Windows 8: Anybody Running Client?

[PeteCress]

I'm shopping for a media consumption device: something less massive than my Vaio laptop but bigger than my 5" Samsung Note....

Lazy slug that I am... Something where I can watch movies and/or TV laying on a couch with the thing on a pillow resting on my stomach or chest.

One option is a 10" Android tablet and connecting directly in to Sage's RecordedTV and Imported Media folders/drives. Works on my little Samsung Note... but then I have to hunt among several drives/shares to find a given TV show recording or movie.

With that in mind, I have been scoping out the new tablet-like Windows 8 machines with touch screens - especially the Microsoft Surface Pro....

The attraction is the possibility getting SageTV's full functionality by running SageTV Client: no more hunting through multiple shares, "Resume" for partially-watched showe/movies, and so-forth.

So, bottom line, is anybody actually running SageTV client on a Windows 8 tablet-like machine?

[Thomas Wischgol]

I had to upgrade my client in the living room. The new computer is now running Windows 8. Windows 8 itself sucks, but the Sage client is running just fine on it.

[OneOfMany]

I have been running both Client & Placeshifter on an Acer Iconia W500 tablet on Win 8 for the last year. From Release Preview, Consumer Preview, and now Win 8 Pro. Runs flawless. No different than any other client.

I run the Phoenix front end on my other systems, but found it not touch-friendly, so use the default interface on the tablet. Streams all my live, recordings and DVDs no problem, and of course works well for music and photos as well. Definitely impresses others ��

Grant

[markds]

Also running Placeshifter on HP Pav box with Win 8. No problems whatsoever.
Win 8 is great, especially with 'Classic Start Menu' open source, if you don't get the Metro tiles.

[LWM4P]

Hello,
I am thinking of replacing an old touchscreen I have mounted in my kitchen (EEE all in one thingy) with a Windows tablet. I would be running sage client on it. We use it mostly to watch morning TV and to play music.

Question: The reason I am switching is to get the touchscreen to work more like a tablet (swiping, menu scrolling, and stuff) and not just trying to mash on the little scroll bars, tiny buttons, and crap.... Can someone describe what is it like to have sage client on the windows tablet? Can you flick-scroll or do you have to hit the scroll bar? What about right clicks? Anything else?

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by LWM4P

Hello,
I am thinking of replacing an old touchscreen I have mounted in my kitchen (EEE all in one thingy) with a Windows tablet. I would be running sage client on it. We use it mostly to watch morning TV and to play music.

Question: The reason I am switching is to get the touchscreen to work more like a tablet (swiping, menu scrolling, and stuff) and not just trying to mash on the little scroll bars, tiny buttons, and crap.... Can someone describe what is it like to have sage client on the windows tablet? Can you flick-scroll or do you have to hit the scroll bar? What about right clicks? Anything else?

Have you considered something like a used HD200, with a small flat panel? Seems like it might be far cheaper overall solution and more efficient than the touchscreen interface.

[amac]

Another alternative is to use Plex to stream to whatever you buy.
Plex can integrate with Sagetv and read Sage's library of shows. You don't have to navigate folders once configured. The only downside (unless there's been a software update) is that , it does not handle commercial skipping.

I use it to stream to a WD media player with DLNA but there are also Plex client apps for tablets. I think I used this link to install.

http://code.google.com/p/sagetv-for-...allingAndUsing

Sage forum link http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ight=diskspace

[wayner]

Anyone else have any experience running SageTV client or Placeshifter on a Win8 tablet? I want a portable option for Sage playback but I need it to work properly with SkipFwd and my recollection is that stuff like Plex doesn't work well for that.

My recollection is that Placeshifter doesn't work too well for 1080i files due to the transcoding software that Sage uses.

[Evil_Attorney]

Originally Posted by wayner

Anyone else have any experience running SageTV client or Placeshifter on a Win8 tablet? I want a portable option for Sage playback but I need it to work properly with SkipFwd and my recollection is that stuff like Plex doesn't work well for that.

My recollection is that Placeshifter doesn't work too well for 1080i files due to the transcoding software that Sage uses.

I recently picked up one of the Intel NUCs with a 4G i5 processor. It plays back video perfectly, including 1080i. I suspect a Win 8 tablet with similar specs would do the same. Not sure what is out there with the 4th generation i5 in it.

[wayner]

There is a Dell Venue 11Pro with an i5 that costs $900 for the 128GB model from Dell Canada.

The cheapest Dell Windows Pro models are $300 for an Atom Z38740D processor and 32GB of storage. That model has an 8" screen.

[Evil_Attorney]

Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 should work too. It's about $900 on the MS website. I don't think the atom versions will run Sage or any other standard windows programs.

[wayner]

Are you sure that you are not confusing the Atom Win8 Pro tablets with Windows RT (ie non-Pro) tablets? Windows RT tablets have different CPUs - like the Quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 in the Microsoft Surface RT.

I am pretty sure that Windows Pro tablets all have Intel CPUs that run the same Win8 OS as a desktop PC. Therefore they should run any Windows application. The question is can they do it with smooth video playback. But this is the same issue with any Intel Atom CPU whether it is a tablet, laptop or desktop.

[Evil_Attorney]

You are correct, I am confusing them. But yea, not sure if they have the muscle power to make 1080i happen. Unfortunately, anything with an i5 chip in it is more than I would want to pay for a TV tablet.

[wayner]

Here is what I found on Tom's Hardware regarding the CPU in these Dell Tablets. It actually sounds promising:

Beyond simply beefing up 3D potential, Bay Trail also gets the power and performance benefits of Quick Sync’s fixed-function and programmable media pipeline. H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, and MVC are all decoded in hardware, while H.264 and MPEG-2 encoding can be accelerated.

I would think that this hardware acceleration along with a quad core CPU that runs at 1.8GHz should give you performance that is similar to a mid range PC from 5 years ago. That should be enought horsepower to playback 1080i files

[Evil_Attorney]

Interesting. Still, not all H.264 acceleration is up to the task of 1080i decoding. I would want to see this playback in action before pulling the trigger.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by wayner

Here is what I found on Tom's Hardware regarding the CPU in these Dell Tablets. It actually sounds promising:


I would think that this hardware acceleration along with a quad core CPU that runs at 1.8GHz should give you performance that is similar to a mid range PC from 5 years ago. That should be enought horsepower to playback 1080i files

I have not tested them, but everything I have read suggests that Intel made major major improvements with the new "BayTrail" Atom processors. They use a new graphics core based on a scaled down HD4000 (similar to Ivybridge GPUs, but fewer execution units), and support out-of-order execution of instructions in the CPU.

The old Atoms were used in Netbooks and struggled with basic web browsing, but the new ones should actually be fairly decent. They are still weaker than a Core i3, but may be good enough for SageTV.

You need to be careful though, because they are still selling the old Atom CPU's too. Make sure you are getting Bay Trail. These are labeled "Z3xxx", like Z3740 and Z3770.

[wayner]

I am thinking of getting the Dell Venue 8 Pro which is the Z3740.

[wayner]

I just started a thread as I have received my Dell tablet http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...518#post560518