farscapesg1

[farscapesg1]

Well… this is just my opinion.  In the first example (paying cable/satellite and recording and watching whenever you want) I see it as you are paying the provider, who in turn pays licensing to the content creators to transmit the content.  By doing this, you are paying for the right to watch the content that they provide, whenever you want, whether on their equipment or your own.  Of course, this is a grey area for the providers who would prefer that you only use their equipment (DVR, cablecard, etc.) and want to control the consumption (DRM restrictions to only play on the recorded device).

In the second example (just download everything via SickBeard, Torrents, etc.) you are basically getting the content for free as you aren’t paying a subscription fee (monthly cable/satellite bill), which is the scenerio that the OP put up (cutting the cord).  The fact is, by paying a cable/DSL/etc. company a monthly fee for Internet access, this does not grant rights to cable/tv/etc. that might be carried by the same provider under a different service plan.

Now, if you do subscribe to TV services with the ISP provider, that is where it gets really muddy for me as far as being able to download regular (and even cable) TV shows that you subscribe to.  Personally, I have no issues downloading a copy of The River, Castle, or Eureka since I pay a monthly fee to have those channels and could record them via DVR if I chose.  However, I don’t download Spartacus, Game of Thrones, etc. as I don’t pay for the premium cable channels.

After saying that… I’m really wondering why I still use a PVR (SageTV) for TV recording and not just SickBeard for all of the shows I watch.  I guess it is because I still like to have the option of watching shows as they air (rarely happens) or catching shows that aren’t as readily available (Tosh.0, Daily Show, random History Channel shows).

The one other area that muddies the water is OTA transmissions.  CBS, ABC, NBC, etc. provide these completely free of charge… if you can get a signal.  For me, I would have to put a large directional antenna on the roof (DB4 in the attic doesn’t work) to recieve these in my area… which isn’t going to happen.  So, in some ways I could see cutting the cord if these were the only channels I wanted to watch, but they aren’t so I don’t feel that it would be within my consumer rigts to download them without paying for them (in the form of a monthly fee)…

[farscapesg1]

I’ve got to agree with this.  I’ve got a similar setup at home, but by default my SickBeard listings are set to skipped and I only change it to “wanted” if I miss a recording on TV due to a tuner fault or some stupid news announcement that messes up the timing (those things should be illegal  ).  If I’m interested in a movie I’ll go out to Redbox and rent it.

I used to use Bittorrent, but after a few “cease and desists” for Basic TV shows (CBS, ABC, NBC) from Comcrap I decided to move over to newsgroups.  It’s really tempting just to download all my TV episodes in Xvid/AVI format (350MB) versus keeping the 3-7GB GB files from recording them myself.  Not sure why, but my conscience says that downloading one-off episodes is okay, but not downloading entire seasons, or shows that I don’t subscribe too (HBO, Cinemax, etc). 

[farscapesg1]

Interesting.  Honestly it has been quite a while since I looked at Media Center in any format.  When I started with Sage it was back during the XP Media Center era where it just didn’t have the customizable options or features that I really wanted (centralized storage and client playback mainly).  By the time it evolved to it’s current state, I’d already invested in the SageTV server software, 2 client licenses, a couple Placeshifter licenses, and 2 extenders (increased to 4 by this point to replace client computers).  This isn’t Media Center’s fault, but the lack of direction from Microsoft that has plagued it until the decision to make XBox’s the default extenders.

Sorry if I didn’t make the customizing options for SageTV clear.  I was just saying that it was possible.  I didn’t realize that they had brought additinal options to Media Center now.  SageTV still requires you to install the Plugins for those features (HA is possible with various plugins, but not familiar enough with it to say which ones).

Does DVRMSToolbox handle automatic commercial detection and skipping as the files are being recorded, or do you have to wait until it finishes recording for it to be processed?

At this point, I’m heavily enough invested in SageTV to wait out the details of the purchase.  To switch now would require purchasing new XBOX Slims for each room (4), which may happen depending on how things turn out.  Or I might give up on the PVR scene and join the masses with a DVR from U-Verse. 

All I really want is something that allows me to watch anything I record on any TV or device that I own, as well as the media collection I have built up.  If Media Center gives me this now, great!  My concern is that right now my cable provider (Comcast) is not marking shows as copy-once but that could change at any time.  It would probably be easier to just switch to a DVR and use something like a Popcorn Hour or WDTV Live for stored media, then take a shot with buying more hardware that could be disabled by a simple copy protection flag.  Of course this is the same concern I’ve had with SageTV before the announcement and their lack of CableCard support, since Comcast is making it harder and harder to record and store what I want to watch.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the funds for a home theater retrofit anymore.  My SageTV setup was expanded as I went over the years and to replace it in one shot won’t be happening.  Bare minimum to switch would require 2 XBOX’s (living room and game room) with the bedrooms still using the SageTV extenders in “stand alone” mode.. which has a horrible interface 😉

[farscapesg1]

I’m sure others can provide more detailed information but I thought I would chime in 😉

1) With previous versions (v6 and before) the metadata was contained in the wiz.bin file I believe.  So the key was to backup your config files on a regular basis.  I haven’t made the move to v7 yet, but my understanding (which could be wrong) is that they changed this to incorporate the metadata into the recording files themselves.

2) When using extenders, no codecs are required.  You just installed the SageTV server software on one system (in my case a plugin for WHS) and the extenders do all the playback functions.  This is as close to the Media Center configuration as possible.  If comparing apples to oranges (Media Center with xBox extenders vs SageTV with PC clients), then yes you have to install codecs on the client PCs to play back files.  At least back in the XP days.  I’ve never set up a SageTV client using Windows 7, which if it can natively playback media in Media player, it should be able to do the same with the SageTV client… i would assume 😉

3) Plugins used to be a hassle for SageTV prior to version 7.  You are correct that you usually had to extract them to the proper folders, then configure settings.  With v7 they introduced a plugin repository that could download and install them automatically.  There are a few that still require making changes to a couple files, or making configuration changes in the GUI, but they made huge advancements in the process with v7.

4) For the base installation, I can get SageTV set up within 10 minutes from the time I start the installation.  Customizing it might take a little longer, but that was one of the nice things about SageTV, it could be customized.  Want a different interface? check.  Want to include commercial detection/skipping? check.  Want to add checking email to the interface? check. Home automation? check.

Media Center has cablecard, which is a huge advantage in it’s favor IMO.  SageTV has recently been able to incorporate some cablecard via SageDCT, but it isn’t incorporated as well as Media Center.  You are also limited to the copy-freely flags in SageTV.  I’m really hoping the Google acquisition will alleviate some of that, but I don’t see it being on their radar since Google wants to provide their own TV, not an interface to watch TV from current cable/satallite providers.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think Media Center appeals to the “mass market” much more than SageTV by themselves could ever hope for.  To me, Media Center has always felt like a “gadget” added to Windows, and in the past has been treated sort of like the illigitimate son.  Just look at the slow acceptance of Media Center into the common “living room”.  It’s getting better with the xBox as an extender, but Microsoft just doesn’t seem to be pushing it that much.  I know several people with xBox’s that didn’t even know they could stream media from another computer to their TV’s with it

SageTV on the other hand has a “tool belt” feel in that you can add additional features/functions to it, which doing it’s primary job of recording TV.  The occasional guest that comes over and looks at my SageTV setup give a “hmm, that’s interesting” impression and move on.  Every babysitter/nanny that we’ve had (4 so far) that watched the kids every day during the week however have asked how I set it up and would love to have something similar. 

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