Official SageTV 3.0 Information

[src666]

Originally Posted by IKK

Well all I can say is that Directv is starting to look real good if they make good on the whole house system they hyped up at the begining of the year.

IMO, DirecTV would never be an option - they sue tinkerers and experimenters for buying _legal_ smart card programmers. Over 150,000 threatened and 29000 sued to date.

Yes, they caught some pirates, but overall their lawsuit campaign is nothing short of extortion.

[dbfresh23]

Originally Posted by src666

IMO, DirecTV would never be an option - they sue tinkerers and experimenters for buying _legal_ smart card programmers. Over 150,000 threatened and 29000 sued to date.

Yes, they caught some pirates, but overall their lawsuit campaign is nothing short of extortion.

They sue people who try to steal their service, where is the problem with that? Local cable companies do the same thing, in my opinion worse. They sue places that sell stuff then get a court order to get all of the addresses and names of people they sold to. I don't have a problem with them sueing people for stealing their service, just the way they go about getting the information. It's not much different then trying to walk out of Circuit City with a plasma tv w/o paying for it.

[src666]

They sue people who buy _ISO 7816 Standard_ smart card devices. They do not sue based upon evidence of any piracy activity, just purchase of these standard devices, simply based upon where you purchased the device - i.e. if you did a search to find the best price instead of going to Radio Shack/etc. In fact, they usually ignore any alternate evidence relating to why the purchase was made, such as product research and development.

For example, they sued thousands of people for buying a Netsignia Smartcard programmer - the exact same programmer used by many branches of our government. So if you wanted to work with the government smart card programs, you had to buy a Netsignia - a perfectly legal device.

dbfresh, as I said above they _did_ sue some pirates. But of the tens of thousands of people sued, and the hundreds of thousands threatened, almost NONE of the cases had ANY evidence of piracy, just evidence of the purchase of a legal device, from someone that DTV branded a pirate dealer. HP/Radio Shack/many many others sold the exact same hardware, but were never bothered by DTV. That's because the big guys could fight back, and the little guys didn't have the resources to put up a fight, so they just settled and handed over their customer lists.

Anyone wanting an education on the _reality_ (as opposed to DTV's propoganda) of this campaign should see http://www.directvdefense.org and http://forums.wumarkus.com.

[IKK]

Not that I was trying to ruffle any feathers. I was just saying that the way Sage has been so quite and secretive in what they been doing, I dont understand why they not just give us a timeframe or something to wet our appetite. I mean this is only a recorder I dont expect it to run the dishwasher for me. although that would be nice. Also it may not be importent now that many people dont have HD but in the future your are going to want to record every channel that has HD not just analog and at this time it doesnt seem that will happen with Sage. Since the current regulations dont require the cable channel to open up HD pay channels for Sage to record. So if that is the case our only option my be to go with an OEM product like what Directv and the other cable companies are planning to offer.

[Kanati]

I got the response I was expecting from my email to support... no response. :/

[Opus4]

I've been debating whether to say anything about this all day... and if so, what to say. I'm really not certain what type of comment anyone is looking for from SageTV. It has been stated several times in the past, including by me, that the v3 beta will be publicly released when it is felt that the beta is ready for release. That hasn't changed.

There is no specific release date, so there is no "updated time frame" that I can give you. Is tomorrow closer than yesterday was? Sure. Does that mean it will be released tomorrow? Well, that depends on what the definition of "tomorrow" is. Programs will always be released tomorrow... but that could be tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after the day after tomorrow, the day after the ...

The best update I can give is:

Originally Posted by News Announcer

SageTV has annouced that work continues on SageTV version 3 and that the company still plans to release v3 in the future rather than in the past. When asked for specifics of when the v3 beta will be released, a representative replied: "Yes, it will be released". It is generally understood that this indicates that the company is not yet ready to release more detailed information beyond that which has already been released in past releases and that announcements will be released when there is new information to be released.

In summary: I really think the users are better served with a release that is ready for public consumption rather then a release on a specific date, just because that date was mentioned in the past & regardless of whether the developers feel it is ready.

- Andy

[JasonJoel]

You know full well what people are looking for Opus. They are looking for a timeframe.


We all know it isn't ready YET, otherwise it would have been released. We aren't stupid (well, not all the time anyway).

Fine, it isn't ready yet. Do they think it will be July? August? September? 2005? 2006? Never? Can we get a better timeframe than 'at some point in the future'?

Not asking for a specific day, just their best guess when it is coming out. And if it doesn't make that date (like Spring 2005 came and passed), then how about an updated timeframe. Something like, "Well, we thought it would be out by X, but a few things came up. Now we think it should be out in beta around Y".

Jason Bottjen

[mlbdude]

Obviously it would be really bad for them to give a time-frame since people expect them to stick to it as seen here. Maybe release monthly statements as to what is being worked on at a very high level (if possible) and what % complete they think it is?

[Kanati]

I don't even think they need a % complete. Just TALK to their customers. From what it seems like here since I got here, they don't communicate for crap with the people paying their bills.

And I'm with JasonJoel... We aren't stupid Opus. Don't get a holier-than-thou Saint Patience attitude with us when all we want is a little communication with an official Sage rep. I even went the official route and emailed their tech support and didn't even get the courtesy of a reply. ANY reply. Not even one telling me to go stuff myself. (Pretty sure I posted that I did here too and it mysteriously disappeared...) [Edit: You mean the post 4 posts above this one? Nothing "mysteriously disappeared". - Opus4]

When I purchase a product, I expect a modicum of communication with that company. In this case I would expect at LEAST an email back telling me that 3.0 is being worked on. No need for a timeframe. No need for a percentage complete. Nothing but a response saying "we're here. we're working on it." No response at all is simply poor customer service.

I had this same issue with one other company... A programming language developer, that at first was quite vocal with their customers. They talked all the time about what they were doing and how it was progressing. As a result, they built up a rather large userbase and everyone was happy and respectful. As the years progressed, the communication from said company turned into a trickle and eventually dried up altogether. We waited for over 2.5 years for the next iteration of the compiler and like here, after a while the natives started to get restless. It pert near turned into a full out coup as the people who were constantly ignored threatened each other, no one in particular, and the web admin trying to get ANY word about the product out of them. Finally... After about a year of the forums degenerating into a morass of infighting and disgruntled customers, those that hadn't left finally convinced them to at least give monthly updates (which weren't always monthly, but frequent enough) on what was going on behind the scenes. And you know what? Things settled down immensely. People were still... grumpy... about having to wait, but at least they knew they weren't being completely ignored. And that's all we want here. To know we aren't being ignored.

Is that too much to ask from a company customers are trying to be loyal to? Too much to ask from a company that we purchased a product from?

[JUC]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

Maybe release monthly statements as to what is being worked on at a very high level (if possible) and what % complete they think it is?

Exactly what I was thinking. They should at least come out and say something like, "hey guys, we are almost ready (or not at all ready) to release this in beta. We are about 90% done and just have a few things left to iron out." Then go into some details.

That type of information would be more useful to us than a date we know will not be met. Anything other than 'its done when its done' would be appreciated and is expected.
JUC

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I've been debating whether to say anything about this all day... and if so, what to say. I'm really not certain what type of comment anyone is looking for from SageTV. ...

hehe, maybe you should've stay out of this or kept your mouth shut. Unless you give them a date, nothing you say could please the angry crowd here.

And for the angry crowd, myself included, it is obvious from Opus's post is that even SageTV has no freakin clue when this thing will be ready or else they would've said something. What this means is either they are not working hard enough to get the product out, or the task at hand is way more difficult than they previously imagined, or maybe both.

Personally, yes this news is disappointing as I was waiting to see what SageTV will do regarding media extenders. But I'm gonna say the hell with it and go out and get some MediaMVP boxes and just use matt's plugin. I still hope that SageTV can deliver something sometime this year, but I'm not gonna sit here and wait for it. SageTV 2.28 runs stable for me and I'm happy with it.

[salsbst]

The mound of glue that everyone is beating was once a dead horse.

Is there anyone who doubts that the people of SageTV are aware that many customers want information on 3.0?

What purpose is served by continuing to rant about it?

[Crashless]

I have a belly button.

[wexsmith]

Originally Posted by salsbst

What purpose is served by continuing to rant about it?

"The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease." It's as simple as that. If a customer base is irate a company has to address it or face the possibility of losing customers.

[Kanati]

exactly... it's not like there isn't a better alternative out there... myth is arguably better. After all, it goes to myth first and finds it's way into sage eventually appears to be the case with many features.

But myth is a bear to set up. And not something I feel like tackling. But the longer we go without communication from sage, the more I eyeball myth and wonder if that bear of a setup would be worth it after all.

[mikejaner]

Myth is nowhere near as refined and stable as SageTV is. The UI though pretty, is slow and kludgy sometimes. The program guide data is difficult to deal with at times, and takes a long time to get initially. I have tested every version since early 2003 and have not had it stay up for very long with the frontend/backend setup. With my SageTv setup, I have rock solid stability on both the frontend and backend. Also, picture quality and decoders are much better in windows. The Nvidia and Sonic decoders are unbeatable right now imho.

Patience is a virtue, and delays are not intentional, nor looked upon lightly. It's a lose lose situation for the developers, cause they can never turn out a product fast enough when it has been announced.

I believe Sage is the best package out there, especially with all the addons made for it at this point, like the firewire, hdtv,UNC, Web, and interface upgrades. Sage is also the best PVR software which supports all of the output options with addons like Xcard, 350, MVP etc.. Yes the 350 has the EOF problem, but it works better than on Myth.

[samgreco]

I don't usually say much, but I must speak. I must!

I am now in the process of looking at upgrades. So, of course, I am looking at capabilities of various hardware and software. I start to compare.

I want HDTV support. Better music section. Better DVD support. Easier skinning/customization. Plugins. Is SageTV 3.0 going to have any of this? Who knows? SageTV knows. At least they should know the direction they are headed.

So therein lies the problem. If I am to move forward, I can't decide to stay the course with Sage without the information. That makes i way too easy to jump ship.

So that's one reason they should be communicating with us. I'm sure there are others.

[aperry]

I'd be glad to hear something from Sage on this (like maybe some teaser screenshots), but I'm not gonna jump ship just because they haven't communicated with us. Like Opus says (and I'm donning my flame-retardant suit as I type this), they're working on it and will release it when they feel it's ready. I don't need them to come out and say "Hey guys, we're still working on it..." And based on some of the comments here and in the "Where's 3.0" in the other forum, I don't really blame them...

If they did post, people would pick apart what they said and expect them to stick to any date they provided, even if they said it was a target date. There'd be dozens of messages going back and forth, and they could easily get sucked into the discussions.

Personally, I'd rather they just stick to getting their work done and getting it out as soon as possible (without too many bugs I hope).

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by wexsmith

"The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease." It's as simple as that. If a customer base is irate a company has to address it or face the possibility of losing customers.

No, as you can see it is the squeaky wheel that gets nothing. I'm surprised you guys don't get it. They've been burned before. They're getting burned again. They can't win for losing so why say anything? I'm seeing this more and more from various vendors. Heaven forbid they mention a date and miss. Witness what is happening here in this thread.

Action speaks louder than words. They can tell you they're going to have this feature or that. But when it comes out it doesn't quite work like they thought. Or they had to pull it and go a different direction. Maybe they have just decided to let the product speak for itself. It will come out when it's done and it will have the features that comes with it. I don't know about you but my setup works well. It's stable. I use the features I want and use other products for the other features. (Music and DVD) The wife uses it. MVP works great. I have it running in 4 rooms and it doesn't skip a beat.

It just seems like much ado about nothing. But when it comes out, I'll be loading it up in a heartbeat. But until then I'll just wait and enjoy some TV.



Gerry

[src666]

I have to agree, if Sage can't even commit to a core feature set for the new version, then they are either VERY far away from being done, or just don't care about the customers.

Will it support HD? Yes or no? Really, how can you not know the answer to that?
Will it play a CD? Yes or no? How can you _possibly_ not know the answer to that?
Etc., etc.

I understand the issues of "competitive advantage", but keeping your customers in total darkness regarding core features (not "how exactly will it work", or "what will it look like", but what, generally, it will do) is just a lousy business strategy.

Right now there is absolutely nothing, zip, zilch, nada that you have to offer your customers as a reason to stick with your product. The only incentive we have to stick with you is the investment we have put into it and the hope that you might adress some of our needs - but hope don't float forever.

I've gotten no effective support for my music playback issues. Frankly, I'm looking for something else. I might not jump ship, but I certainly don't have a compelling interest in staying onboard.

And maybe the core of the problem is the fact that 3.0 is going to be a free upgrade. You have no incentive in us upgrading. Zero. You don't get a dime extra if we do, and you don't lose a dime if we bail. But that's short sighted, and hopefully you will see that in order to keep us, you need to maintain the relationship with us. Giving us the cold shoulder isn't a great way to do that.