Any comments on new Beyond TV 3.5?

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by Watter

There are quite a few little things that drive me nuts in this area, but I'll just mentioned a few. It should be noted that I use the two pane view:

1. Returning to the Menu - I'm constantly on the verge of pulling my hair out when I perform an action with a recording and then return to the list only to find myself in a completely different part of the list. Of course, as I'm typing this I'm trying to recreate the behavior in order to provide a more specific example, and I'm unable to do so. Heh.
2. Sorting - This ties in to one my biggest complaints with SageTV (I'll explain below), but the only sorting option which gets "watched" shows out of my way is "Intelligent" but as far as I can tell. there's absolutely nothing intelligent about it. I have no idea what criteria it's using to sort the shows in this mode, but it's never in the order that I would actually want to watch them.
3. Page Up/Down - This is well know bug. You can't page up/down in the list of recordings (at least the two-pane list) without screwing everything up.

I mentioned by “biggest complaint” above, and that complaint is with “watched” items. I waste way, WAYYYY too much time either manually deleting watched items or attempting to dig past them to get to items I actually want to see. I honestly do not understand why there can’t be a simple setting which has a yes/no property. If set to yes, then when you leave a recording and return to the ui and you have watched 90% or more of it, SageTV asks you if you want to delete it (I know I’ve used Tivo as an example before, but here it is again) the way the Tivo does.

This has nothing to do with disk space. I let SageTV manage that and it does a great job. This is purely an issue of having to wade through hundreds of gigabytes of “watched” shows that have no business still cluttering up my lists.


I have always considered SageTV’s settings to need a little work. A couple of examples:

• Organization – I know you guys who change these settings all the time or who have written STVs know the configuration menus by heart, but for me, whenever I need to change something, I still have to hunt around to find it. Is it in the “Multimedia” section or the “Video” section, or wait… maybe “Advanced”?
• Advanced Options – many of the advanced settings are in the .properties files. For instance, the recording quality settings that mentioned in a previous post. To modify these in SageTV, you have to 1) do it in a properties file, and 2) know what the heck the entries in the property file are supposed to mean.
• There are a number of menu items that don't make any sense like "DXVA MPEG Mode". After personally asking and seeing others ask I've never once seen an answer as to what this setting does. Ther are others which do have a meaning but not one that is immediately clear or one that someone can lookup in a help file to figure out like "Overlay Color Keying" or "Video Orbiting Duration". BTV has little blurbs of text appear at the bottom of the screen which display a description of whatever option you currently have selected. It goes back to the "professional appearance" thing.

Almost all of my concerns with SageTV (aside from stability) boil down to “User Interaction”. I know it may not be financially possible, but Frey could do far worse than to contract with a group which has expertise in UI design.

Finally, it should be noted that you guys asked me what I didn’t like so this post came off as hugely negative. I really do like SageTV. If not for the instability problem I’ve had over the last few months, I wouldn’t have even have bothered trying out BTV. I’ve criticized SageTV a lot over the years, but the fact is I still use it and I still try to persuade my friends and acquaintances to do so as well.

-Watter

Nothing wrong with voicing your opinion. Frey wants to hear this kind of feedback. Even though they are forcing themselves to be silent, they are listening to what the users are saying.

For Sage Recordings, you will be happy to know that #1 and #3 are from I can tell fixed for 2.1. #3 should not be considered a bug in Sage though since I added that functionality as a user addon knowing full well it would have limitations. More of a MlbDude bug .

For #2 Intelligent sorting is based on how high they are rated internal to Sage but generally works best in a long list mode without grouping.

Hiding or auto deleting watched shows is simple to modify in Studio. Since all shows are watched when you reach the end I guess all shows would pose the question, but when? If you let it play to the end?

[Opus4]

Unless I got it wrong in the manual, the Intelligent "Sort by" option for SageTV Recordings is presented on page 30 of the 2.0 manual: The order is Manual Recordings, then Favs, then IR & live TV, then watched, then Don't Likes. Within those subsections, newer recordings are listed first. That's all I noticed about it anyway.

- Andy

[Watter]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

For Sage Recordings, you will be happy to know that #1 and #3 are from I can tell fixed for 2.1. #3 should not be considered a bug in Sage though since I added that functionality as a user addon knowing full well it would have limitations. More of a MlbDude bug .

I'm excited about the 2.1 announcement. To be honest, the self imposed silence from Frey has been worrying. We make an investment of more than just money when we begin to use products like SageTV, Meedio, or BeyondTV. We invest time into customizing and setting up the respective environemnts and more time into utilizing the flexibility that PC based offerrigns allow. All of that investment can lead to something of a love/hate relationship.

I hope that Frey become more communicative in the future. It's possible to be communicative without giving out hard dates on a release. I manage a project that releases a product about every nine months and fully understand the danger of setting expectations, but I'm not sure that failing to communicate forward progress with your users is any less dangerous.

-Watter

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by Watter

I hope that Frey become more communicative in the future.

I need to chime in here. Frey HAS been more communicative lately. I think we went a couple of months without hearing anything. I know that we haven't seen a post outlining when 2.1 is coming and what changes there will be, but lately I have seen quite a few posts from Dan and Jeff and I think it's a step in the right direction.

The only thing that worries me is that everytime we get a nugget of information, they are immediately pounced upon for not providing more. Not really the best way to encourage them to post more. IMHO.

Jere

[jominor]

Originally Posted by Watter

[*]Returning to the Menu - I'm constantly on the verge of pulling my hair out when I perform an action with a recording and then return to the list only to find myself in a completely different part of the list. Of course, as I'm typing this I'm trying to recreate the behavior in order to provide a more specific example, and I'm unable to do so. Heh. [*]Sorting - This ties in to one my biggest complaints with SageTV (I'll explain below), but the only sorting option which gets "watched" shows out of my way is "Intelligent" but as far as I can tell. there's absolutely nothing intelligent about it. I have no idea what criteria it's using to sort the shows in this mode, but it's never in the order that I would actually want to watch them.
-Watter

I'm with you on some of these. Why is it when I pick a show under Sage recordings, then hit stop and go back to Sage recordings, does it end up in a different place? Never in the same group.

It would be good if watch shows moved to the bottom of the list, even in a group view. Also, the italics is hard to distinguish between watched and unwatched. An asterisk or W or something would be clearer.

[mlbdude]

It would be good if watch shows moved to the bottom of the list, even in a group view

That is what happens with Intelligent sorting. If you use a different sort method it will override that.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

I need to chime in here. Frey HAS been more communicative lately. I think we went a couple of months without hearing anything. I know that we haven't seen a post outlining when 2.1 is coming and what changes there will be, but lately I have seen quite a few posts from Dan and Jeff and I think it's a step in the right direction.

The only thing that worries me is that everytime we get a nugget of information, they are immediately pounced upon for not providing more. Not really the best way to encourage them to post more. IMHO.

Jere

Yep ... 2.1 details are coming as communicated by "Dan the man" himself just yesterday!!! So, yes they do communicate to some degree.

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...2&postcount=20

T.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by stanger89

My sentiments exactly, I always hated having to open a web page to change settings.

DITTO Stanger89!! I recently posted a thread on my Settings UI thoughts. Web-based or Windows Dialog-based do not work well on Std. TV's. SO, the best I would go is to provide these alternatives as an option only. Not a replacement.

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ead.php?t=7559

As for Music Jukebox complaints, this thread was encouraging to me ...

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...hlight=mightyt

Also, IMHO ... As for the new BTV 3.5, I am always hesitant of hopping from product to product because they, at least the serious software providers, will always leap frog each other. BTV didn't just come up with multi-tuner or network client support on their own, they had to compete with Sage. Now, do we think Sage will stay where it is should someone else come up with a new cool feature or two? I expect Sage to stay in the lead or always close to it, supporting my investment in them.

Lastly, I have had little to none stability issues with my Sage setup since July. Yea, there are a few quirks/bugs, but all in all for me it has been pretty rock solid.

T.

[JasonJoel]

Yeah, that seems to be a love it or hate it option. I hate it, but that is me. I really want to do EVERYTHING from the 10 ft interface.

That being said, I hate going into the properties file in Sage, too. So both of them require you configuring in two completely different places.

Jason

Originally Posted by mlbdude

N
I actually can't stand going to a web page to configure my PVR, but some users that don't use the system as a Tivo like system love it.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

That is what happens with Intelligent sorting. If you use a different sort method it will override that.

I know. But the intelligent sorting quickly grows out of control without some sort of primary sorting. The group sort at least gives you some ability to organize by show. But a list of over 100 shows, especially when the different episodes of the same show spread linearly is unwieldy.

[jakoleh]

I have been using both SageTV and BeyondTV. I started with BeyondTV 3.4 and when SageTV 2.0 came I tried that one and changed to Sage for a while. Biggest thing was that I wasn't able to use BeyondTV 3.5 beta versions at all.

I liked Sage very much. It has many nice features what BeyondTV doesn't have. (For example preview of the channel in EPG view). I think though that those media parts in SageTV are not needed. I have been waiting for Sage Studio for a while that I could get rid of that extra stuff and leave only the PVR part.

With the latests beta versions I tried BeyondTV again and it worked nicely. Final thing was the fact that XMLTV listings doesn't work in Sage. If you havet to go in settings once per week to do tricks that you can get new epg data updated that is not right. BeyondTV's xmltv plugin works like a charm and until that is fixed I have no possibility to use SageTV.

BeyondTV isn't exactly bug free. But it works for me better than SageTV.

[hoep]

Originally Posted by jakoleh

With the latests beta versions I tried BeyondTV again and it worked nicely. Final thing was the fact that XMLTV listings doesn't work in Sage. If you havet to go in settings once per week to do tricks that you can get new epg data updated that is not right. BeyondTV's xmltv plugin works like a charm and until that is fixed I have no possibility to use SageTV.

BeyondTV isn't exactly bug free. But it works for me better than SageTV.

But SageTV HAS a xmltv-plugin (provided by someone else) which works like a charm, following the install instructions. My EPG updates every morning constantly, and i never missed one update since months. For ME this works even more reliable than the XMLTV-pluging for BTV 3.5.

regards
hoep

[jakoleh]

Originally Posted by hoep

But SageTV HAS a xmltv-plugin (provided by someone else) which works like a charm, following the install instructions. My EPG updates every morning constantly, and i never missed one update since months. For ME this works even more reliable than the XMLTV-pluging for BTV 3.5.

regards
hoep

What XMLTV plugin you have used? The problem has been that I have updated the XMLTV file and when I go to Sage the guide have not been updated. You have to go to lineup to do some tricks that Sage would update the guide and that doesn't allways work. The XMLTV file is updated every other night. It takes 7 days ahead in that update. When I was using Sage I just noticed after 7 days that there were no more data in EPG. I needed to trick to Sage to update the epg.

Cheers,
Janne

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jakoleh

The problem has been that I have updated the XMLTV file and when I go to Sage the guide have not been updated.

Sage doesn't update the guide immediately after updating the file. It updates the guide once per day. If you go into system information it will tell you when the next update will be.

[AndersNolberger]

I also have the problem with Sage not updating from XMLTV. I know that Sage is supposed to only update once a day, and that would be fine, but it is not. My script is getting the epgdata.xml fine but Sage never reads it. I have to go to channel setup and remove and then readd a channel for Sage to read the file and sometimes that does not work either. Then I have to completely stop Sage and restart it and then try the Channel setup work around again. Just waiting for Sage to read the file does not work. I wish there was a command line parameter (or sendmessage command) to initiate a update of the epg, then I could add that command to my batch file that fetches the epgdata.

/Anders

[hoep]

hmm - I have found out the following issue:
The machine, which is always on, never fails to get the updates correctly. On another machine (i never looked on the epg there) it also fails; maybe it has something to do with the wake-up process (not really shure about that) and the network.

...have to check that, will post the observations.

i use the plugin, which is liked on the sage homepage (under third party tools or so).
regards
hoep

[kny3twalker]

no idea where this thread is going but beyondTV made PC magazine for build you own DVR

as well as the Firefly

man why the PC people (reviewers) not into SageTV the same way?

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by kny3twalker

no idea where this thread is going but beyondTV made PC magazine for build you own DVR

as well as the Firefly

man why the PC people (reviewers) not into SageTV the same way?

Yea, I saw that ...

The only thing I can think of is you find Beyond TV and Firefly on the shelf at places like Frys ... though that should be no excuse to overlook the competition ...

Now that PC Mag has opened the door and acknowledged PVR's outside of Billy’s Mediocre Center Edition, I say start that email campaign to the editor asking for a real shoot out, and not be so one sided.

T.

[kny3twalker]

yeah every month they choose BeyondTV as DVR software for the month

do they not know there are other choices?

[fieldeffect]

I think that reviewers prefer Beyond TV because it has a much friendlier interface. The Sage interface may be more powerful when you get to know it, but with BTV everything is just where you intuitively expect it to be.

Great example - from the program guide if I ask it to record the current program I would intuitively expect to be asked if I want just this program or the entire series. Instead I have to go through several clicks to do this.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not Sage bashing (i'm actually thinking of making the switch from BTV because while the GUI might not be so polished, Sage actually works on a regular basis ) but BTV is a lot closer to the interface the average user is looking for.

Is there any way to get a beta of Sage Studio? I'm sure I could do something pretty cool with it. *itchy fingers*

Nick.