SageTV vs. Beyond TV

[mpegripper]

i was wondering if you guys could tell me why you choose SageTV over Beyond TV

Thanks

[Cayars]

It works without crashing

[kny3twalker]

SageTV for the most part offers better playback
and BeyondTV locks up alot IMO

[ptaylor]

Actually, I didn't... I bought Beyond TV, back when it was called SnapStream (version 3.0?). I had looked at Sage at version 1.4, and the user interface was not.... well, wife friendly...

Snapstream, on the other hand, had just been updated and the interface was nice. In all honesty, I believe that SnapStream was a bit more crash-prone than Sage 2.0, but it wasn't really bad by any means...

Within a few days of trying Sage 2.0, I bought it. One of the biggest draws was the fact that there was a remote client.. (BTV has that now, too)... In terms of performance, I can say that Sage performs better than BTV does on the hardware that I have... I have tried BTV since the new .NET version, and can say without a doubt that it is significantly slower (again, on my hardware). BTV worked very well on my hardware up until version 3.5, I believe. It wants too much RAM now...

Paul

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Cayars

It works without crashing

Exaclty, that and the fact that when I started with Sage it was WAY more HTPC-centric (ie work-without-mouse-and-keyboard) than Snapstream.

[mpegripper]

i am strongly leaning towards sagetv

their support answers my question (BTV has not yet), after 1.5weeks

the program seems to have more options that i want

the admin over at BTV doesn't want me asking why people choose one program over the other

[Opus4]

When I first looked into this (Sept. 2003), I needed multiple tuners and the PC I was going to use was too slow for anything other than hardware decoding. Of the two products you mentioned, that meant SageTV was what I should use. I'm addicted now and barely look at the others -- I'm still using the same wiz.bin file from when I first installed SageTV, so I have my complete show history. I like to watch some old sitcoms & this history means that I don't need to worry about having to watch the same episodes every time they air. Then there is Intelligent Recording... when I first used SageTV, I refused to turn it on. Now, even though I grumble about some of its selections, I refuse to turn it off.

Plus there is the fact that now I know how to use SageTV without having to refer to the manual very often...

- Andy

[g808]

In all fairness to BTV I've been running 3.5 on my test machine for awhile now and it has been rock solid. It hasn't missed an episode, which made it a great backup recorder.

Also, it seems that quite a bit people running Sage 2.1 or higher have been complaining about how it's not very stable or as reliable as Sage 2.0 was, which why I've refrained from upgrading my main HTPC with it. This is similar to how a lot of people really began complaining about how unstable BTV 3.5 has been.

I do get better PQ on Sage though, which is one of the reasons it's on my main HTPC. Sage also uses smart storage management (records to the drive with the most open space) while you must tell BTV what drive to record each favorite to. Sage also has some better PVR functions like the ability to record a show on any channel or a specific channel. You need to specify channels in BTV.

However, if you're in need to save storage space and don't mind WMV, then BTV's showsqeeze has worked great for me.

Also, Sage is looking really good interface-wise now that mlbdude has created the SageMC STV for Sage 2.1 or higher. I can't wait for the next stable release of SageTV, so I can upgrade my main HTPC to use it. I'm testing it along with Sage 2.2.3 on my test machine right now and SageMC looks great!

It'd recommend trying both for a while and see which you like better. You really need to try each for an extended period of time, so you can use it on a day-to-day basis and make an informed decision based on what functions are really important to you.

[stanger89]

There is no user ID.

-edit

I'm so confused

[Opus4]

If you are using a trial version, there is no "original user ID"... unless I'm misunderstanding what you are asking. If you use the trial & then decide to buy it, you simply enter your registration key & continue using it like you did during the trial period.

Edit: OK, so stanger89 & I replied to a post that was already deleted by the original poster.

- Andy

[mpegripper]

sorry about that, i just installed it and found out, so i just deleted the post

lol

[nielm]

I tried BTV at first when it was VMR9 rendering only (v3.0 back in Summer 2003?) At the same time Sage crashed on startup and the trial period was too short to be able to figure out why (java JRE bug).. The problem was that my system does not support VMR9 playback (except at 5fps!), so I had to record in BTV and playback in PowerDVD!

I eventually re-tried Sage after a reinstall of Windows... and was hooked... Apart from the fact that it could playthings back (), I liked the fact that there was no difference between timeshifting and recording (no preset size timeshift buffer, no loss of timeshift data when switching channels, the ability to start timeshifting, then decide to keep the file etc). Also the EPG was more integrated somehow, and there was no need to switch to a web interface to do stuff...

Oh yeah, and what everyone else said about stability record history etc

(I know that BTV theoretically now supports overlay renderer, but I am locked into sage)

[Wheemer]

I used Beyond TV for a while and was very happy with it. I did try SageTV back in version 1.4, but chose BTV because it's interface was way more intuative and much less confusing than Sage's. I used Beyond TV right up until I started getting seriously frustrated with the lack of technical support.

The only time anybody from Sanpstream comments in their forum is when they don't like what's being said. They constantly release updates that have major bugs still and they take ages between these updates.

Also Snapstream is overpriced alot, you have to pay for tuner licenses and for other media you have to purchase Beyond Media. Not to mention the fact that Beyond media is built off a totally different engine and is in no way even integrated into Beyond TV.

As soon as I tried the current Sage with SageMC I loved it. The interface and menu navigation is exactly what I am looking for.

The ONLY thing that is better in Beyond TV in my opinion is playback. I can't understand how anybody can say SageTV has better plackback, that's just not the case. With VMR9 and Beyond TV's exclusive fullscreen mode my plackback was always amazing. Not once did I even experience tearing, stuttering or any image corruption ever.

As soon as Frey gets with the picture and impliments exclusive fullscreen mode they will be SERIOUSLY on top on this game. It would also be nice if Sage supported software encoding cards for playback and web streaming, even recording in divx.

[GbrNole]

BTV is a jumbled mess as far as i'm concerned. there's only one real commercial competitor to sage and that is mce 2005 and if/when mce 2005 adds cable card capability sage will have just had their butts handed to them.

there are little things to make one preferable over the other right now but that one would be huge.

[kny3twalker]

The ONLY thing that is better in Beyond TV in my opinion is playback. I can't understand how anybody can say SageTV has better plackback, that's just not the case. With VMR9 and Beyond TV's exclusive fullscreen mode my plackback was always amazing. Not once did I even experience tearing, stuttering or any image corruption ever.

really cause from what I understand
BTV is not using renderless VMR9 with a custom allocator
but simply exclusive mode with VMR9
is this correct?

[Cayars]

Yes this is correct.

[cgrey]

Stability, support and user community. And they all worked together for me:

When I last tried to mess with Snapstream (3.2, I believe - a little over a year ago), it wouldn't run without crashing. In between crashes, it would tell me my trial had expired (which was interesting, because I had BOUGHT it) - that turned out to be because their servers were constantly crashing (much like their software) and it couldn't 'phone home', so naturally, they assume everyone is pirating their software, and have it self-destruct when it can't contact the mother ship.

So, I logged 3-4 support requests, and after weeks of not getting responses, I turned to the user community on their forums. Unlike here, where there are SO many people that genuinely try to help newbies with issues, the overall attitude at the snapstream forums was always "there's nothing wrong with the software, it's your PC".

<side note - there was one good thing I got from the Snapstream forums... It's where I first heard about Sage >

So, I took that same brand-new Dell PC that was supposedly so problematic, installed Sage on it (didn't even remove snapstream, until much later when I decided Sage was for me, and I cleaned up and started fresh), and right out of the box, Sage worked, worked reliably, and I haven't had a problem with it since. Three tuners, and over a TB of saved recordings later, I couldn't be happier with my choice. And while I'm far from the most active participant in this forum, I do visit every day, and the community here is second to none in their helpfulness.

[Rem]

I posted this on the BeyondTv Forum yesterday;

I writing this as my own experience for what it's worth. I would have loved to have had this kind if info when I had questions. I own both progs now and like them both, here's my observations...

I came into the PC PVR with a bias, I use and love my ReplayTV's, a lot, a whole lot actually. But I wanted to add PVR capability to my HTPC to increase it's usefullness.

I chose BTV with the Happaugue PVR250 Bundle for no particular reason. I also added the USBIRT to control my Motorola cable box. It installed easily and worked with almost no effort. The configs were straight forward and fairly simple. The GUI was very ReplayTV like, recordings that are set are easy to see with the big red record ball on them. The gui also has sound effects on it, kinda cute.

I've used this happily for many months now, recording "keeper" shows in DVD quality and burning to DVD+R's. I also transcode shows to Divx for portable watching on a Archos Handheld. I use Pocket DivxEncoder which encodes at about 110fps on my PC (over 3x speed!) which has also been working well. I did tweak the Happaugue remote.ini file to get add page up and down functionality. I use a Pronto 7000NG to control everything in my HT, including BTV.

I especially like the BTV web TV ElectronicProgramGuide (EPG) and the ability to remotely schedule recordings. I did want to view live TV at a remote PC, I record in MPEG2, and this is now possible with PC Link. Scheduling a recording quickly is a little funky, I use the web interface and "update recordings" to get the request picked up quickest.

I saw the new Plextor TV402U PVR that can record in naitive Divx as well as MPEG1 and MPEG2. I thought it would be nice to record directly to Divx which would save many steps. Snapstream doesn't seem in any hurry to support this tuner just yet so I thought I'd look around.

I found that SageTV supports this Plextor as well as the new Hauppague PVR500 dual tuner card. I bought their Plextor bundle with StreamZap remote.

SageTV Installed very easily as well and initially I used my existing PVR250 and it's silver remote. The Sage used them and the USBIRT. The GUI is similar to the BTV, but no sound effects. It is not as intuitive as BTV. Things like start recording are, but others are not (eg. close file?).

Things like stopping recordings are a little cryptic. Also, the Sage skip default is 10sec forward, which to me seems pretty short. I'm used to 30 seconds and had to dig into the manual to find out how to change the setting (it's not just a simple menu choice like BTV, you've got to change the progs properties file with a text editor).

The Sage manual is 203 pages, I printed it and put it in a 3 ring binder, and have read it....alot. I'm a manual reader, I didn't really need one for long with the BTV, but used it alot with the Sage to understand things like, what exactly does quality "Great" mean? or "DVD Extended Play"?.

I also found that the Plextor and the Hauppague cards record differently with the same quality settings in SAGE. (eg DVD extended play on the PVR250 gave 4.4mps VBR while Plextor gave 3mps VBR for the same setting, kinda odd). I used the manual to create my own 4mps CBR "Extended Play" setting to match the quality setting that I was used to with BTV.

Bottom Line,

BTV - easy to set up and use. Minimal tweaking needed or possible.

Sage - fairly easy to set up and use. Minimal tweaking needed, but can be tweaked to high degrees if you want to really change things.

So, Which do I use now? Well it's Sage for me for these reasons,

1 - Sage Client app on a Remote PC, gives me flawless live or recorded TV even when recording in HQ MPEG2 or Divx.

2 - Using the manual I found where to download and add channel icons to the EPG guides, very cool.

3 - Live or Recorded TV can play in a small window in the upper right corner of the EPG guide, even on the remote PC, very cool.

4 - I can watch a different channel on the remote PC using the 2nd tuner, very cool (and also possible on BTV now).

5 - With the manual, I found that I could use the USBIRT to not just control my cable box, but to learn additional I/R codes and act as a 2nd, independant, I/R receiver that I could map to Sage functions as well, and fairly easily. I also switched to the Sage's bundled Streamzap remote which has "PC" functions like "Mouse mode" that can function outside of the Sage application. With my Pronto I can now actually shut down Sage and still control the PC using the Streamzap mouse commands. The combo of USBIRT and Streamzap has given me much more powerful remote control capability than BTV could.

Sage really needs to develop a web based, high density EPG, for quick "whats on TV" lookups like BTV has. I still use my BTV guide to look things up on my remote PC, then use the Sage client to set them up in Sage. The remote live TV function is a killer app for me, especially when setting up future pay-per-view recordings where I need to see the Cable Box On-Sceen guide remotely to order the shows in advance.

I still like both progs, I keep both on the PC, choice is good for us consumers, each company would do well to look at the other.

BTV is maybe more intuitive, friendly, and polished for less technical users.

Sage is a little less so, but is more powerful and configureable, it's Remote Client is simply kick butt. It can also play music, still pictures, stored DVD's but I'm not too interested in those features because I use other hardware for those functions.

I've had good experience with BTV but prefer Sage, it's seems much more actively supported both by users and Frey (and there's cats here!). I never needed BTV support, and my install never crashed like others report here. But BTV doesn't seem to respond to much to questions or comments from what I've seen on their forum.

That said, Sage could take some pointers in the GUI look and feel dept. it's not as intuitive as BTV.

I'm running a P4, 2.4ghz PC with a ATI Radion card with a Hall Research VGA-HD Converter. Both BTV and Sage look good in full screen and neither suffer stutter or breakup. I wish Sage had FF and Rewind capability and maybe even forward and reverse, not just skip and jump, that would be great.

Now to my current problem, if anyone has some thoughts,

I've been experimenting with the Plextor Divx encoder. I just recorded a show in "Divx Portable Medium Quality" (320 x 240). The show can be watched from Sage and shows the Divx logo in the bottom right of the screen, BUT the stored show shows as two files, 1 is a showname.tmp file and the other is showname.mpg file. Neither file plays outside of Sage (even if renamed to .avi).

It apprears from reading the manual that there is a setting to record straight to .avi, but then you can't watch live TV in Divx. So my question is, does or can Sage somehow convert these two files into a useable avi file at some point?? Otherwise this is kinda suckky...

[Wheemer]

kny3twalker, yeah, I don't think they are using a custom allocator. But all the programming lingo aside, the simple fact it my eyes don't lie and BTV's image is rock solid on my machine. Whereas SageTV's jumps and breaks on verticle pans, high motion sports, etc.

[kny3twalker]

kny3twalker, yeah, I don't think they are using a custom allocator.

back to being picky but they are using windowless VMR9
and that requires a allocator presentator as well

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...owlessmode.asp

and at 1080i I got bad playback as well with BTV