Contest – SageTV HD300 Theater Media Player
THIS CONTEST HAS ENDED!! THANKS TO ALL FOR PARTICIPATING!!!
The prizes and giveaways continue, this time up, courtesy of the fine folks at SageTV, their awesome HD300 Theater Media Player!
We took an in-depth look at the HD300 back in August and this thing is just awesome. This little box can connect to any TV in your network and is one of the best “extender” type products on the market, with virtually no limitations from what your full blown SageTV box can do.
File and codec support is very impressive with most every codec and file format I can think of being supported. I did not get a chance to test each file/codec type on the list but everything I threw at it (including a Level 5.1 H.264 MKV, FLAC, M2TS, MKA and many others) played without issue. On the audio side there are several differences compared to the STP-HD200, the biggest is that as an HDMI 1.3a device the STP-HD300 supports HD audio bit streaming with a compatible audio video receiver (AVR), but for those not using an AVR also has the ability to decode all of the Dolby and DTS variants (including TrueHD and DTS-MA when a core audio track is present – containers that do not support HD+core tracks will still require a separate AC3/DTS track to decode to PCM) to stereo PCM when configured to do so.
HOW TO ENTER
We have made some changes, so please READ all the rules.
To change things up, we’ve also added several other methods to increase your chances of winning by adding more entries possible.
The only requirement to enter is:
- Answer on this thread with the following “What’s your favorite thing about SageTV? Or what do you wish it had?”
Just responding to the thread gives you 1 entry, but there is no limit to how many additional entries you can have! The more entries, the greater your chance of WINNING!:
- Create a legitimate* forum thread (1 entry for every thread)
- Reply (legitimate* one’s here too guys :-P) to a forum thread or article post (1 entry for every 3 posts)
Twitter Users (1 entry)
- Follow us at Twitter @MissingRemote
- Tweet the following:
USERNAME wants to win @SageTV HD300 @MissingRemote http://bit.ly/mrhd300 - Make sure you replace “USERNAME” with YOUR MissingRemote.com username!
Facebook Users (1 entry)
- Visit our Facebook Fan Page and click the
“Like MissingRemote” button at the top of the fan page (if you don’t see it, that means you’re already a fan!) - And reply to the post on our Wall for this particular contest, with your MissingRemote username
- Visit our Facebook Fan Page and click the
Good luck everyone 
RULES/TERMS
Entries will be accepted from 12:00AM PDT on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 through 11:59PM PDT on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 . Winner will be selected by May 19, 2011.
- This contest is unfortunately only available to US residents in one of the 50 states. Sorry to our international readers, but we are looking into expanding our prize packages in the future.
- You are only allowed to enter using each method one account. Multiple account entries will disqualify you.
- Must be a registered user to be eligible to win (remember, if you are entering additional entries when applicable via Twitter/Facebook you must mention your MissingRemote username in that entry)
- Editors and staff, and associated family of staff are not eligible to win
- Each prize may have its own rules for eligibility established by Product Sponsors, please read the directions carefully
- Users may reply to this thread as many times as desired, but only one post will be counted towards the drawing
- Winners will be notified via e-mail, as well as posted in a news post on the home page of MissingRemote.com; Failure to respond within 72 hours will result in a forfeit of prize and the prize will be re-drawn
- Most prizes will be shipped to winners via either USPS Priority Mail or Fedex Ground and tracking numbers will be provided. It is the recipient’s responsibility to coordinate receipt of item.
- Some prizes will be shipped to winners directly from Product Sponsor–tracking will still be provided to those as well
- Prize packages are in excellent condition and have not been used outside of for review purposes and are delivered in AS-IS condition
- Any attempt to circumvent contest rules will cause ineligibility for user
- *Legitimate threads and replies will be judged at the sole discretion of MissingRemote’s moderator
Great giveaway! I wish Sage
Great giveaway! I wish Sage supported the Ceton IntiniTV4 without workarounds.
Wish Sage supported the media
Wish Sage supported the media Center 7 video format since I have so many of them recorded
I’m with you, I wish Sage
I’m with you, I wish Sage (and just about everything) supported the media Center 7 video format.
I wish sage clients could
I wish sage clients could play subtitles on BDMV folders like the HD300 can.. so if I win one than it won’t be that big of a deal for me.. 🙂
The extender and placeshifter
The extender and placeshifter are great viewing options and are my favorite features. I’m still using a MediaMVP and would love to get an HD300 soon.
No constant driver and
No constant driver and software updating. It just works! Diamond theme is awesome.
I wish SageTV supported
I wish SageTV supported CableCard (and I wish my cable provider didn’t restrict copying, but that is another issue).
I can never have enough
I can never have enough random boxes around the house that my wife has no idea how to use.
Like many others, I wish that
Like many others, I wish that it officially supported cablecard. I love Win7MCE, but I would love to give SageTV a try someday. Especially now that my Blu-ray collection is guickly growing & making my Xbox 360 extenders a pain to deal with. So, it’s either Cable TV or Blu-rays, but not both. What’s the point of cake if I can’t eat it too?!!!
I really like the HD300, more
I really like the HD300, more than I thought I would like it. Also, and I know its not specifically a sage product, I’m also thrilled with commercial skipping when it works correctly. Of course I’d like to see cable card implementation, but actually I think my main (easily changed) gripe is how crappy the music interface and playback is. Comeon guys! Media center kicks the crap out of Sage here. I’m always frustrated with this, and on my client PC I usually opt for a third party program like media monkey, but I can’t do that on my HD300.
Despite recent improvements,
Despite recent improvements, I still wish Sage had a better UI.
I’ve never used a SageTV
I’ve never used a SageTV device, but I read the online manual, and it sounds like you can only playback media on the network if it’s via another server running SageTV’s software. So, I wish this device would allow direct playback of media by directly connecting to a network share. Perhaps it could be an advanced option. This would be useful for people with a NAS containing their media where they wouldn’t need a separate server running Sage’s software.
arbie wrote:
I’ve never used
[quote=arbie]
I’ve never used a SageTV device, but I read the online manual, and it sounds like you can only playback media on the network if it’s via another server running SageTV’s software. So, I wish this device would allow direct playback of media by directly connecting to a network share. Perhaps it could be an advanced option. This would be useful for people with a NAS containing their media where they wouldn’t need a separate server running Sage’s software.
[/quote]
The HD200 and HD300 can work as standalone media players without a backend server running the interface. They can connect and play media shares very nicely. For that purpose, they are on the expensive side compared to other media players, but their codec and container format support is still unmatched by anyone.
My biggest wish for Sage is
My biggest wish for Sage is full cable card support (with copy once content.) If it had that I’d most likely switch to Sage.
jrandeck wrote:
My biggest
[quote=jrandeck]
My biggest wish for Sage is full cable card support (with copy once content.) If it had that I’d most likely switch to Sage.
[/quote]
Just use Colossus . Image quality as good as cable card.
I wish Sagetv had Hulu and
I wish Sagetv had Hulu and Netflix integrated.
+1 to this. Netflix and Hulu
+1 to this. Netflix and Hulu are the reason I turned off Satellite. With those two PLUS local media playback, it’s all I need in a dedicated box.
What I like best about SageTV
What I like best about SageTV is their extenders.
Contest is not posted on your
Contest is not posted on your Facebook wall?
What I like best about Sage is it is an all-in-one app for media (live, streaming, and archived)
I think the one thing that
I think the one thing that I’d like to see most in SageTV (even above cablecard) is to have fully supported Dynamic Menus.
I’m just getting into HTPCs
I’m just getting into HTPCs and streaming media from my Home Server. I read everything I could and strongly debated going with SageTV or rolling my own WM7 system and using existing XBox unites as extenders. So far after rolling my own system and working with several plug-ins, and trying 3 different pieces of software for copying from one location to another, messing around with codecs, etc. I wish I had just gone with Sage.
I would love to give Sage a try.
I like the fact that the
I like the fact that the HD300 easily replicates the SageTV experience without needing another full computer. And it’s so economical in cost and power utilization. And quiet. OK, there’s a lot to like.
My major wish for SageTV is
My major wish for SageTV is full Cablecard support (like many others). Sure, there is the HD-PVR or Colossus, but when you are talking about 3-4 tuners that gets too pricey (tuners + STB rental fees). It may work for some, but is not the “best solution” that many supports make it out to be….
I wish Sage supported the
I wish Sage supported the InfiniTV natively.
The low power usages is
The low power usages is great. But I’d like to see it have the ability to direct connect to a SD HDHR tuner.
Appreciate how powerful
Appreciate how powerful SageTV – kinda reminds me of learning vi on Unix couple decades ago in school – not very intuitive, but quite powerful if you can put in the time to explore/tinker/discover features/tweak it to your needs.
Would love Sage to provide:
a) Platform to add apps (kinda similar to Roku adding channels like Netflix, etc)
b) Ability for end users to define and add streams of their own choosing – similar to .strm files on XBMC. (Maybe there’s an alternative way for doing this that I am not aware of?)
c) Some way of selecting the audio and video tracks from Blu-ray ISOs instead of just playing the longest track. Understand licensing issues preventing full-blown menus but not having a way to select audio/video tracks (atleast as far as I know), makes it harder to replace the Blu-ray player with sagetv extender.
My favorite feature:
True
My favorite feature:
True Server/Client Functionality!
I love the utterly simple and
I love the utterly simple and limitless expandability, the server/client interaction is flawless, and the plugin based architecture are amazing. I only wish it worked with xbox360 or if there was the ability to sync playback between multiple extenders
I wish SageTV had native
I wish SageTV had native cablecard support, but i love the 100% customizability it has
I wish sage had a last button
I wish sage had a last button on the remote to quick toggle between the last two streams you were watching.
Every morning I wake up and
Every morning I wake up and check my SageTV twitter friends and Sage’s site for news that it supports cablecard. That’s the only thing it’s missing.
I wish Sage supported the
I wish Sage supported the Ceton IntiniTV4 out of the box.
Extenders are hands down my
Extenders are hands down my favorite part of Sage, I’ll never go back to a PC client again. I’m still rocking the HD200, but I sure would like to *win* an HD300 to replace it 😉
I want built in Netflix!
I want built in Netflix!
I wish it came configured out
I wish it came configured out of the box like Snapstream’s BeyondTv.
I like SageTV’s communinty
I like SageTV’s communinty support, ability to extend and change things yourself, and it’s reliance on open standards. I wish it had cablecard support…hopefully soon.
I wish SageTV had the ability
I wish SageTV had the ability to play custom intros before a movie like the new “intros” plugin for MediaBrowser does.
Right now, I am using
Right now, I am using separate devices for streaming/local media. It would be great if you could implement some streaming services, such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon.
I wish there was native
I wish there was native Netflix and Hulu support in SageTV. The Playon plugin works great but add some complexity. Of couse it also allows you to fully intergrate you online TV and Movies with your local content.
As for ccarlins comment “I wish it came configured out of the box like Snapstream’s BeyondTv.”
I used BeyondTV for years and is sucks compared to Sage. Except for the built-in commercial skip I can’t imagine what he is taliking about. Sage is as easy to setup as BeyondTV if not easier. Some of the Plugins may take additional work but they provide stuff BeyondTV never did.
My favorite thing about Sage
My favorite thing about Sage is no DRM, it supports Colossus, and the plugins are now just point and click in the UI. I wish it had a better stock UI and supported cable card.
I wish Sagetv was able to
I wish Sagetv was able to play DRM Recorded Tv and DRM Live streams via Ceton Card.
I wish it had a netlfix ui.
I wish it had a netlfix ui.
I love Sage’s fleixibility
I love Sage’s fleixibility and user created plugins.
Diamond rocks.
The new UI, Plucky’s Horz
The new UI, Plucky’s Horz Menu, Bluray on extenders, Server tuner pooling
I wish Sage TV supported
I wish Sage TV supported Cablecard for content which is not copy freely.
Pick me =)
Pick me =)
My favorite thing about
My favorite thing about SageTv is that it uses a true client-server based architecture which is great for place-shifters and extenders.
My wish list for SageTv is cable card support and built-in Netflix support.
Yes, Netflix support would be
Yes, Netflix support would be another huge plus for SageTV… I gues it’ll be too much to ask for BlockBuster support?
Enter me please!
My wish is
Enter me please!
My wish is not so much an addition to Sage, but for stereo/audio manufactures to include devices such as Sagetv inside a stereo chassis. Have everything inside one box!
I am a minimalist. I do not like having 5 large metal boxes plus a huge tv clustering up my house. Give me one box that does everything (except for the tv), including computing! No hassle, huge wife factor!
I love that Sage just
I love that Sage just works.
I’d like to see easy, no work-around, cable card support.
My fav thing about sagetv is
My fav thing about sagetv is all of the add-ins that the wonderful dev community has come up with… and I especially love how much easier they are to install/uninstall in V7 of sage
Another thing to add would be
Another thing to add would be an even more intelligent recording wizard. I’ve got several favorites that air on SDTV and HDTV. I setup the HD show to record, and set the favorite to ONLY record that channel, but it seems Sage likes to try and record the SD version every time. Also, each time I tell Sage that I DO NOT LIKE that SD show. Sometimes it’ll remember that, sometimes it doesn’t.
Wish Sage had proper support
Wish Sage had proper support for CableCard
Cablecard support.
Cablecard support.
Netflix would be great!
Netflix would be great!
I am waiting to see a comment
I am waiting to see a comment from Aaron on here..saying Sage TV is the best thing since..3D TV (or close to it).
Sorry I don’t want to enter and can’t, but good luck to all…..
I wish it supported multi
I wish it supported multi stream cable cards. 🙁
hooray give aways
hooray give aways
Favorite feature:
Ability to
Favorite feature:
Ability to decode all of the Dolby and DTS variants (including TrueHD and DTS-MA)
V7 for Mac OS X would be
V7 for Mac OS X would be awesome. SageTV, especially with the Diamond Theme is really compelling but I’m not willing to get a Windows machine.
Support for cablecard
Support for cablecard
Like – No need for playing
Like – No need for playing around with codecs. It just works.
Don’t Like – No Cable Card support. Just sucks that the cost for entry is so high.
The best thing about Sage is
The best thing about Sage is the hardware extenders, which are just so simple to setup and use.
One of the great things about
One of the great things about Sage is the fact that it can be modified and extended and the user community has made some great plugins.
I really wish they would add
I really wish they would add nativ Netflix to this thing. #1 on my list for a while now.
I’m very happy with SageTV
I’m very happy with SageTV for it’s TV recording, and it’s DVD playback capabilities. I’m OK with the UI, but I wish the UI for the Music Player as better. I’m having a hard time giving up Meedio and using Sage for Music.
I wish SageTV had an option
I wish SageTV had an option so that when a given TV show was selected that had multiple recordings, it would immediately start playing the oldest unwatched episode of that show.
The best part of SageTV are
The best part of SageTV are the extenders. They rock!
I love SageTV for its
I love SageTV for its reliable handling of the recording schedule, scalability, extensive list of 3rd party plugins that make a great product even better, and its end user support forum. Unlike cable/satellite/fiber TV service provider DVRs, SageTV isn’t just a whole-house DVR, it’s a whole-house media distribution server that serves up my TV recordings, DVDs, MP3s, digital photos, and online streaming content like YouTube (and NetFlix and Hulu using a 3rd party plugin and additional software) in one common interface. No need to fumble with several remotes and changing input selections on the TV or receiver to handle three or four different devices with different on-screen interfaces…just one SageTV client device on each TV with a common user interface.
Here are two things on my wish list I’d like to see added to SageTV:
1. The ability to add, move, remove, and rename menu and submenu items from within the SageTV user interface. Prior to SageTV v7, we had the Dynamic Menus plugin for that but it isn’t compatible with the new version of SageTV.
2. A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) STV UI/Plugin UI designer where you can click on elements on the screen and have a property box popup to change properties (background, image, location, width, height, font, font size, etc.) related to that element. To have the ability to resize screen elements or drag them to a different location on the screen. I know this can all be done in code using SageTV Studio, and Studio is a great programmers tool. But very few end users can program code in a tool like Studio. Besides, programmers are usually the worst user interface designers and user interface designers usually aren’t programmers. Give the end users a tool to not only re-skin the interface using the existing theme system, but to redesign the layout in a WYSIWYG environment so they can do so without having to touch any actual code in Studio. Give the end users a tool that does the same thing for SageTV UI design that Adobe Dreamweaver does for web page design and we should see a ton of new user interface designs by people that wouldn’t have even given it a second though after taking a look at how to do it in Studio. Maybe instead of hard coding screens and screen elements in the STV code, a template system would probably need to be used to offer this level of UI customization.
You can do #2 in studio it
You can do #2 in studio it really isn’t that hard and see no point in bringing it into the interface studio pretty much already does that. makes everything 100% customizable.
PLUCKYHD wrote:
You can do
[quote=PLUCKYHD]
You can do #2 in studio
[/quote]
I completely agree. Studio makes everything about the SageTV UI comletely 100% customizable. But Studio is a programmers tool. It was made by programmers, for programmers. I have great admiration for you and everybody else that has created and shared awesome new plugins for SageTV with us. But I still think separating the UI layout from the code and having a separate UI design tool would make things exponentially easier for the rest of us to create new on-screen interfaces. Let the programmers program and let the designers design.
[quote=PLUCKYHD]it really isn’t that hard and see no point in bringing it into the interface studio pretty much already does that.[/quote]
I think the lack of available themes and UI replacements speaks loud and clear that Studio doesn’t do enough and is too hard for most people to use or has too steep of a learning curve for most people to bother with it. A couple of UI replacements have been ‘in developement’ for about a year now and haven’t been released yet. That is a testament to just how difficult it is to create a replacement UI in Studio. The theme system in place now is alright, but it’s still a manual coding process and a steep learning curve for the non-programmer types, and it mainly just reskins the same old interface with new fonts, colors, and icons. To really change things, you need to write a UI Mod plugin. With Studio in the hands of an inexperienced programmer, it’s too easy create a plugin that breaks compatibility with other plugins due to changes that can be made by plugins to the STV code. How many plugins were not compatible when the Diamond v3 UI Mod plugin was first released? Sure, the authors quickly made corrections to make things compatible, but how many average users want to write (and share with the SageTV community) a significant UI Mod knowing they may have to make specific accomodations for possibly dozens of other popular plugins? How many UI Mod plugins will need to be fixed or rewritten to work with Ortus or Phoenix, if those UI replacements ever get finished and released?
I say, separate the UI layout from the code and use templates for screens and a create a design tool (or integrate one with Studio) that allows WYSIWYG editing of these templates. It would allow significant UI design changes to be made without touching any widget code in Studio. Those that have worked with themes in Meedio in the past will understand this template concept. Let’s use the Main Menu as an example. A Main Menu widget would be defined in the STV code. Core features and plugins that want to link to the Main Menu can add themselves to this menu widget. Menu Style widgets can be created for different menu styles, like horizontal menus and vertical menus, with text only, text and icon, or icons only menu buttons. Using a WYSIWYG interface, a designer could open the Home screen template and select the Main Menu on that template. A property box would allow the designer to change the style of the menu to a Horizontal Icon style menu or a Vertical Text and Icon style menu, etc. The property box would also allow easy manipulation of things like font attributes, highlight colors, text justification, icon sizes, background color, border size/color/style, etc. The WYSIWYG interface would also give the designer the ability to drag and resized the menu widget anyplace on the screen. A Dynamic Menu core feature would allow the end user to control which core features and plugins will appear in any given Menu widget. As it is now, if you want to modify the screen layout of the default STV or somebody elses plugin, you either have to get the author make it yet another configurable option or release your own modification with the original STV or plugin as a dependency. With a template system, plugins would have their own screen templates to separate their code from the UI and would allow the end user or theme writers to override the default template included with the plugin with a new one. See how much easier that would be for the typical non-programming SageTV user to not have to touch any code in the current Studio interface to significantly alter the appearance of the SageTV on-screen interface? See how much safer that would be for the typical non-programming SageTV user to not be messing with STV code that is dependent on someone else’s plugin code just to make cosmetic changes?
I wouldn’t expect this type of change to happen in V7 (and maybe not even fully developed in V8) due to it requiring a complete rewrite of the STV code and adding the core features required for template support, but it would be an addition that would likely sway many Windows MCE users over to SageTV. And if MediaPortal or mythTV (or any of the other free or opensource media center apps out there) hit any bumps in the road or fall behind on software or hardware support, then SageTV would be in a prime position to absorb those users as well.
My favorite thing about
My favorite thing about SageTV is the extenders. They are fully capable, draw little power, and are incredibly small. If only the remote wasn’t so rediculously over-populated.
I like sagetv because I can
I like sagetv because I can program it to to almost anything I want in studio/java and their support is top notch!!
My wish is native Netflix,
My wish is native Netflix, Hulu or Amazon VOD support.
I’m a big fan of having a
I’m a big fan of having a total extender environment. No computers next to my TV.
I wish that Sage Placeshifter
I wish that Sage Placeshifter worked well with Streamzap remotes, the way the regular Sage client and server do.
Another wish for the wish
Another wish for the wish list:
Many SageTV users are likely to have some sort of gaming system (XBox, PlayStation, or Wii). How about a licensable SageTV client for each of the major game systems so they can also be used as extenders?
I love the size, small and
I love the size, small and easy to place.
Native Netflix would be a
Native Netflix would be a nice addition as well as native CableCard support (when something comes along that is less than $400).
The best thing about SageTV
The best thing about SageTV is their extenders. These babies are amazing, small, powerful, quiet… Should I go on?
The 2nd best thing about
The 2nd best thing about SageTV is the ability for great minds to contribute with plug-ins. Where would we be without ComSkip, UI enhancement, Sporting Event autoextenders, metadata, Playon… Should I go on?
My favorite thing about
My favorite thing about SageTV is that it makes my wife happy. If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
I think Sage tv should have
I think Sage tv should have hulu plus , hulu and netflix intergrated too.
The only thing that is
The only thing that is misisng from Sage is a great CableCard support and native Netflix support. If I can’t have that then at least support the WTV format on the HD300. Thanks
I simply wish Sage had a free
I simply wish Sage had a free version, because I am just a bit too comfortable with my free WMC.
Just like the majority of
Just like the majority of members that have responded, I too wish SageTV natively supported cablecard, and more importantly, the Ceton InfiniTV 4. If it did this, it would be easier to convince my wife to install a HD300 in each room!
The only thing holding me
The only thing holding me back is cablecard support.
I Hope they should add
I Hope they should add netflix app too. That could be grt.
I am really surprised that
I am really surprised that SageTv doesn’t have netflix integration.. That will be my first wish list and requirement too :).
I would like another for our
I would like another for our bedroom TV!
Best thing about SageTV: no
Best thing about SageTV: no software or drivers to maintain – it just works.
Wish list: Support for menus in Blu-ray movies. Support for playing Blu-rays from an attached Blu-ray ROM drive. Support for native Netflix and Amazon VOD (without the complicated PlayOn workaround).
best part is being able to
best part is being able to stream live HD tv to any tv in the house and record.
What I love:
Complete
What I love:
What I’d like:
The best thing about Sage is
The best thing about Sage is the client-server setup. I might have chosen WMC years ago without it. It is a nearly perfect setup but I would sure like native Netflix integration.
I like the small size –size
I like the small size –size DOES matter! LOL
…I also agree that Hulu and Netflix integration are critical to the success of this line of products.
Who won it?
Who won it?
paratwa wrote:Who won
[quote=paratwa]Who won it?[/quote]
Working on tallying up the votes, hoping to pull the winner this weekend. Sorry for the delay!