The visual aspect and some of the functionality is less to be desired. The flexibility of the user interface is great. The SageTV interface that comes as is packaged has a lot of phenomenal features and the ones it doesn’t have you can make active in the “hidden extras” by going into the system information and entering in the #’s “5309” or by downloading a plugin for a particular feature that you would like. The reviews of the interfaces are not meant to cover every possible feature or scenario, but it is more less an overview based on my experiences of using all of them for a period of time. These interface reviews will focus mainly on the version 7 interfaces with a dabble into version 6 directed to SageMC that was so popular it was made available to be used in version 7.
Due to the lack of appeal in these areas, it has caused many in the community to create alternative interfaces. SageTV offers so many features and flexibility, it seems that the Achilles heal for them has always seemed to have a lacking with the primary interface both in usability and aesthetic appeal. My observations are from a user point of view, so some of my observations of your work may seem a bit critical I mean no offense, with highest respect, again thank you for all of your hard work! Below are my observations with the various different UI for SageTV.
I think it’s important to mention that I think it’s awesome that all of these developers put in all of the time that they have to help make all of the SageTV users experience over the years that much better, so THANK YOU! That being said, I am not a software writer as I have written many times before and I cannot do what you do and may not fully understand all of what is involved with making things work when writing code. With not much heard from at the SageTV camp anymore (until now) and without further development, unless something changes with SageTV, (Changes will be huge as it is becoming open sourced soon) this will most likely be my last article regarding SageTV.(eeh, not anymore) This writing is about the different interfaces of SageTV, particularly Version 7 regarding comparison. I hope you enjoy the nostalgia and smirk as much as did when reading it again. This for entertainment purposes as well informative. I am leaving my writing as is with a few added remarks from myself along the way. Wouldn’t you know after I write that this would most likely be my last SageTV article, that SageTV makes the announcement that it makes this week. It’s been no secret to anyone reading Missingremote, that I am a big SageTV fan. With many beginning to walk away from it including developers, and a few things breaking from time to time, as of lately, it seemed that SageTV was on it’s last legs and would fade away. Who would have seen this coming? Not me, not our Editor in Chief Mike Garcen really no one. I had submitted this just the day before the news that SageTV was coming back to be open sourced from the founder Jeff Kardatzke. At least, until our HDTV/ Star Wars defense grid mashup hits the market.I hope you enjoy this writing. Aside from its price and lack of fringe benefits (helloo? Wi-Fi?), the HD100 is a solid choice for bridging the gap between home theater computing and HDTVs.
We even tried to throw it a curve by outfitting our test rig with an HD tuner, but it still produced a consistently sharp 720p picture. Complimenting this versatility was the HD100's responsive menu system and buttery smooth HD video playback - the latter being a bit of a rarity for extenders. With its codec support (h.264, WMV9, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.2, et al.), and file formats (AVI, MPEG, QuickTime, DivX, MP4, WMV, et al.) we had no problems watching all sorts of saved content on the big screen.
At its core, the STX-HD100 is a by-the-numbers extender: We installed the software on our home theater PC (turning it into a server), threw the unit onto our network, and then streamed all our landlocked content via the HD100's high-def video outputs. It may be a dream deferred (for now), but in the meantime we've been watching pr0n tinkering with the next closest thing - SageTV's STX-HD100 media extender.
Our sultriest gadget fantasy? Wirelessly combining a PC chocked full of HD content with a HDTV.and then adding a deadly laser network to deter anyone brazen enough to muck with the carefully calibrated settings.