SageTV Version 5.0 from SageTV
It's no secret that we think device convergence will reach new heights in the coming years. As home theater PC's become more and more prevalent, we see that reality getting closer every day. We talked in the past about MythTV for Linux, Windows Media Center Edition for PC's, and Front Row for the Mac as potential options for getting a home theater PC in your living room. What about those of us who don't want to buy a new computer, and don't have the time or patience for setting up a Linux system? One option available is SageTV. With the recent release of version 5.0, this product has really come into it's own. Check out the features:
- Never miss your favorite TV shows and record multiple shows at the same time. (now in HD!)
- Watch your TV when you want, not when it's on.
- Skip through commercials in the blink of an eye.
- Record in High Quality MPEG-2, MPEG-4* or DivX*.
- Use your PC without realizing it's recording TV while gaming, playing music, surfing the Internet or more.
- Record new shows automatically based on what you watch and record.
- Watch shows on your TV, PC or both.
- Access live or recorded TV, music and photos from anywhere with SageTV Placeshifter and a high speed internet connection .
- Stream High Quality MPEG-2 Live and recorded TV across your network with SageTV on any PC.
- Access your Music collection quickly by Album, Artist or Playlists.
- Customize SageTV with SageTV Studio.
Detailed features available
here.
A basic license to get SageTV up and running on your computer only costs $79.95. If you want to upgrade that basic setup to include the PlaceShifter functionality, you're still only looking at $99.95. We'll get into more detail on PlaceShifter a little later. What does your hard-earned $80 buy you? A fully functional, HD capable home theater pc. Depending on the hardware you've got to run SageTV on, you may need to buy some upgrades. Of course a tuner card will help you access the 'TV' part of SageTV, a DVD-ROM drive will let you watch movies, and a good video card will improve your experience. You can get a tuner card from SageTV for as little as $65 if you buy it as a bundle with your SageTV license.
Now on to the show...
As a DVR, SageTV is pretty much flawless. You can record anything with ease, and watching the recorded show is cool, especially the commercial skip feature. The software imposes no limit on the number of tuners you can connect, allowing you to record and watch as many simultaneous programs as your heart desires. The coolest part? With PlaceShifter, you can do that anywhere on the planet - anywhere with a high speed Internet connection. It basically gives you SlingBox functionality built right in. This is great because one person can watch live TV while the remote person watches any of the recorded content, without interfering with one another. In a two tuner system, both could watch live TV without even knowing the other is using the system.
But that's not all. With a few tweaks and some know-how, you can turn your SageTV system into a pretty decent DVD server as well. First you need to make backup copies of your DVDs, there are some tools out there to do it, so find one you like. Make sure you rip them all into one master folder, then point SageTV to that folder as a Media Library directory. That's all there is to it. If you want to get fancy, though, you can use a program called DVD Profiler to create an index of all your movies. You then use the profile index to create a directory for each movie and add it's cover art to that folder. Now you can browse movies by cover art instead of title. There was, at one time, a tool called DVDPro2My that would automate that last step for you, but it's tough to find now-a-days.
A word of warning...
Hardware is incredibly important in a home theater PC. Our first test system just didn't have the gusto to make SageTV happen for us. Even though it met the manufacturer's minimum requirements, it was essentially unusable. Or next system, which was significantly better than the first, also struggled until we upgraded the video card. Both of the computers are very noisy, so running the system in a home theater setting might get really annoying.
If you plan on building your own HTPC, SageTV is a great option, but remember that you'll need some pretty beefy hardware and whisper quiet fans and drives.
