? Sage vs TiVo Getting Started Problems

[snoopy]

I like what I see with Sage so far. I have a DirecTiVo series 2 with dual-tuner through DirecTV. I love it but now that Haupage has released a dual-tuner card, I may try migrating to Sage. If it works out, I'll buy the card, a good remote, and I'll make the transition final. I have installed the product and it works beautifully with the exception of recordings. I can't get that part to work and I need some help.

I understand that recording capabilities of (Sage Recorder) is built into SageTV. Am I correct?

When I go to the "favorites manager" in SageTV v2.1, I see my favorites (called season passes on TiVo). However when I check the "view upcomming recording schedule" , none of them are listed. I have verified that they are not empty episodes. How do I get them to schedule?

Also, I can't figure out how to use the SageTV "service" portion as it seems to make the Live TV screen go black when it's active. When it's not running, I can watch Live TV with no problem.

Please advise.

[Opus4]

First, since you say you haven't purchased the dual tuner card (pvr-500) yet, what tuner card are you using?

- Andy

[hoep]

You have to enable "intelligent recording" for automatically scheduling your favourites.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by hoep

You have to enable "intelligent recording" for automatically scheduling your favourites.

Intelligent Recording (IR) & Favorites are two completely separate types of recordings. Favorites are scheduled to record whether IR is enabled or not.

If you enable IR, that will allow SageTV to schedule additional recordings beyond Favorites and Manual Recordings (MR) -- it will add shows to the recording schedule based on your past viewing habits, recording what it thinks you might like to watch. IR shows have lower priortiy than Favs & MRs, in terms of scheduling, so IR shows will not be scheduled at the expense of missing Favs or MRs.

- Andy

[snoopy]

I'm using an ATI All-in-Wonder. So if intelligent recordings don't show up that's fine. But the favorites I have specifically scheduled should show up in "scheduled recordings". they arent.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by snoopy

ATI All-in-Wonder

That is a software encoder, not a hardware based encoder, and isn't one of the supported tuners for creating recordings. See the list of supported tuners on the SageTV System Requirements page.

- Andy

[snoopy]

OK, I loaded the beta and now it does show my "scheduled recordings" but only contains 2 days worth of data. How do I see to it that it contains everything scheduled through the 10 days worth of guide data?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by snoopy

OK, I loaded the beta and now it does show my "scheduled recordings" but only contains 2 days worth of data. How do I see to it that it contains everything scheduled through the 10 days worth of guide data?

As linked in my sig lines, check the FAQs, specifically this one. There are a lot of often-answered questions there & in the manual that you will find in your SageTV directory.

I believe you will also find that your recordings don't actually occur with the AIW card.

- Andy

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I believe you will also find that your recordings don't actually occur with the AIW card.- Andy

I see said the blind man. It doesn't. Oh well ... woe is me. Well it looks as if Sage also has to be put to sleep mode in order for Live TV to stop recording. This is not how I watch TV. Having to remember to put it in sleep mode each time I stop watching is not going to be fun. With an "fake" PVR such as TiVo, it only records about 20 minutes out (to take care of ff and rw needs) and doesn't keep those recordings unless you choose "record", and of'course then you can easily tell it to save the whole show if you like. Otherwise it's not saved. Remembering sleep mode would not be good. Asking me to remember anything is about like betting on a horse I'll check back over the next couple of years and see how things develop before commiting too much in the way of hardware funds. Thanks for all your help in testing.

[Opus4]

If you used SageTV for any amount of time, you would probably find that, like many of us, your viewing habits would change. I _rarely_ watch live TV; instead, I watch previously recorded shows. There are so many shows recorded that if one happens to be currently recording, I purposely choose something else to watch. (I wouldn't want to catch up to the commercials.)

Then, if you do watch liveTV, those recordings are deleted almost immediately after the show is over, so that they don't take up a lot of drive space (unless you have a certain property set to prevent immediate deletion). Live TV is also the first type of recording to be deleted to make room for any new recordings. Also, recording the entire show allows you to rewind as far as you want, not just the last 20-30 minutes.

- Andy

[snoopy]

I see. I thought you had to remember to put it in sleep mode so that your hard drive would not "accidentally" fill up and crash the computer. As long as each show (regardless of whether live tv channel is change or not) is deleted immediately after it's watched, then all is well. It's too bad ATI's AIW card won't work with Sage. I really would like to get a good test of the product before commiting to more hardware. It looks like it could be superior to TiVo with a dual-tuner card. Now that Haupage has one, I'm real tempted to switch. I am curious about sounds. Beyond TV has some pretty nice sounds as does TiVo. Is there any way to implement those menu sounds in Sage. It looks highly configurable with the add-on modules and stuff. I hope I can test more in the future if soomeone comes up with a way to record on AIW cards. Thanks again. Your info is more than helpfull.

[Hector]

I've had Tivo since they were first released and have been running Sage around a year so I understand where you're coming from.

The way Sage handles live tv is different than Tivo's single buffer but I think you'll find it's really more elegant. Tivo is of course a single buffer that 'resets' every time you change the channel and you lose all the data of the show you were previously watching. What's nice about Sage is that it treats everything you watch as if you were GOING to record it. Once the show ends and you don't mash record then after a little while it will delete it. The Tivo buffer does not think of a show as a show until you hit record. By contrast Sage treats each show as its own recording, starting and stopping when the show starts and ends. There is no buffer, it just records the show. What's cool about this compared to tivo is if you flip channels and then come back the previous part of your show will still be available only minus the time you were 'away'. Because its so different it's confusing at first but within a short time I realized it's really the right implementation.

As for switching it depends on the type of person you are. Sage and really all pc solutions are still at the hobbyist/enthusiast level. You need to enjoy working with it. The end result is a much more open and feature rich environment. When I read the Tivo forums I feel very sorry for the people whining about still not having Tivo2Go whereas with Sage your recordings are just mpegs in a folder. HMO? Sage can do all that and tons more. People in the Tivo Underground and the 'that other' forum have spent literally years working on getting around Tivo's 'security' tobe able to do simple things like extracting video and converting it to mpegs. Whereas with Sage you have 3rd parties working on FAR more advanced things with the BLESSING of the company.

The reason for the difference is that Tivo is renting you their software while at the same time courting Hollywood and advertisers trying to make money off both ends. Tivo is well able to make the experience better, they just have conflicting interests. Automatic commercial skip, editing them out and burning DVD's? I don't think so. Sage on the other hand is just selling you a piece of software and it's in their best interest to make it as powerful and flexible as they can.

If you'd like to get more out of your PVR experience and would enjoy working on the system itself then Sage is for you. As you've already seen Sage is a little more complex, mostly because it is a lot more flexible. Feature for feature for the most part Tivo seems like a very backwards device to me these days.

But if you're the sort that isn't frustrated by Tivo's closed architecture or almost never getting software updates (and I do not mean that in a derogatory way) and don't see any advantage to leaving Tivo other than the monthly fee then you may be better off where you are. I've gotten a lot of people into PVR's over the years and nowadays if my friends are into things technical I recommend Sage and if they're not I recommend Tivo.

So in short, I wouldn't build a Sage box and drop it off and my parents or any other non technical person and leave town. That is CLEARLY a job for Tivo.

Another point is that Tivo never messes up, crashes or misses a recording. Never. Unfortunately there isn't a PC solution that can make that claim, so for now power still comes a cost.

peace . . .

Originally Posted by snoopy

I see. I thought you had to remember to put it in sleep mode so that your hard drive would not "accidentally" fill up and crash the computer. As long as each show (regardless of whether live tv channel is change or not) is deleted immediately after it's watched, then all is well. It's too bad ATI's AIW card won't work with Sage. I really would like to get a good test of the product before commiting to more hardware. It looks like it could be superior to TiVo with a dual-tuner card. Now that Haupage has one, I'm real tempted to switch. I am curious about sounds. Beyond TV has some pretty nice sounds as does TiVo. Is there any way to implement those menu sounds in Sage. It looks highly configurable with the add-on modules and stuff. I hope I can test more in the future if soomeone comes up with a way to record on AIW cards. Thanks again. Your info is more than helpfull.

[m1abrams]

I will post my opinion since I was once a DirecTivo user. Mind you I love SageTV, however for a simple easy to use, cheap, and very good PVR, with the best quality, the DirecTivo can not be beat. The DirecTivo is cheap, and provides the BEST PVR quality of any PVR out there. Because it does not reencode the data, also because of this is can capture DoblyDigital, no DIY PVR to date can do this because the hardware is not there.

Sage does things different in a very good way as stated, in fact I am very happy with my SageTV box but it takes some tweaky and work to get it to work just right. DirecTivo is pretty much a plug and forget device. Mind you SageTV has MUCH more potential than a DirecTivo, however if you just want a good PVR with little fuss you can not beat DirecTivo. Now compare Sage to say a Standalone Tivo, Sage wins hands down. Single tuner, no way!

the reason I moved from DirecTivo is because where I bought my new house, was in the middle of the woods with no chance of LOS for direcTV. So no direcTV no DirecTivo.

[Opus4]

I don't think these are already answered, but I only skimmed the last couple of replies...

Originally Posted by snoopy

It looks like it could be superior to TiVo with a dual-tuner card. Now that Haupage has one, I'm real tempted to switch.

Don't forget that you don't need the new pvr-500 dual tuner to record multiple shows. You can use multiple tuners, provided you have multiple PCI slots and/or USB2 ports available.

I am curious about sounds. Beyond TV has some pretty nice sounds as does TiVo. Is there any way to implement those menu sounds in Sage.

I think the SageMC STV has button or menu sounds, but I didn't look int the details of that or whether any other custom STVs have sounds.

- Andy

[m1abrams]

Alos the PVR-500 may not be the best option for you. Since you have DirecTV then I am assuming you will be using 2 DirectTV recievers, which requires 2 Svideo inputs. From what I understand to do that with the PVR-500 you need a breakout box which is currently not avialable.

Also you will not save any money using SageTV over DirecTivo, because to do dual tuners with DirectTV you have to pay $4.99 for the mirror fee, and DirecTivo service for the whole house is $4.99.

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by Hector

So in short, I wouldn't build a Sage box and drop it off and my parents or any other non technical person and leave town. That is CLEARLY a job for Tivo.
Another point is that Tivo never messes up, crashes or misses a recording. Never. Unfortunately there isn't a PC solution that can make that claim, so for now power still comes a cost.
peace . . .

Hector you make alot of sense. Thanks for spelling all of that out in your post. I really am bothered by the closed architecture design of TiVo and I would welcome the ability to burn DVDs without the need for TYTool (a program TiVo users must use to accomplish this). There is no need to descramble, or configure a way to pull the shows off across the network with Sage and that's all great! Unfortunately stability is an even bigger concern and I think you are right that PC solutions in general just aren't there yet. I'm sure they will get there. Thank you kindly for laying it out for me.

[snoopy]

Thanks abrams, I appreciate that. Yeah, I will definitely be waiting a year or two to see how things develop. Right now I'm not ready to switch from DTV to my absolutely fantastic attic antenna. There are still too many plug-and-play advantages to TiVo despite the closed architecture feel and the DVD problems. Also, I just can't get over the quality. Some of it is amazing. I'm spoiled now but sure don't like $50.00 per month. It's a bugger. Thanks everyone.

[oolong]

Originally Posted by Hector

Another point is that Tivo never messes up, crashes or misses a recording. Never. Unfortunately there isn't a PC solution that can make that claim, so for now power still comes a cost.

Never say Never....

I can't speak for series 2 but my series 1 Tivo has crashed and missed recordings at least twice.

I've had to reboot my Tivo at least 4 times since I've had it. This is over a 3 year or more period. So still not bad, but not perfect.

I just got a SageTV server up and running last weekend so I'm wondering what kind of milieage I'm going to get now that I've weened myself off Tivo. Of course my sage server is an old old <600mhz Compaq Deskpro so I'm not holding my breath. But so far so good. It's humming along fine

Still having a time zone problem though So I've disabled the time sync for now.

Experienced some severe Tivo withdrawls the first couple days after going cold turkey, but as I get more familer with Sage and the different controls (helps if you take the time to read the manual ) I don't miss Tivo at all.

[oolong]

Or I should say I don't miss Tivo....Except for the sounds.

As annoying as they were sometimes I kinda miss em

[Hector]

I understand perfectly. I remember the first versions of Tytool and how cool it was to be able to get an mpeg of a TV program, something someone who grew up on Sage could never appreciate.

For me it went like this. I starting looking at Sage to have an easier HTPC solution that MythTV. I have DirecTv and basic cable (because its free with my internet connectivity). My DTV was on my tivo and I built a Sage box and hooked it up to cable. I used it basically as a second tuner for network stuff. After the custom STV's started appearing the cool factor of sage really went up and I switched my DTV to Sage and now the Tivo is on basic cable.

I'm not sure I'd say PC solutions aren't there yet as much as I'd say they're not there for everyone. Obviously if you got the bash shell and the hacks working on your Tivo you've got the experience to run Sage because its not even remotely that complex. Its not as if Sage isn't dependable, it's just not as dependable as Tivo.

In all honesty, what works best is to have both. Have you looked at some of the stuff in the customization forum? Tivo will seem as if its standing still (which it pretty much is).

peace . . .

Originally Posted by snoopy

Hector you make alot of sense. Thanks for spelling all of that out in your post. I really am bothered by the closed architecture design of TiVo and I would welcome the ability to burn DVDs without the need for TYTool (a program TiVo users must use to accomplish this). There is no need to descramble, or configure a way to pull the shows off across the network with Sage and that's all great! Unfortunately stability is an even bigger concern and I think you are right that PC solutions in general just aren't there yet. I'm sure they will get there. Thank you kindly for laying it out for me.