10 things I do hate about SAGE

[chrysek]

10 things I do hate about SAGE

1) unstable - crashes
2) GUI gets 100% cpu utilization when wiz.bin has problems.
3) configurations are not in sync when running service mode. sage.properties and SageClient.properties
4) cannot fast forward rewind the same as in tivo (press once it then increases speed by x2, press second time it then increases speed to x4 etc.)
5) when returning from fast forward/rewind it should put you back few seconds/frames back to the recording since human reaction will always be slower than what the actual frame will show.
6) uneasy installation (check Beyond TV, its amazing and simple)
7) sometimes I do loose recording schedule (need to recover wiz.bin again)
8) no HDTV support
9) no strong recommendation on most stable hardware configuration which would prevent any crashes or weird behavior.
10) studio not out and it was promised.

[chrysek]

Don’t get me wrong, other than that I do love Sage….

[g808]

Wow, were you having instability issues prior to 2.1? Maybe 2.2 will fix some of those issues as I think othes have had similar problems with 2.1. I'm still runnng 2.0 since 2.1 didn't have a lot of features I needed right away.

Also, I found setup of Sage was pretty simple. I run Sage in my living room and BTV in by bedroom, so I know a little about both. I thought BTV needed more tweaks when setting up like adding better qualities (although I think 3.5 has some better default quality settings) and manually configuring support for the latest nVidia decoder, which Sage supports out-of-the-box. Overall, I think there is a fair amout of setup involved for each. Some find the flexibility a good thing with each product, and with flexibility comes some complexity. That's why those who don't need flexibility like Tivo so much. It's ready to go right out of the box, but not much customization is allowed.

Others have complained about the fast forward/rewind issues too. BTV has the incremental FF, which is nice. I think BTV's controls are nicer than Sage, but Sage is more responsive and has better PVR qualities.

If I had to point out why I moved BTV to the bedroom and use Sage as my main PVR is because:
1. Sage does "smart" storage management. No need to have to tell it where to record each show if using multiple drives.
2. Sage has the option to record a show on any channel. You need to specify a channel in BTV.
3. Sage menu is more responsive.

[stanger89]

I'll try and comment on the ones that aren't really "feature requests"

Originally Posted by chrysek

3) configurations are not in sync when running service mode. sage.properties and SageClient.properties

What exactly should be combined? Pretty much all the UI stuff is in the SageClient.prop, and the backend stuff is in the Sage.prop.

4) cannot fast forward rewind the same as in tivo (press once it then increases speed by x2, press second time it then increases speed to x4 etc.)
5) when returning from fast forward/rewind it should put you back few seconds/frames back to the recording since human reaction will always be slower than what the actual frame will show.

I'll just say that these two kind of go together.

6) uneasy installation (check Beyond TV, its amazing and simple)

Could you be more specific?

1) unstable - crashes
2) GUI gets 100% cpu utilization when wiz.bin has problems.
7) sometimes I do loose recording schedule (need to recover wiz.bin again)
9) no strong recommendation on most stable hardware configuration which would prevent any crashes or weird behavior.

On 9) I'm not sure how much good that would do, becuase even with the exact same hardware config, you can still have stability problems on one but not another, especially if the software was installed by different people.

As for the rest (1,2,7) it sounds like you have some underlying problem. You should not be having to restore the wiz.bin.

[john f]

Agree 100% with your complaints.

John

[silkshadow]

1) unstable - crashes
2) GUI gets 100% cpu utilization when wiz.bin has problems.
6) uneasy installation (check Beyond TV, its amazing and simple)

Though relatively new to Sage, I have not experienced any of these.

7) sometimes I do loose recording schedule (need to recover wiz.bin again)

Ouch! Really? If so, I need to be more dillegent in backing up my wiz.bin. *yikes*

9) no strong recommendation on most stable hardware configuration which would prevent any crashes or weird behavior.

Interesting. Pretty good idea.

8) no HDTV support

First PVR package to be able to do this will dominate the PVR software market. Would also give me something to say in defense of PC based PVRs to the Tivo faithful. I agree.

4) cannot fast forward rewind the same as in tivo (press once it then increases speed by x2, press second time it then increases speed to x4 etc.)
5) when returning from fast forward/rewind it should put you back few seconds/frames back to the recording since human reaction will always be slower than what the actual frame will show.

These are feature requests and I second them. Would also add:

1) Make the speed of 'play slower' customizable. Like Zoomplayer does.
2) Better XMLTV support. Please? The BTV xml importer is so much better than what we have right now. It made me want to switch but just couldn't get BTV working the way I wanted it to. Sage is better.

10) studio not out and it was promised.

Promised but without a date though, right? Cause if there was a promised date .... then its not good that its not out yet.

[nielm]

7) sometimes I do loose recording schedule (need to recover wiz.bin again)

Never ever happened to me.

2) Better XMLTV support. Please?

What do you mean by better? (note both Sage's and BTVs XML handling are user-developed and not supported by Frey/Snapstream)
There is an improved imported being developed...

10) studio not out and it was promised.

A fixed date was never promised (always 'next year', 'later', etc). It's more like HL2 was last year -- not yet released but you know it exists -- than Duke Nukem Forever

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by chrysek

10 things I do hate about SAGE

4) cannot fast forward rewind the same as in tivo (press once it then increases speed by x2, press second time it then increases speed to x4 etc.)
5) when returning from fast forward/rewind it should put you back few seconds/frames back to the recording since human reaction will always be slower than what the actual frame will show.

I used Tivo both Standalone and DirecTivo for about 4 years prior to moving to SageTV. Before the move I thought the lack of "tivo's FF" would be hard to deal with. However after actually using SageTV, I can say I do not miss it. With Tivos method to skip through commericals you have to FF and pay very close attention to the screen with hand ready to hit play at just the right time. While this is great for competition with the wife at who is best at "Tivo'ing", I find that the hit the FF a couple of times and then REW once is less stressfull and easier to get to just the right spot.

And using Comskip who needs a FF button

Now I wish their was a skip#3 that could be set to like 15min.

[mlbdude]

The FF/REW methods in Sage are far more efficient, but from what I have read people that scan for items find it more difficult to use.

From 1, 2, 7, I would agree that you have something wrong on your system and it is not fair to ask Frey to fix that for you. I have never seen any of that unless I am screwing around with something.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

Now I wish their was a skip#3 that could be set to like 15min.

There is. You have FF & FF2, but then there is also TimeScroll mode, which will give you a 3rd FF/REW time when used with the FF/REW buttons and it will jump to the start/end if used with the ff2/rew2 buttons.

- Andy

[mikbro]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

First PVR package to be able to do this will dominate the PVR software market. Would also give me something to say in defense of PC based PVRs to the Tivo faithful. I agree.

Actually MCE 2005 has single tuner OTA HDTV support using the ATI HDTV Wonder and Fusion cards. This is the main reason I have put Sage on the back burner in lieu of MCE for now.

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by silkshadow
First PVR package to be able to do this will dominate the PVR software market. Would also give me something to say in defense of PC based PVRs to the Tivo faithful. I agree.

Actually MCE 2005 has single tuner OTA HDTV support using the ATI HDTV Wonder and Fusion cards. This is the main reason I have put Sage on the back burner in lieu of MCE for now.

But that's not the reason M$ is going to dominate the PVR market. They are going to dominate the PVR market because they can and they want to.

[chrysek]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

The FF/REW methods in Sage are far more efficient, but from what I have read people that scan for items find it more difficult to use.

From 1, 2, 7, I would agree that you have something wrong on your system and it is not fair to ask Frey to fix that for you. I have never seen any of that unless I am screwing around with something.

I do disagree, how more complicated can it be when you press fast forward once it does forward at x2 speed, then when you press the same button once again you get x4 speed instead... and then so on, its always double the speed of previous speed. Now, when you want to stop then because you press the button and until sage would get this it moved forward few sec in advance most likely so you want sage (other PVR) program to move back to that location what you wanted.... that's how Tivo works, or how Beyond TV works, it is the same almost how my Dish PVR 501 and Cable recorder does.... I just don't get it why people are saying it is easier using Sage vs. the other PVR's... anyway but this is my opinion only and at some point I would love to see that... I did try Beyond TV and I love that.... give it a shot and let me know how it works and if you like it... You'll see its easy and great..

As far as my hardware config is concerned, hmm, I had problems earlier when I had different motherboard, then someone suggested gigabyte, I got that with a different chipset, there is nothing in it except for hard drives, I don't even use other programs except what absolutely needed... so go figure what could be the problem... believe me, I did try so much and I am much better off than when I first started... my system is much more stable comparing to the early try, and I installed 2.2.2 beta and did not have wiz.bin corrupted as of yet nor my system crashed, but will see for how long can I go like that... I have debugging on also just to capture problems if I got any....

Once again, those were things that I hated about sage, but over all I like it much more than other PVR's I've played with... I like it slightly more than Beyond TV too maybe I got used to Sage?!? I love STV's and all the hard work people put in it... so please don't take my post negative way, I have all the respect and just drives me crazy that I spent so much $$$ on that system and its crashing, and unstable.. especially when my wife does scream at me that this think sucks and she cannot watch normal TV no more...

Chris

[mlbdude]

I have since switched to MCE. It has both traditional FF/REW and skip ahead. Still use skip ahead. Maybe just because that is what I started with. It takes a couple of seconds to get past 3 minutes with skips, quite a bit longer with the other method even at its fastest speed (which is too fast and causes me to have to skip around a bit anyway). So, for efficiency I meant only that.

No reason not to have both at some point, as obviously this is something different for every user.

[Opus4]

I have the exact same Gigabyte motherboard, but of course all the other hardware installed is different. So far, I haven't had SageTV crash or lose anything in wiz.bin. I think the only time I've had that PC crash is when I updated my backup program -- disabled that software & no crashes since. Is 3D enabled in SageTV? If so, try disabling it. Are the video drivers updated? Have you tried some program to stress out the memory to see if that is faulty? (I had my main system start crashing on Dungeon Siege a long time ago & it turned out to be faulty memory that didn't seem to bother any other program.) Just pointing out a few things just in case you hadn't tried them. Also, I have not yet updated java to the 06 version.

- Andy

[chrysek]

See, just now, I did restar my sage and I created time recordings, plus manual recordings and my bar does say:
13.6GB free Next 12 hrs: 0 shows 0.0 GB
when I do recover wiz.bin I will be back to normal.. why? it does drive me insane, what am I doing wrong? why is that?

[mlbdude]

Have you tried running with the Origional STV to see if your problems go away?

[chrysek]

See, after recovery I have:
13.6 GB Free Next 12 hrs: 14 shows 24.7GB

Why is that? This usualy does happen when I bring Sage down (shut down service and then start it) or after I add manual recordings.... Not always thoug.... So I recovered to yesterdays wiz.bin...

Chris

[chrysek]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

Have you tried running with the Origional STV to see if your problems go away?

even that I like very much STV's I can give it a try, does not hurt.. I think I did try it sometime ago, but I'll do that...

Thank you for your suggestion.

Chris

[Opus4]

Like mlbdude said: run with the original STV & then submit the logs from before & after the problem. If one log doesn't say why it messed up, maybe the other one will mention something as it tries to recover.

- Andy