Sage TV 2.0 Review at Anandtech

[JasonJoel]

Anandtech posted a review of Sage TV 2.0. Quite honestly, I thought it was pretty fair, although probably not as flattering as many on here would hope.

Although I took exception to the title of the article calling SageTV a "SnapStream alternative".

Here's the link. http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2133

Jason

[thatdude90210]

Just from skimming the article, here's something that isn't exactly correct, Sage Client does store the ip address (although I don't remember if it was automatically stored or had to be enter into the properties files).

"loading the SageTV 2.0 client prompts you for the IP address of the server, which always needs to be entered. Personally, we would like to see a store function for the IP address."

[Opus4]

Nothing against AnandTech, but that kind of stuff always happens in reviews regardless of who writes it, since it seems that reviewers don't usually spend the time to become fully familiar with a product before writing a review. There are bound to be inaccuracies/inconsistencies. Then, reviewers are quite reluctant to have a review read for accuracy by the software publisher, since if it is a negative review, there would be all kinds of objections.

- Andy

[kny3twalker]

Man you got to be kidding me
They liked Snapstream better
wow with the web config and everything yet they call SageTV a poor user interface
and the constant comparsions to BTV, damn
and yet they seem to love MCE 2004

WOW some people are really that stupid

-ranting

[mlbdude]

Well, go post on their site. If everyone points out one error with the review maybe they will update it .

[kny3twalker]

I could not register
I am not allowed to post/reply to post or edit posts
Do not know what I did to them
but I tried many usernames and a couple emails addresses

[thatdude90210]

Originally posted by mlbdude
Well, go post on their site. If everyone points out one error with the review maybe they will update it .

Not necessarily, about a year ago in one their video card reviews, one of the benchmarks they used, Splinter Cell had problems with FSAA that even the game developer had confirmed. But Anandtech thought it was an ATI driver problem, saying the ati card had problem with FSAA on that game, not realizing that Nvidia's driver just automatically turned off FSAA for that game. This was pointed out repeatedly to them, they never changed the review.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by thatdude90210
This was pointed out repeatedly to them, they never changed the review.

There we go... right or wrong, let's stick to our (jammed) guns.

- Andy

[SHS]

You can only tell he didn't spent much time on SageTV look at the Total Uptime 31 min

[kny3twalker]

You can only tell he didn't spent much time on SageTV look at the Total Uptime 31 min

Wow they must have had their new video card/ video game shipment come in

[Stemcell]

Well, I didn't think much of that review based on my experience so far which has been excellent.

BUT, one thing really left a bitter taste in my mouth and that was the mentioning of the discontinuation of the Blackbird bundles due to difficulties getting them to work properly.

Will my week old, not cheap product soon be unsupported?

Should I try and return it and exchange for a PVR 250 bundle?

Rather upset.

[kny3twalker]

no they are full of it again

sage just quit selling the dual roslyn bundle until they got a fix

I do not think hauppauge is going to stop selling a device that there is nothing wrong with

both problems have been fixed

multiple card support
auto brightness issue

also the hauppauge roslyn is a blackbird model card

[beautye350]

Originally posted by Stemcell
Well, I didn't think much of that review based on my experience so far which has been excellent.

BUT, one thing really left a bitter taste in my mouth and that was the mentioning of the discontinuation of the Blackbird bundles due to difficulties getting them to work properly.

Will my week old, not cheap product soon be unsupported?

Should I try and return it and exchange for a PVR 250 bundle?

Rather upset.

I just did exactly the opposite. I tried a 250MCE multi-tuner bundle and found that it introduced all kinds of problems, so I returned it and am back to my multi-tuner Roslyn bundle that I bought from Frey. Works better and the picture was just a good to me.

Hope that helps you.


Regards,

Beau

[kny3twalker]

where you get a multi tuner bundle that included pvr 250 MCEs, Beau?

[Diginerd]

Quote from the review:-

"Personally, we can take a program and understand everything about that program, including "cheats" and shortcuts, within less than an hour without any need for a manual With Beyond TV 3, we did exactly that, but with SageTV 2.0, it was a bit of a challenge to understand how everything works. And for those with our same tack for programs, we still recommend that you read up on the tips and tricks section in Frey's support section for SageTV 2.0 and/or read the Readme file a bit more thoroughly the first time around."

That's pretty high handed.. To say the least!

I'd love to see them get to the bottom of Pro Tools, Aivid, FCP, or a beast like Maya in an hour. Or any one of about 20 packages I've spent year learning and still haven't got to the bottom of. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a slow learner! ;-)

The problem I found with this reveiw is that many of the things they didn't like are totally configurable, though not for the feint hearted non-techie types. Just because there's not GUI for something doesn't mean it can't be done. Morlocks can tweak to their hearts content, and maybe even more so... We still have TV to watch!!

On the other hand he does have a point that as it stands right now there are lots of little things that could be done to make Sage more palletable to the Eloi.

If Morlocks and Eloi are strange terms to you I suggest you read the following (Long) text by Neal Stephenson (Author of the Cryptonomicon)

SageTV is for Morlocks, Tivo and Replay for Eloi..


http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~shane/dokum...mmandline.html

[SHS]

He must got them from pcalchemy kny3twalker far I know of there only one selling the REAL 250MCE other then Hauppauge Web store.

I sent Andrew email the other day

Andrew for must part it was nice
Andrew the Roslyns/Blackbirds card are to compliant for MCE in fact a lot OEM switch to them and no it dose not closely resembles
the WinTV-PVR-250MCE it dose closely resembles Retail WinTV-PVR-250 after all the only diff is the Tuner which has FM support and yes you rigth the Roslyns are OEM base product for MCE.
Conexants decision to make a "new Reference design" was for a couple of reasons:-
1)To keep the manufacturing costs down by incorporating all the necessary electronic components into 2 chips.
2)To make a capture card as it should be made which copies the principles of many other successful capture cards which is made up of a "Mpeg Encoder" and "Multimedia Bridge".
The "Blackbird" design is nothing unusual. The most inovative thing is the CX23880 has Video and Audio ADC's and DAC's built in
rather than using 4 other chips like the some other capture cards have, that's a big saving, in fact it halves the cost.
The "Blackbird" doesn't really have any new or wonderful abilities that other properly designed capture cards don't have. It can
capture AVI and you can software encode that on the fly to whatever format you like, great for those who are into DIVX or other codecs, and of course you can have an onscreen live undelayed preview if you wish (application dependant) but nobody make use it rigth.
But I like to point there is one downside it miss internal audio line output on toprigth side of the card.

Some thing else you shout beware of the Driver are WDM just not the type WDM you thinking of there MPEG WDM drivers
In ref to SageTV 2.0 client review it have been know the Cyberlink's MPEG2 Decoder don't work well.
You do know that SageTV also work with WinTV 350 and Sigma Designs REALmagic Xcard, NetStream 2000/2000TV/4000 which is good way get Hardware Decoding on low end P2 233 and both have there up and down.

Don't get wrong MCE nice but MS is in Control of you, You can't even record reg MPEG files you have put up with wapper ms-dvr (ASF) carp and XP is joke from hell as long it has PHONE HOME CARP.

I think done nice good with he review but I wish has spent more time on it and he should used a diff MPEG Decoder to get VMR support.
SageTV is only one totally configurable with more option then you can shake a stick at so there no GUI for everthing.

[falchulk]

"The great thing about SnapStream's Beyond TV 3 was that it enabled the creation of a HTPC without the need to purchase an entire system to get some of the functionality of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 OS. "

Funny, before snapstream 3.0 was even released sagetv provided this.


"So far as we can tell, it is basically identical to the WinTV-PVR-250BTV, an off-shoot of the WinTV-PVR-250 card for SnapStream's Beyond TV."

Hmm, this was quite shocking to me. I did not know the PVR 250 was created for snapstream.

For some reason it looks to me as if they are under the impression that snapstream started this whole pvr thing.


This statement is totally unforgivable for a person claiming to be able to review PC hardware/software:

"hypothetically, VPN should work, but the throughput consistency of the streamed content will be severely limited by download/upload bandwidth of the ISP and the ISP's routing capabilities."

Who the heck has a broadband provider that has the "download/upload bandwidth of the ISP and the ISP's routing capabilities" to stream mpeg2 files??

"As a MCE 2004 replacement, we find that SageTV 2.0 takes a lot of serious strides, but it still has a lot of work before it catches up completely. As we already mentioned, the UI is not necessarily displeasing or appealing, more neutral than anything else."

I find myself yelling for them to use VMR9 instead of overlay!

[stanger89]

Originally posted by Diginerd
[B]Quote from the review:-

"Personally, we can take a program and understand everything about that program, including "cheats" and shortcuts, within less than an hour

From the comments:

#6 - Whew... we spent a ton of time with this thing; I hope we didn't miss anything .

Apparently an hour is a ton of time

[DFranch]

I can't say that their were lots of mistakes made by the reviewer, but it seems like he made it a point to dwell on the negative, and not praise the positive. For instance, I find the conflict resolution, and ability to have multiple tuners to be two of Sage Tv's best features. However, the reviewer barely mentions these and discounts the features by saying the next version of BTV will have the same features. He is basically recomending that people wait for snapstream to support it when Sage does it already.

[beautye350]

Originally posted by kny3twalker
where you get a multi tuner bundle that included pvr 250 MCEs, Beau?

SHS is correct. I ordered the bundle from PCAlchemy and then ordered a second tuner.


Regards,

Beau