Great review.  I've only used the product for a few days now (still on the free trial) but I must say that I'm impressed as well.

I'm with you on the desire for web-based scheduling though.  That would be the one feature I'd like to see added.

Question though.  What does the "deinterlacing" stuff do?  Do I want to turn that on or should I not care?

That was my last post. Don't know how I got logged out

Robes

Rampy,
     Spoken like a true Jedi Master. I feel enlightened. Lol. Seriously, thanks for all the help. I'm gonna stick w/ Myth, its just disheartening after at least 35 hours trying to get this beast to work perfectly and always coming up a buck short. I might throw the Sage trial on my second HD (seeing as how I'm pretty sure you can't get 2 HD's to mount to the same directory even with LVM) and test it out.

Robes

FWIW, a poke around the sageTV forums indicates that not everyone using the PVR350 with sageTV had the success I did ( there are some finicky chipsets that don't play nice with the ui through 350 tv out feature... from what I understand )

I understand the posters fustration when something doesn't work like it's supposed, or how we want, especially after seeing how well it worked for me.

I'm sure if you can get in touch with FreyTech they'll more than likely do what's needed to rectify the situation (either help you through the issue or work somthing out etc or however they handle situations like this --- i can't speak for them, but in my dealings and in what i've seen in their forum/community they've been totally on the level)  So, before reversing the charges through your credit card company, try talking to them  (usually the credit card reversal is a last resort with a truly unresponsive or unwilling vendor)  

The hard part is narrowing down the issue... (unfortunately the downside to pc based pvr's is the complexity when troubleshooting)  what OS, what JRE, what chipset mobo are you using?  Does SageTv work in pvr350 UI out mode with a terrestial antenna signal...  are you using an IR blaster or a serial cable, which directTV box?  There's a lot of variables, have you posted about your woes in the SageTV forums (just curious -- you'll get a larger audience of sage users with a similiar config as you there)?

I feel bad that based upon my finding sagetv easy to use and great as sliced bread review you purchased it and did NOT get the same immediate  satisfaction I did.

I always say use whatever works for you, try everything and see what you like (and what's compatible with your system).  

I wish you left some sort of email or handle or something, anon...  feel free to drop me a line so I can see If i can be of any assistance (my email is in the nav bar of the site up top or in the reviews).

rampy

fwiw, here's their refund policy

here's the thread with the changelog for the _20 revision (i reviewed/run the _19 revision)


SageTV thread of interest re: pvr350 (info and some people hit or miss/things to try -- ie SHS beta drivers/etc... )

[Edited on 7/14/04 by rampy]

Oops.  Either Rampy updated his message, or I previously missed the end of it.  Now my last message is redundant.  I'd delete if I could.  Sorry, I was only trying to help.

Thanks for the help, I will try what is suggest and hope that fixes my problems. The only problem I have is paying $79.99 for software that doesn't work without tweaking or installing special drivers. I even got a email from George from Frey Technologies and he NEVER mentions special drivers or anything like that to fix my problem. In fact what George suggested didn't help my problem. I would expect these types of problem if the software was FREE, but its not. They charged me money for it and unless his second email performs some type of magical fix, I'm getting my money back.

Also my problem is that both TV Out through my PVR 350 and Video card are freezing up, not just through the PVR 350. In my case I don't have working software at all.

Just wanted to put in my two cents about Sage 2.0. I've had the product (and PVR-350) for about three weeks. I have to say that while the interface is pretty and professional, the performance and features have been disappointing. I have had mulitple instances of the app freezing up, but not so often that I can say there is a problem with my configuration. My biggest problem is with the programmed behavior in some cases. When watching live tv, the picture will freeze at the point that one program ends and another begins. I have to hit fast forward in order to continue. If I cancel a recording with only a couple of minutes left, Sage will delete the program rather than keep what was recorded up until that point. If I have a show as a favorite, it is impossible to NOT record any particular episode. I went into the recording options of one episode and said 'cancel recording', and it still recorded it, even when the interface indicated it would not. Problems like this just make me more impressed with Tivo, and how they were able to create software that works so intuitively and reliably so many years ago. BTW, I will be writing to Frey with these problems, I just wanted to let you all know first.