream live TV to any internet-connected device including PCs, tablets, and XBox.

No doubt we'll have to see what kinds of content restrictions there are and what it will cost.

[jptheripper]

I think it was cablevision that tried placing shifting to iPAD. Alot of the networks /content owners(Viacom) balked and started forcing them to pull shows and not allow placeshifting.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383381,00.asp

to me this portion is DOA.

[MattHelm]

My question is how fast is the guide? Evey piece of hardware I've ever seen from any cable company, the guide has been dirt slow.

[wrems]

9:15 that's pretty sweet. I'd love to see that implemented in Sage! Perfect for the previous channel button

[reggie14]

I think this looks pretty good. 4 tuners is plenty for me, although 1TB of storage space is a little smaller than I'd like. Maybe they'll provide a way to attach an external hard drive, but I doubt it.

This is getting pretty close to something I would give up Sage for. I mean, I wouldn't drop Sage for it, but I might stop dumping more money into my Sage system. I'd like a few more features though, which I doubt Comcast would provide. Notably, support for Hulu and Netflix apps, which would presumably go against their business model.

Still, I think I could be pretty happy with something like this and an improved Boxee Box at each TV. The two biggest reasons I use Sage is for a centralized DVR and a UI that isn't painful to use. There are very few centralized DVRs, and most don't have enough tuners for me. And, except for TiVo, I've never seen a DVR UI that I didn't hate (between Comcast, Dish, and DirecTV). This mostly fixes that issue. I'd still really like to have a single box solution that does it all (TV, on-demand, imported videos, online streaming) within a single interface, but that doesn't exist yet, and probably never will.

[mkanet]

It looks like Comcast's very first box used in their pilot project in Georgia doesn't include an Ethernet/wifi port for LAN media playback like Xbox, PS3, and other popular/cheap media extenders out. But, by the time Comcast has this technology available nationwide, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they have a slightly newer box that does this too. Plus, the have the money to partner with Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Google, and other popular Internet-based services (adding seamlessly into their cloud based apps).

Having said that, SageTV has always been years ahead of mass market products. I wonder what technologies sageTV has in mind to continue staying years ahead of competition. I doubt that sageTV will ignore news like this and let new competition gain so much ground; nipping at sageTV's heals.

PS: I can't help but wonder if they plan on supporting Bluray PPV movies after their infrastructure/bandwidth upgrade. I know at least on their Internet side, customers with 1.1 Gigabyte per second will be able to download an entire bluray disc in around 45 seconds!! I'm not sure how much bandwidth they will add to TV. It would be incredible if one day we could start streaming any New Release Bluray movie at their original quality instantly. With that in place, companies such as Hulu, Playon, Netflix, Amazon VOD, may have serious competition ahead as well.

Originally Posted by reggie14

I think this looks pretty good. 4 tuners is plenty for me, although 1TB of storage space is a little smaller than I'd like. Maybe they'll provide a way to attach an external hard drive, but I doubt it.

This is getting pretty close to something I would give up Sage for. I mean, I wouldn't drop Sage for it, but I might stop dumping more money into my Sage system. I'd like a few more features though, which I doubt Comcast would provide. Notably, support for Hulu and Netflix apps, which would presumably go against their business model.

Still, I think I could be pretty happy with something like this and an improved Boxee Box at each TV. The two biggest reasons I use Sage is for a centralized DVR and a UI that isn't painful to use. There are very few centralized DVRs, and most don't have enough tuners for me. And, except for TiVo, I've never seen a DVR UI that I didn't hate (between Comcast, Dish, and DirecTV). This mostly fixes that issue. I'd still really like to have a single box solution that does it all (TV, on-demand, imported videos, online streaming) within a single interface, but that doesn't exist yet, and probably never will.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

I think it was cablevision that tried placing shifting to iPAD. Alot of the networks /content owners(Viacom) balked and started forcing them to pull shows and not allow placeshifting.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383381,00.asp

to me this portion is DOA.

You need to research a bit more One of the cable companies said see you in court and turned the streaming back on.

You aren't giving this enough credit. If my cable company offered a similar package I would be all over it and use sagetv strictly for movies. As it stands sage has not native/reliable way to get hdtv premium tv into it. (the collusus and hdpvr are not native).