SageTV acquired by Google

[valnar]

The biggest fear I have is *something* will happen right around September, but I need to know sooner. Right now there are no new episodes that I care about but come September the new season arrives. If the EPG data is pulled then, I don't have a lot of time to find a replacement - at least one that can cover 4 tuners and 4 TV's in the house. A PVR from my cable company will handle only one TV. That will most likely be the device I have to buy "in a pinch".

[rwc]

I'm surprised that I'm the only optimistic one here...

Over the years, the "niche" of sage has caused many limitations--

• How Sage needs to compete with WMC (which is almost free)
• How Sage needs to pay large fees (for cable card/drm issues)
• How Sage needs a large number of users in order to get integration into other services (ex netflix)

And what about that HUGE thread about how googleTV and Sage could work together?

With google's resources (time, money, developers, and branding) Sage may get all that...along with a wider market share over all, better integration into the whole home automation, and home theater market. Who knows, maybe it will have native integration into Android?

Only time will tell, but this is a great opportunity for Sage! I hope that google does "the right thing"

[jlindborg]

Man… lotta drama queens out here. Folks should just chill for a few days – I’m sure they’ll make a statement about support policy for existing customers and the programming guide etc… Been with these guys for 6+ years at this point and they don’t strike me as the cut-n-run crowd. Lots of product pride and passion coming through by my estimation, falling down and having a tantrum in the absence of solid information right after a big announcement like this is silly. And folks that are whining we didn’t get a “heads up”… well, you’re morons.

Having worked for two companies that got bought by much, much larger entities I’m happy for the Sage crew. In both cases the future of the companies was in serious long term jeopardy due to shifting markets – happy they got themselves a nice landing (sounds a lot nicer than mine!). Good for them and their families – been on the other end of the stick where a white knight didn’t come out of the woodwork – I’ll take door #2 every time.

[kmp14]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I think we should all stop the FUD and just wait a few days to see what statements are made. If I were Sage and Google I'd also be keeping my mouth closed until I was sure I had all of the answers. The deal was only signed about 12 hours ago.

I'm hoping stuckless' dream comes true and the software is open sourced.

+1

I am reading this thread and getting more and more depressed...but we don't know anything yet. Let's all calm down and cross our fingers (or pray, if that is your thing).

[graywolf]

Originally Posted by APillowOfClouds

I made a very large investment with Sage to get away from BeyondTV when they decided to focus on corporate video products and abandoned their users who had supported them extensively. Now, with a couple hundred dollars of Sage licenses, a whole family dependent on them and money already earmarked to upgrade to v7, I wake up on Father's Day to find out that I have been abandoned once again. No warning, no email, NOTHING. No download links left that seem to work. So I guess I had better to scrape all the old installs off of my network and preserve them and hope that I don't need any support.

Bravo.

Apparently the exe's are still available for download if you know the file name. Search the forums for the link format.

I would assume Sage and Google people are still monitoring these forums. Can we at least get a commitment that our EPG data will continue and we will be able to continue to download whatever current versions we have and get support on any hardware people have?

AH HA....so it is all YOUR fault. You moved from BeyondTV to SageTV.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by valnar

The biggest fear I have is *something* will happen right around September, but I need to know sooner. Right now there are no new episodes that I care about but come September the new season arrives. If the EPG data is pulled then, I don't have a lot of time to find a replacement - at least one that can cover 4 tuners and 4 TV's in the house. A PVR from my cable company will handle only one TV. That will most likely be the device I have to buy "in a pinch".

XMLTV will work in a pinch. I don't think its a great long-term solution, but it will work.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by rwc

I'm surprised that I'm the only optimistic one here...

Over the years, the "niche" of sage has caused many limitations--

• How Sage needs to compete with WMC (which is almost free)
• How Sage needs to pay large fees (for cable card/drm issues)
• How Sage needs a large number of users in order to get integration into other services (ex netflix)

And what about that HUGE thread about how googleTV and Sage could work together?

With google's resources (time, money, developers, and branding) Sage may get all that...along with a wider market share over all, better integration into the whole home automation, and home theater market. Who knows, maybe it will have native integration into Android?

Only time will tell, but this is a great opportunity for Sage! I hope that google does "the right thing"

All true ... I think it's the suddeness, lack of information and fact that we see these things go both ways, good and bad ... If you are right and Google "really" takes an interest we all could benefit in many ways. But they have to take something good and make it better, not kill it with a poor vision.

So, yes, time (hopefully little) will tell, but I understand the angst over this breaking news.

OK ... Who moved my cheese? ... ... (you had to have taken the class or read the book to understand that comment.)

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by rwc

I'm surprised that I'm the only optimistic one here...

Over the years, the "niche" of sage has caused many limitations--

• How Sage needs to compete with WMC (which is almost free)
• How Sage needs to pay large fees (for cable card/drm issues)
• How Sage needs a large number of users in order to get integration into other services (ex netflix)

And what about that HUGE thread about how googleTV and Sage could work together?

With google's resources (time, money, developers, and branding) Sage may get all that...along with a wider market share over all, better integration into the whole home automation, and home theater market. Who knows, maybe it will have native integration into Android?

Only time will tell, but this is a great opportunity for Sage! I hope that google does "the right thing"

+1

my initial thoughts is this is how sagetv gets our of the hole they are in wrt drm...........google has the resources to do what needs to be done next, so the hd400 will have the ability to play back encrypted channels

[jptheripper]

Optimistic View

Sage was really only 5 ppl or so (Jeff, quin, george). Maybe they are now Google employees, but in charge of project. Still same old sage, now with unlimited resources and access to developers, etc..



If anyone is concerned and considering yardsaleing , contact me . I am willing to get a list of concerns together. I know it wont mean much, but maybe if you present a unified front our question might get answered, or at least considered.

[cat6man]

first of all, congratulations Jeff and Andy and the rest of SageTV.

i'm on the optimistic side of the coin, as i see this as a way out of the cable card (and whatever follow it) dilemma for sagetv.
cable card and drm is here whether or not we want it, and while stb/hdpvr type solutions are acceptable workarounds, my idea is cable card tuners (like prime or ceton) integrated into sagetv with playback on hd400 extenders that support cable card drm.............same functionality as today, but no stb rentals (just cable cards or their equivalents in the future).

i could care less, personally, about integrated music, GUI, and stuff like that (your mileage may vary, of course, but i have no desire to integrate my home stereo system into my home theater) so as long as they keep SRE functional, i'll be a happy camper when i can get rid of my STBs.

by the way, they should give stock options to creators of plugins like SRE!
(did you guys patent that????)


happy fathers day everyone!

[davenlr]

Does anyone know of a way/place to extract the license keys from the installed software? I want to backup my license keys on a CD in case I need to reinstall. I had 6.6 and upgraded to 7. Have the upgrade license key for 7 and 7 client, but cannot locate the original one for 6.6 or 7 placeshifter.

[heffneil]

Did Jeffery make a statement? Did he say in that statement he was staying on? I think that is going to be one of the comforts to users when an acquisition like this occurs. GoogleTV is crap. They know we know it and picking up sage is really good for them, probably not for us.

I have been considering running Plex for my movie library and I think that is probably where I am headed. Other than that I will just get the DirecTV whole home DVR and put a big external esata disk to store endless media. -If I have to. There are tons of alternatives but none to me as convenient of good as sagetv as it is.

The one problem is that for me as an apple user I would imagine I will not get any support for iOS device but we will have android support in the next decade.

What future lies for sagetv is a big question and the unknown is obviously a concern for all of us who are invested heavily in the product. The store going down is a bad omen but makes my hd100 and hd200's I replaced with HD300's that much more valuable.

God help us all

Neil

[GKusnick]

My favorite comment was the one that said "Let's be herd people". "Herd people" is exactly what we're being, ready to stampede off a cliff at the first sign of trouble. If we talk ourselves into a panic and start dumping HD300s on eBay for peanuts, how is that a good outcome for anybody? Right now our equipment still works and still has value. The only way it becomes worthless in the near future is if we convince people that it's worthless. So let's not do that.

[jdamore]

Where do we sign up to get email notifications on the acquisition?

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

"Herd people" is exactly what we're being, ready to stampede off a cliff at the first sign of trouble.

All I've seen are people express valid concerns, certainly no cliff jumping yet.

Optimistic or pessimistic, we're all just reading tea leaves. We have no idea what this new Sagle TV will bring -- but do you honestly think that will keep us from speculating?

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

"Herd people" is exactly what we're being, ready to stampede off a cliff at the first sign of trouble.

for those who believe the gloom & doom 'masses' are over reacting, I just have one simple request...
provide just one example of where Company X gets acquired by Company Y, and the customers of Company X don't get screwed...

note: my extenders still work fine, my sage still works fine, I am not jumping ship, or even considering jumping ship until either of those first two points change... I am just not very optimistic about the future right at this point in time...

[jdamore]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

My favorite comment was the one that said "Let's be herd people". "Herd people" is exactly what we're being, ready to stampede off a cliff at the first sign of trouble. If we talk ourselves into a panic and start dumping HD300s on eBay for peanuts, how is that a good outcome for anybody? Right now our equipment still works and still has value. The only way it becomes worthless in the near future is if we convince people that it's worthless. So let's not do that.

haha.. Wheres the "like" button

[logsvp]

I really don't understand all the doom and gloom

In Jeff's announcement he says:

We're thrilled to announce that SageTV has been acquired by Google. ... ... Full speed ahead!

To me this sounds absolutely fantastic

SageTV looks to be moving mainstream - I guess we could even find it embedded in TV's thereby removing the need for extender's.

I for one am looking forward to the next set of announcements on where SageTV is headed - If Jeff is pleased about it, then I suspect I will be to

[madpoet]

All the "wait and see" posts are perfectly valid. Here's the problem though... they took everything, including support, down. We bought products with certain warranties and expectations of service and right now we have zero method of getting that. That is the short term issue thaat I think should be immediately addressed.

[broconne]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

for those who believe the gloom & doom 'masses' are over reacting, I just have one simple request...
provide just one example of where Company X gets acquired by Company Y, and the customers of Company X don't get screwed...

GrandCentral acquisition by Google worked out OK. However, that was a whole different ballgame. Google wasn't already in "that business"