Hot ! SageTV 2.0 $58.95, SageTV + PVR250MCE Bundle $139.95 at PCAlchemy.com

[psxjunky]

UPDATE 2 : 5/12/2004

Rumor has it that if you sign up for SageTV's mailing list today, you will get a coupon tomorrow that will allow buying SageTV 2.0 at 1.4 price for some more time.

Well, it is not a rumor anymore ... as it has been officially confirmed by Frey.






UPDATE 5/12/2004

UPDATE !! SageTV 2.0 has been officially released today. The official price of SageTV 2.0 has gone up to $79.95 from the $59.95 price of 1.4, but PCAlchemy is is still offering a great discount on the SageTV ($58.95) as well as SageTV Bundle prices ... even more reason to buy from them now.

(and oh, just a reminder that I still don't work for PCAlchemy )

Note that any existing v1.4 users will STILL get SageTV 2.0 for FREE ! So if you bought SageTV for under 50 bucks from PCAlchemy till yesterday, you got an awesome deal ... since you basically got a $30 discount on this great piece of software !

Finally, the SageTV trial version has also been upgraded to v2.0 as predicted. Also the clock on the trial has been reset, so even if you tried v1.4 earlier, you can still try v2.0 for another 15 days.

Get your SageTV 2.0 trial here


Here are the new prices of the above items from PCAlchemy. Also make sure to check out the cheap Sage 2.0 + Blackbird card bundle that Frey is selling directly for $149.95

PCAlchemy.com has just added the following SageTV software packages and SageTV+Hauppauge WinTV-PVR Bundles to their website:

SageTV 2.0, SageTV Client 2.0 and SageTV Recorder 1.5 Software Packages
SageTV 2.0 - $58.95
SageTV Client - $26.95
SageTV Recorder - $17.95

SageTV 2.0 + Hauppauge Hardware Bundles
SageTV 2.0 / PVR250MCE Bundle - $139.95
SageTV 2.0 / PVR250MCE / Streamzap Remote Bundle - $169.95
SageTV 2.0 / PVR350 Bundle - $203.95






ORIGINAL POST

This information was burried inside this thread, so not everyone may have seen it. Plus it was also posted by the vendor himself ... so they may not be allowed to post this as a separate thread in the Hot Deals forum.

However, I am not affiliated with PCAlchecmy in any way (and also don't gain in anyway by posting this), and I truly believe that these are some great prices on SageTV software as well as SageTV + Hauppauge WinTV card bundles, so mods, please allow this thread to live on even though the original information was posted by the vendor himself.

If anyone can find a better price for SageTV or Sage+Hauppauge bundles, feel free to post here.

Okay, here goes ...


PCAlchemy.com has just added the following SageTV software packages and SageTV+Hauppauge WinTV-PVR Bundles to their website:

SageTV, SageTV Client and SageTV Recorder Software Packages
SageTV - $49.95
SageTV Client - $26.95
SageTV Recorder - $17.95

SageTV + Hauppauge Hardware Bundles
SageTV 1.4 / PVR250MCE Bundle - $139.95
SageTV 1.4 / PVR250MCE / Streamzap Remote Bundle - $164.95
SageTV 1.4 / PVR350 Bundle - $198.95

These bundles offer tremendous savings. The PVR250MCE cards are the 32552 cards.


Anyone who buys SageTV 1.4 now is eligible to Beta test the awesome SageTV ver 2.0 AND will get SageTV v2.0 as a FREE upgrade when it is released.

Enjoy the savings and check out this thread for much more info about Hauppauge Cards and PVR software (SageTV/BeyondTV etc) in general ...

Hauppauge pvr250mce $95 shipped



.

 

[stingygrrl]

how do they sell sage tv? AFAIK it's a download from the sage site? I didn't know others were allowed to sell it. I actually have some B&M stores' gift certs. Would any of them sell it?

 

[psxjunky]

Good question ! I am hoping PCAlchemy will directly answer this since I don't know the answer. But if I had to make a guess I would say they have cut some kind of a deal with Frey Technologies and are probably selling this as a download only solution, just like Frey does.

 

[pcalchemy]

Originally posted by: stingygrrl
how do they sell sage tv? AFAIK it's a download from the sage site? I didn't know others were allowed to sell it. I actually have some B&M stores' gift certs. Would any of them sell it?

Because PCAlchemy.com is the first (and only) authorized reseller of SageTV, Frey Technologies (the SageTV people) will be announcing this in a few days.

It is very unlikely that your general on-line retailer will become authorized to sell SageTV, though I'd expect other qualified resellers in the future.

PCAlchemy.com worked very hard with both SageTV and Hauppauge to get to this point of actually being able to sell SageTV and the SageTV / WinTV-PVR bundles.

 

[pcalchemy]

Originally posted by: psxjunky
Good question ! I am hoping PCAlchemy will directly answer this since I don't know the answer. But if I had to make a guess I would say they have cut some kind of a deal with Frey Technologies and are probably selling this as a download only solution, just like Frey does.

Yes we have a signed agreement with Frey Technologies, but we provide SageTV both as a download and as an optional CD, though you get the CD for free in the bundles.

The bundles come with a CD that includes an autorun integrated menu for installing everything necessary to run SageTV.

 

[uwannawhat]

Wow! Obviously the folks @ Sage are making a BIG push to get their product/prog. into everyones hands ahead of BTV.

Should get interesting.

Nice post.

 

[Tarkus]

SageTV is a great product (and this is a great deal), but it's too bad you can only look at beta 2.0 after buying 1.4. So far, I've had more success with the btv 3.4 demo. I wish I knew how 2.0 acted.

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: uwannawhat
Wow! Obviously the folks @ Sage are making a BIG push to get their product/prog. into everyones hands ahead of BTV.

I say ... about time ! I always felt that SageTV is a much superior PVR solution compared to BeyondTV, but frankly their marketing strategy sucks ! SnapStream on the other hand has done an admirable job of marketing BeyondTV and has been getting a LOT of press lately !

It is good to see that Frey Technologies is finally taking some proactive steps to increase the brand awareness for SageTV

Should get interesting.

Nice post.

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: Tarkus
SageTV is a great product (and this is a great deal), but it's too bad you can only look at beta 2.0 after buying 1.4. So far, I've had more success with the btv 3.4 demo. I wish I knew how 2.0 acted.

Yes, it is kinda unfortunate that Frey has not upgraded the trial version to 2.0 yet ... because 2.0 is a much superior version of 1.4 ... which already is a very solid PVR app at the core, but lacks a good interface. 2.0 has more than made up the interface deficiency of 1.4

I am sure once 2.0 is officially released, Frey will let people try out the new version instead of the old version.

Based on personal experience though, I think you will be happy with 2.0 Head over to the SageTV Beta Forums to get a feel for what people are thinking ...

 

[RossMAN]

How stable has Sage TV beta 2.0 been?

 

[Z80]

I downloaded and tried SageTV with my Creative PVR card and had audio/video synch problems on about half of my recordings. Probably need to trash my Creative card and go with a PVR250MCE.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: Z80
I downloaded and tried SageTV with my Creative PVR card and had audio/video synch problems on about half of my recordings. Probably need to trash my Creative card and go with a PVR250MCE.

Other than your audio/video synch problems, what did you think of SageTV's interface and features in general?

 

[Z80]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: Z80
I downloaded and tried SageTV with my Creative PVR card and had audio/video synch problems on about half of my recordings. Probably need to trash my Creative card and go with a PVR250MCE.

Other than your audio/video synch problems, what did you think of SageTV's interface and features in general?

I found their interface not to be very intuitive and not very efficient. Basic features were there but hard to find. Took me awhile to figure out how to change the recording quality. Recorded shows were on my hard drive but not in the SageTV guide - I assume it was a bug. I am use to TIVO's interface and for everyday usage, I place a high value on simplicity.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: Z80

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: Z80
I downloaded and tried SageTV with my Creative PVR card and had audio/video synch problems on about half of my recordings. Probably need to trash my Creative card and go with a PVR250MCE.

Other than your audio/video synch problems, what did you think of SageTV's interface and features in general?

I found their interface not to be very intuitive and not very efficient. Basic features were there but hard to find. Took me awhile to figure out how to change the recording quality. Recorded shows were on my hard drive but not in the SageTV guide - I assume it was a bug. I am use to TIVO's interface and for everyday usage, I place a high value on simplicity.

That sucks, I wonder how much of an improvement beta 2.0 offers?

I also value simplicity but enjoy being able to switch between simple and advanced options.

 

[zinkpig]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
How stable has Sage TV beta 2.0 been?

The basic functionality has been the same between ver 1.4 and 2 . I tried version 1.4 for a few weeks with my creative dvcr.. gave up on that pretty soon . I got a pvr 350 and a 250 and built a dedicated htpc. Ver 1.4 worked great and was stable so I went ahead and bought ver 2 . The version 2 has pretty much rock solid stability during recording. They have also made vast improvements to the userinterface. Designing it so that all the setting can be acessed with a remote rather than a mouse. The only problems that I have sometimes are slow response times with the remote , UI out via pvr 350 is not totally stable. The recordings themselves are awesome. The interface has never crashed.

I have not tested beyond TV because I had 2 tuner cards to start with . I really wish they would include multi tuner support. From the screen shots and the webinterface , Beyonds UI design seems to be ahead of sage. Still sage 2.0 interface is very usable ( not cheesy like 1.4 , gawd what were they thinking ?) The Divx compression utility, commercial skip are neat touches but those that arent super critical. The only thing I wish I had was webinterface feature. Sage requires you to have a client. I think paying 30 bucks per client computer to run sage is dumb. I wish they went with a beyond TV type client instead which doesnt not require any software installed on the client.

 

[RossMAN]

zinkpig,

Thanks great info. What are your HTPC specs?

 

[zinkpig]

htpc specs:
athlon XP 1600 palomino ( not ideal a tbred would 've run much cooler)
Ti-V77L heatsink ( just itching to replace the fan on this , cant find the right price)
256 MB DDR (may put in another 256 when the ram market settles)
ASUS A7N266-VM AA (one of the most polular htpc boards)
250 GB Maxtor 7200 formatted to (10/120/120 for OS/video/video)
4xDVD+/- RW Memorex
Matrox G450 32 mb DDR (agp slot)
PVR 350 (pci slot 2)
PVR 250 freestyle ( Pci slot 3, i-15 encoder)
Athenatech 100SC case (the case shipped to me was lil different from the pics at newegg. It now has a audio header and nice vent on the top panel just above the CPU )
1 80 mm fan not included with the case

OS : win 2k pro
PVR software : sage V2 beta

 

[StormRider]

I have the Creative Labs DVCR. I love that card -- I just wish other software (like BTV and SageTV) could use it.

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
How stable has Sage TV beta 2.0 been?

Both SageTV v1.4 and 2.0 (all betas) has been rock solid for me. So far I personally have not seen a single crash from SageTV. SageTV has finally proved that Java based apps can be stable and fast at the same time

Some people who are using Haupppauge WinTV PVR 350 and using the OSD thru it had seen some stability issues with beta versions prior to 2.0.15 and 16, but I believe that since 2.0.15 Frey has fixed most issues with 350 OSD output. I personally don't use a 350 with SageTV, so I can't comment on it.

My SageTV based HTPC is a dedicated PVR box sitting in my entertainment center. The PC has been running 24x7 with Sage for weeks at a time. It would go further if I did not have to restart once in a while to apply newly downloaded Windows critical patches.

Keep two things in mind if you ever see stability issues with Sage --

1. Run it in full screen mode. A friend of mine was seeing sluggish performance from SageTV when running in Windowed mode ... going to full screen all the time has taken care of his issues

2. Put SageTV to sleep when you are done using it. It will keep running in the background and record everything.

So in a word, don't worry about stability of SageTV

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: Z80

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: Z80
I downloaded and tried SageTV with my Creative PVR card and had audio/video synch problems on about half of my recordings. Probably need to trash my Creative card and go with a PVR250MCE.

Other than your audio/video synch problems, what did you think of SageTV's interface and features in general?

I found their interface not to be very intuitive and not very efficient. Basic features were there but hard to find. Took me awhile to figure out how to change the recording quality. Recorded shows were on my hard drive but not in the SageTV guide - I assume it was a bug. I am use to TIVO's interface and for everyday usage, I place a high value on simplicity.

Z80: Since you mentioned using a trial version of SageTV, I am guessing you only got to try out the v1.4 interface. There is no argument that the user interface for Sage 1.4 was aweful. I did use Sage 1.4 for a couple months before the first 2.0 beta was released. I did get used to the 1.4 interface finally but never really liked it. However, at the core, Sage was a very solid PVR solution from day one for me.

Sage 2.0 interface had been vastly improved. Like zinkpig said, it is almost completely navigateable using a remote (that's what I am doing). The interface is much closer to a TiVo like simple interface now, but it is still fairly easy to get to the advanced options using the "Detailed Setup" menu. If you want to get your hands even dirtier, there is a way to edit there "properties" file to tweak Sage even further.

The default values for most options are optimal, so one can start using Sage pretty much out of the box without having to customize too much.

Here are a couple of screen shots of Sage 2.0 to give an idea of the new interface.

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: zinkpig

Originally posted by: RossMAN
How stable has Sage TV beta 2.0 been?

The basic functionality has been the same between ver 1.4 and 2 . I tried version 1.4 for a few weeks with my creative dvcr.. gave up on that pretty soon . I got a pvr 350 and a 250 and built a dedicated htpc. Ver 1.4 worked great and was stable so I went ahead and bought ver 2 . The version 2 has pretty much rock solid stability during recording. They have also made vast improvements to the userinterface. Designing it so that all the setting can be acessed with a remote rather than a mouse. The only problems that I have sometimes are slow response times with the remote , UI out via pvr 350 is not totally stable. The recordings themselves are awesome. The interface has never crashed.

I have not tested beyond TV because I had 2 tuner cards to start with . I really wish they would include multi tuner support. From the screen shots and the webinterface , Beyonds UI design seems to be ahead of sage. Still sage 2.0 interface is very usable ( not cheesy like 1.4 , gawd what were they thinking ?) The Divx compression utility, commercial skip are neat touches but those that arent super critical. The only thing I wish I had was webinterface feature. Sage requires you to have a client. I think paying 30 bucks per client computer to run sage is dumb. I wish they went with a beyond TV type client instead which doesnt not require any software installed on the client.

BeyondTV is also no doubt a good product, but I liked Sage much better (just in case it wasn't obvious yet )

In my opinion, the BTV interface *used* to be much better than Sage back in the 1.4 days, but with the new beta 2.0 interface revision Sage has not only closed the gap, but IMHO it is now actually better than the BTV interface. BTV looks like a PC application to me, SageTV interface looks more like a standalone PVR appliance like TiVo or ReplayTV ... which is ideal if you are setting up a dedicated PVR box connected to the TV.

DivX compression is a really nice feature, but my understanding was that BeyondTV was going to drop that feature in the next release. Anyone know about that ?

Commercial skip is cool. I really think Sage needs to implement something like this, but unfortunately nothing about this has been announced by Frey yet.

The remote access thru web is actually the neatest feature in BeyondTV that Sage is lacking; but this is already planned for SageTV 2.0 (though it may not come with the original 2.0 release)

Finally, the Sage client is something you need only if you want to access the full Sage interface from another PC. Sage records all shows directly into MPEG2 files ... so as long as you can access the network drives, you can play the recorded shows using ANY MPEG2 player, including Windows Media Player or Media Player Classic.

 

[Granamere]

If you notice anyone can download SageTV 2.0 beta RC3. I have not tried to install it yet but I have it downloaded.

Link

Granamere

 

[Granamere]

Originally posted by: psxjunky

Originally posted by: zinkpig

Originally posted by: RossMAN
How stable has Sage TV beta 2.0 been?

The basic functionality has been the same between ver 1.4 and 2 . I tried version 1.4 for a few weeks with my creative dvcr.. gave up on that pretty soon . I got a pvr 350 and a 250 and built a dedicated htpc. Ver 1.4 worked great and was stable so I went ahead and bought ver 2 . The version 2 has pretty much rock solid stability during recording. They have also made vast improvements to the userinterface. Designing it so that all the setting can be acessed with a remote rather than a mouse. The only problems that I have sometimes are slow response times with the remote , UI out via pvr 350 is not totally stable. The recordings themselves are awesome. The interface has never crashed.

I have not tested beyond TV because I had 2 tuner cards to start with . I really wish they would include multi tuner support. From the screen shots and the webinterface , Beyonds UI design seems to be ahead of sage. Still sage 2.0 interface is very usable ( not cheesy like 1.4 , gawd what were they thinking ?) The Divx compression utility, commercial skip are neat touches but those that arent super critical. The only thing I wish I had was webinterface feature. Sage requires you to have a client. I think paying 30 bucks per client computer to run sage is dumb. I wish they went with a beyond TV type client instead which doesnt not require any software installed on the client.

BeyondTV is also no doubt a good product, but I liked Sage much better (just in case it wasn't obvious yet )

In my opinion, the BTV interface *used* to be much better than Sage back in the 1.4 days, but with the new beta 2.0 interface revision Sage has not only closed the gap, but IMHO it is now actually better than the BTV interface. BTV looks like a PC application to me, SageTV interface looks more like a standalone PVR appliance like TiVo or ReplayTV ... which is ideal if you are setting up a dedicated PVR box connected to the TV.

DivX compression is a really nice feature, but my understanding was that BeyondTV was going to drop that feature in the next release. Anyone know about that ?

Commercial skip is cool. I really think Sage needs to implement something like this, but unfortunately nothing about this has been announced by Frey yet.

The remote access thru web is actually the neatest feature in BeyondTV that Sage is lacking; but this is already planned for SageTV 2.0 (though it may not come with the original 2.0 release)

Finally, the Sage client is something you need only if you want to access the full Sage interface from another PC. Sage records all shows directly into MPEG2 files ... so as long as you can access the network drives, you can play the recorded shows using ANY MPEG2 player, including Windows Media Player or Media Player Classic.

UM I have not installed SageTV yet but according to their web site it does the commercial skip. I though it had a way to remotely tell it to record programs but maybe that was just with the client softoware.

Link

Does anyone know if sage can stream live TV if you have a card that has mpeg2 hardwareencoding like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 or in my case the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR USB2. Beyond TV can not does this. SageTV kind of makes me think it might be able to.


Granamere

 

[zinkpig]

skip thru commercials != commercial skip

what sage mean is you can fast forward through it . beyond actually marks the commercials based on scene changes in to chapters. MythTV is supposed to be the best at this . Edit and burn is supposed to be very easy . but you got brave linux for that .

 

[imported_Grimmy]

I bought the 250 + SageTV bundle from Frey and I like it quite a bit. I have a 1.0Ghz Celeron in my theater in the basement, 40G drive, 1G ram onboard video, SB Audigy Platinum (it had optical outputs so I pulled it out of my gaming pc so I could have true 5.1 playing through the stereo). So far I'm quite pleased with the setup, I only have basic cable hooked to the unit, didn't feel like springing for a second Digital controller plus getting the unit to control a cable box sounds like a pain in the butt. It's a good backup to my Tivo and easy enough to use, I like how it uses the Remote that came with the 250 to control the system, that's nice, and while it's not quite as easy to use as Tivo but it is acceptable.

I've yet to find where the shows I've had it record are listed in the menus though, granted I haven't played with it that much either. What is nice is that the files are basic mpeg files and I can play them anywhere in the house on another pc (I have a pc hooked to my tv upstairs too).