SageTV - An Epic Quest - Well, maybe not.

[Outvit]

I looked into Windows MCE 2005, ShowShifter, BeyondTV, Got All Media PVR, GB-PVR, Meedio Essentials, Freevo, MythTV and SageTV. I went through all of their respective websites and I found only one or two that felt worth it to me.

I’ll discuss ShowShifter first because I have nothing but bad things to say about this thing and I don’t want to remove from the meaning of the rest of my journey to SageTV. ShowShifter – Wow, what can I say? It SUCKS! Cannot tell you how ecstatic I am that I did my research and did not make the mistake of purchasing that inferior, terribly designed product. The most noticeable thing by far is when I was looking through their website and the screenshots of their software. I noticed that the progress bar and onscreen controls are right in the middle of the screen. I cannot believe any self respecting person would use such an awful place for onscreen controls. The interface is very confusing and may as well be in Greek. I couldn’t understand where things were. It only seems to support a remote control made by X10, which as many of you know is a company personally responsible for the invention of the popup blocker. Not because they made it. No, no, because they annoyed the hell out of millions upon millions of internet users. I promised myself years ago I would never lower myself to their level and get anything made by or advertised by their company. ShowShifter is out, permanently.

Now for the rest of my journey:

Very few of them are as highly intuitive as SageTV and BeyondTV and two were Linux only. Two of the programs (Got All Media PVR and GB-PVR) were free, which is nice but not worth my time because they sorely lack refinement and a nice intuitive interface. The configurations for the free ones were also extremely difficult to figure out.

The Linux-only solutions (MythTV and Freevo) seemed nice an intuitive but Linux itself is not a refined operating system. It is a great server OS but for desktop applications it lacks the ease of use, the extreme refinement and ease of use that Windows and MacOS X provide. That is why I ruled out the Linux solutions, as nice and intuitive as the programs tried to be once they were started. Though unbeatable uptime would have an advantage, in the end it was not enough to make the Linux products a viable solution for me.

Eventually around two weeks ago and after a good month of general research and reading about the products and their features and the pricing, it wound up a decision between Windows MCE 2005, Meedio Essentials and SageTV.

When I started to seriously consider Meedio Essentials I loved the interface and the incredibly long list of features that a lot of it seemed to be bloat and it was then that I realized what exactly I was looking for. I was not looking for a enormously graphical weather display and photo albums and a complete clone of Windows Media Center 2005, which is exactly what Meedio provides. Since it is a complete package that basically gives you everything Windows MCE 2005 gives you, without having to buy a brand new $130 OEM package from Microsoft or some other retailer, that option was also ruled out in the same step. Meedio Essentials -- It’s one great product, no doubt about it. But I’m a newbie at this sort of thing and I wanted speed, simplicity and no bloat.

Another reason I ruled out Meedio – as I read some discussion forums including the one you're reading at this moment and I discovered a very disconcerting lack of official presence throughout the commentary. No one seemed to have a very high opinion Meedio as a company. They did not offer an unlimited number of tuners for free which for me seemed like a great and well, natural move for me when I do decide to get a second or third as I become more experienced.

I would greatly prefer Meedio over Windows MCE 2005.

Until that point all I was doing was evaluating feature sets and user interfaces for intuitiveness and ease of use. Those were extremely important for me because at the time I had feared that each of the software packages may be linked to specific TV capture cards in some competitive manner. I had finally decided that SageTV was the way to go but was unsure of how to proceed further. It was not until I registered at the SageTV forums and asked my initial questions that I discovered that I had such a vast array of options. I got prompt and helpful answers that were unbiased for the most part. I was thoroughly impressed by the atmosphere here at the SageTV community and I must say I feel like I belong here already.

I began a series of topics and posts about the Plextor PX-TV402U bundle at the SageTV store that I felt like was the best deal for me since a friend had recommended that I only invest in a USB2 external TV tuner because it was “the only way to go” since it was a completely enclosed unit and would be easy to return and get a replacement without having to deal with the company trying to tell me it is a problem with my system and some component inside or something I did wrong. I did not know I needed an IR Blaster to communicate with my digital cable box and after learning this tidbit of information I decided to hold off on ordering the SageTV bundle until the USB-UIRT was available in stock.

At the time of writing the USB-UIRT still is not in stock, but that is alright. I have had time to think my options through and through the helpful posts in pre-existing topics throughout these forums I have decided that it will be better for me to get the WinTV PVR-500MCE card and a Phillips MCE Remote with the SageTV software and a USB-UIRT. As it turns out that would be the better deal for me since my only two reasons for the ConvertX box were the DivX encoding and the fact it was a USB 2.0 device. I reviewed my options regarding the two bundles and I have been persuaded to get the WinTV PVR-500MCE instead of the Plextor ConvertX TV402U because for my purposes I will not need DivX encoding all that much. I was also extremely impressed with the absolutely STUNNING image quality of the PVR-500MCE when I saw some screenshots of it compared to a PVR250.

So there it is folks. That is how I have come to love SageTV and my product has not even been ordered yet. Oh, and I played with SageTV quite a bit with the 15-day trial when I bought a Plextor PX-M402U from BestBuy. I will be ordering this Friday. Look for me around the forums because I am now a SageTV user and I’ll be enjoying this product so much you just don’t know.

Eh, well perhaps you do. You’re SageTV users as well.

[Rem]

I think you did the right thing going with the Hauppauge cards, they make pristine video recordings, great for burning. For Divx just batch encode with PocketDivxEncoder, it's a super fast way to create Divx material when needed.

[Outvit]

I did not write a section specifically for BeyondTV because it was basically way too similar to Meedio Essentials ... and Meedio was simply better than BeyondTV in my opinion.

[mdmint]

It sounds like you've done quite abit of preliminary homework. More than I did a year ago before deciding on Sage and building my PVR system! Fortunately I've not regretted the decision going with Sage in the least. For me and my configuration Sage works great and is very stable. There is only one possible problem. With Sage's ease of use and 5 tuners it's very easy to chew up HD space fast! In fact my initial Sage Server design called for 750GB RAID5 Sage storage. However, about a month or so using Sage I quickly realized it wasn't going to cut it for our needs (ok, wants ). Upgraded main video storage to 1.495TB RAID5 array and it is doing fine meeting our uses. Especially since adding 500GB Library storage off my main workstation. (It now has the original Sage Server 750GB RAID5 sub-system.) What I'm saying is, plan for expandability, both tuner wise and storage wise!

Have fun!

[korben_dallas]

If you decide to keep the Plextor, you can always use it as a 2nd encoder in SageTV. Your Scientific Atlanta should have Svideo and composite outputs, so you could send the Svideo to the 500 and the composite to the Plextor. Granted, it is the same source, but nice if you want to do quality comparisons.. or if you want to record the same show in 2 different formats, say DVD Standard on the 500 and Divx High portable on the Plextor.

[Outvit]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

If you decide to keep the Plextor, you can always use it as a 2nd encoder in SageTV. Your Scientific Atlanta should have Svideo and composite outputs, so you could send the Svideo to the 500 and the composite to the Plextor. Granted, it is the same source, but nice if you want to do quality comparisons.. or if you want to record the same show in 2 different formats, say DVD Standard on the 500 and Divx High portable on the Plextor.

The Plextor I bought at BestBuy was returned for a full refund on Sunday morning.

[Toddly]

You did a lot more research than I did. I found these forums after my initial interest in PVRs and lurked for a bit and bought the Sage system. I did quickly think about MS but with the added plugins (comskip in particular) for Sage it was a no brainer for me.

[hoep]

well i also researched a lot and bought a lot of software.
2 years ago i started with ShowShifter, which was not as bad as it is now since they have added dvb support. Also hmn decreased their capacity for this piece of software and looked into other things; so support was a crap - it took them 1 year to go from the (extremly unstable) 3.0 to 3.10 beta; i am finished with this company
then i bought beyondtv; mostly because i had no hardware encoding tv-cards and the aiw 9800 was well doing with beyondtv; this was also the reason why i did not consider sage at that stage, because i did not want to change my tv-cards; well i still think it's a serous competitor to sage, but is behind in technology and for shure in reliability (crashes, performance issues)
i also looked at meedio and the european part sceneo, but they (and also meedio) will need years for my opinion) to compete snapstream or frey .. i decided after several trials not to waste time anymoreto try that out again for the next 2 years..
then after snapstream's release of 3.4.5 and also 3.5 situation got worse and i decided anyway to go to hardware encoders (good decision anyway) and re-looked at sagetv - download the trial - installed - read the configuration guidelines on the homepage - set up my myblaster and xmltv - 2 days later i bought - now i've bought 3 more client licenses - i plan to go up to 2 servers with total 8 tv-cards, to wire my complete houese with sage (and hopefully an extender, able to play divx)
i will definitely look into other software too (it's a hobby) but it will need a LOT of additional goodies for the others to get me back from sagetv ..
so far with the newest beta, mlbdudes sagemce stv, nielms fix for vbr mp3 and nielms plugin for the webserver i'm absolutely happy now.

[SHS]

Outvit is there any reason why you going with Phillips MCE Remote?

[JUC]

I too was duped by showshifter 1.5 years ago. what a waste of money...who wants a purple theme as standard anyway?
JUC

[Outvit]

Originally Posted by SHS

Outvit is there any reason why you going with Phillips MCE Remote?

Because it is small, ergonomic, simple, USB powered and seems to work for everything. I heard it worked really, really well for these purposes when reading a lot of discussion forums. A lot of people seem to have it working flawlessly on numerous programs like SageTV so I thought it was a good remote for me. Most of all it is cheap! It has buttons for everything. And it reminds me a lot of a simple universal remote. It is not fancy. It is not some über $500 remote control with an LCD screen that gets a mind of its own and turns the lights off when I'm in the shower and secretly wants to kill me in my sleep. There will be no George Orwell's 1980 in my home.

[Rem]

Oh come on, I thrill at the danger, wondering if my Pronto will succeed in it's plot to kill me in my sleep! So far I've managed to survive, but there's always tomorrow....

[jptaz]

Yeah...I am still smarting from the waste of money that was my Pronto...such lousy battery life and honestly it was too bulky for my wifes small hands. My ATI AW has been perfect when combined with Girder even my wife can easily switch from watching regular TV to SageTV to DVD. Since I have several components for all of that it is nice.

I have been a happy SageTV customer for years and I now have 5 Locations for Watching TV and 6 Tuners....I have not invested in the the mamoth storage space like mdmint, but maybe down line.

[Rem]

I'm a Pronto fan actually, 7000NG is pretty sweet. My HT is fairly daunting, with the Pronto and it's bright color, icon driven screens, plus R/F "doesn't matter where it's pointed" capability is at least one good reason why my wife and little girls haven't killed me in my sleep because they couldn't watch a show or see a picture, or listen to their music...

JP1'a are great, but not so much when 10+ components, switchers, etc. are involved. context driven displays just make sense.

[Outvit]

Woohoo! I ordered my stuff Wednesday night at around 11:30 PM.
It has already been shipped and will be here later today or Monday morning.

[korben_dallas]

Welcome to the SageTV family

[that_kid]

Well after sitting on the fence between Sage and BTV it looks like Sage will be the one for me. I've been with BTV since the first days and it's been good but I need more and BTV isn't giving it to me. Yesterday I installed Sage on my BTV link client and was surprised by how well Sage performed. I have a few mvp's but when trying the client the mvp's would reboot. It could be the low memory on my client but with all the success I've been having so far I'm going to install Sage on my BTV server which has more ram and give it a try. Oh and the WAF is way up on Sage. The only information I haven't been able to find was if there is a tuner limit on the server. I know with BTV you needed a tuner license after the 2nd tuner, I have 6 so I need to figure out how much this is going to cost me. Other than that I'm happy to be here.

[jptaz]

No tuner limit on SageTV. I only paid for the original license and I have 6 Tuners running on it ( 4 PVR 250 1 PVR 500 ).

John

[that_kid]

They don't have an emoticon big enough to represent the smile I have on my face right now. Thanks

[silkshadow]

Another reason I ruled out Meedio – as I read some discussion forums including the one you're reading at this moment and I discovered a very disconcerting lack of official presence throughout the commentary. No one seemed to have a very high opinion Meedio as a company.

Meedio TV is no where near Sage yet (or even any of the other offering except, maybe, j river media center) and I don't think it ever will be. Just look at their music module. It is very bad. Sage's is almost better and Meedio has been dragging their feet on getting the music player update out. I would think that the music module would've been their first priority considering Meedio Essentials was their original product and music was their only real offering besides a full screen menu. Thankfully I discovered the J river plugin otherwise my $40 would've gone to waste. As it is, to get Meedio working right you have to buy Meedio, j river, the j river plugin, zoomplayer (well this is free if you don't want DVD playback). Not to mention the headache (eg time) of putting it all together.

That said, Meedio essentials with all the extras above and once you've got everything ironed out, is still the best HTPC gateway out there. The only question is, do you enjoy spending the time and money to get it working right? I think your research is spot on Outvit. You know what you'd be getting into before you spent time and money doing it. More people should take the kind of care that you did to decide where to start. There would be less moaning (though it is justified in many ways) in the Meedio forums if so. Of course, considering the incredible individual developer support it gets, Meedio could just get their act together.