It costs $79.95 for a SageTV license which includes unlimited guide data piped directly to the client looking forward 2 weeks for North America and some different provisions for the rest of the world. That's it. There's no OS to buy if you run Linux, just like with Myth. $20 for a software-only placeshifter license which you'd run on another "client" computer (from anywhere on the net like SlingBox).

I think compared to Myth's price of "free" it's a wash because of the much lower price of an extender (which doesn't require a Placeshifter or any other license).

Plus Windows Vista -- the Linux version of SageTV is unsupported by the makers, and is a poor second cousin of the Windows version.

So it's also for "tinkerers only", except that tinkering is much more restricted than with some alternatives.

Cheers

In good fairness (being a Canuck), I haven't attempted to use SageTV since it failed to support the HDHomeRun on Windows when I last tried it, two years ago (EDIT, yes, on Windows -- the Linux version isn't available for h/w vetting without upfront payment).

It also seemed to be missing any kind of power management interface (auto suspend/shutdown between recordings) for Linux, and nobody at SageTV or in the forums was willing to suggest otherwise. Total lack of knowledge and support.

That's what pushed me over to Myth. The current Mythbuntu distro was as simple to install as SageTV was back then, though that's another temporally unfair comparison.

Cheers

Mmmm.. found this tidbit regarding SageTV:

So for Roger (top post of this thread), SageTV may be too expensive, as it most likely requires a monthly subscription for guide data. The schedulesdirect.org service cannot be used with SageTV.

Heh.. somebody already has: the SageTV folks!

That cute little $200 HD Extender box they sell already has Linux under the hood. So it's just a matter of time before mythfrontend is ported to it. That'll be fun stuff when it happens!

But for now, no.

Cheers

Mmm.. apparently the original (non-HDMI) Sage Media Extender is actually a Hauppauge MediaMVP box ($150). Those now work as MythTV frontends (or, "extenders" if you prefer). Cool.

The video quality via component video-out is plenty good enough for 720p displays. For 1080p, though, a digital-out version would be preferable.

Within a year, I'd bet. But not there yet.

I don't remember anybody mentioning it, but if you want Blu-Ray and are expecting to get a PS3, just use that for the player. I was impressed with how well it does as a Blu-Ray player. We now use that as our only media DVD/Blu-Ray player in the TV room (I guess it helps that the stand alone DVD player broke about a week after I got the PS3).

That site also has this article comparing Sage to Myth from a 'long time' MythTV user. For people in UK (and possibly Europe) much of the cost discussions are not applicable as the EPG data available for free over the air or via grabbers/scrapers.

Like Mark says, if they get the Sage extenders (or something similar) working as super simple mini frontends then that would be even better. While a MythTV frontend for Windows would be nice, but for me it's hardly a deal-breaker given you can still stream recordings over Mythweb using the win32 player of your choice.

I only disagree slightly here. I'd call it a push between Plasmas and LCDs. My plasma sits in a family room with a large window opposite, to the right, and a sliding glass door to the left. It looks good, even without putting it in torch mode. YMMV.

Edit: Relevant admission, window opposite faces east, right side faces north, southern glass door is shaded by patio roof. Sunlight just doesn't enter directly into the room, except before noon.


In the don't forget column - 6ft HDMI Cables are rarely less than $40.

Also be aware that panels with multiple HDMI inputs, most always put one in a location unusable for dedicated use. Behind a front panel or on an outside edge.

Though if you're not buying them from RatShack or BigBox rip-off stores they can be under $5 to $10: Monoprice or Tartan Cables

At Monoprice you'll also find some HDMI switches at reasonable prices.

I beg to differ.

I did buy a $12 cable. It was quite stiff compared to the others. It was also, the only one I had to fuss with. That is to say, it didn't work until I had unplugged and reset it a couple of times.

To be sure the big box places like best buy, circuit city... They tend to want at least $70 per cable. BB did have some store brand cables, on an out of the way shelf, still they were $50.

I've never had any problems with inexpensive cables. Where did you get the $12 one from?

Best Buy recently had a sale where if you bought some expensive HDMI cable, they threw in a DVD player for free.

Pretty sad state of the big box stores when the cables have outpriced the electronics they plug into.

Costco, it was part of a kit, 2x 12ft hdmi cables, cleaning fluid, microfiber cloth, etc... Don't remember the exact price for the kit but I remember the cable kit price being less than 1/2 what the BB store brand 6ft cable was.

It could be that the very stiffness of the wire was tweaking the connector's placement.

Truly I should have qualified.

Are any of these inexpensive cables showing up in a brick and mortar store.

No. Why do you care?

It's not as if Roger has access to a Radio Shack anyway; he's in England.

The Best Buy prices are a total scam, and if you aren't buying your HDMI cables for less than $10 you've been fleeced. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the cheap cables.

I have to agree here, what exactly do you get for the extra money? I thought the whole point of a digital connection was the cable didn't matter.

I was talking to someone the other day who thought that spending £80 on a 1m HDMI cable actually made his picture sharper. I always but the cheapest possible cables I can find on eBay. I have a 10m HDMI cable that cost me no more than £10 inc postage and it works just fine, never seen a dropped frame etc...

Maybe all this cable talk isn't very helpful to Roger, well apart from maybe to give him a little extra to spend in more useful areas

Cheers

Cris.

And I already have a suitable HDMI cable. I bought it (and a DVI adapter) before I discovered that my TV (Samsung LE32BD41) doesn't accept DVI input. I went back to VGA over D-SUB.

Can you refresh our memories on that one?

I use an HDMI cable to feed from the DVI-D port of the MythTV box (with a DVI-D to HDMI adapter dongle) into an HDMI port of our HDTV (Viewsonic).

Mind you, the picture is indistinguishable from the same setup using VGA, but I just feel better about a digital connection there for some reason.

With the new NVidia (ASUS) 8400GS video card, this digital connection stopped working nicely --> the screen showed magenta tones instead of black/gray tones. Peculiar that.

Turns out the BIOS on the new video card seems to think it's using a dual-link DVI-D connection for some reason, even though (1) the card is supposedly incapable of it, and (2) the HDMI input on the HDTV is also incapable of it.

To "fix" this, I collected the EDID info from the VGA port of the TV, and then fed that back to the NVidia graphics driver for the DVI-D port. Problem solved.

Cheers

Whoa! The cable can matter a great deal. I was the first to comment that good HDMI cables could be had for between 4 and $10, but I would never dismiss the importance of a good cable.

The big issue is that a lot of cables selling for crazy money aren't necessarily good or even better cables.

But there's definitely the possibility for issues running bad/poor cables on both analog and digital connections.

For instance, try running a 100mbit network on Cat3 cable. Or a gigabit network on cat3 or plain cat5 (not "e").

I'm no electrical engineer, but signal loss, noise and capacity to operate signals at higher frequencies are very real factors that are easy to observe with simple empirical testing.

Even the quality of an optical (fibre) cable is important. A poor cable (including damaged or just badly manufactured) can impede the signal (in this case beam of light).

That said, I have no trouble believing that a cable packed in with a $10 "kit" including all manner of other goodies like cleaners, might very well be bad or poor. However, the cables I listed from Monoprice and Tartan all have really good reviews and are at least the quality of cables costing 10 times the price. Or 100 times depending on where you're looking.

I did this with my old Shuttle box with an old ATI Radeon card -- I don't remember the model number. It used to be an 8900, but I had to replace it with something else.

I seem to recall that I couldn't get a decent resolution, or decent quality out of it. The VGA connection was better. Reading the manual for the TV implied that it didn't accept DVI-D inputs, even with the dongle, over the HDMI input.

I understand this as meaning your TV has an HDMI port to which you connected the DVI output from the PC using an adapter.

PC (VESA) timings are different than consumer HDTV timings and not all TV sets will accept them.

It's possible the card was outputting the standard PC timings and not what the TV needs/wants. You'd think the video card could get all the necessary timing details from the TV (from EDID), but that won't always work anyway (TV could have wrong or incomplete EDID for starters).

The solution here would be to use a program like PowerStrip to create the custom resolutions/timings you need for your TV and then use those for output. So long as the card can produce those, you should be good to go.

I have read that DVI design was pretty crap as far as cable length went - not designed by a broadcast engineer
HDMI is better (dunno why) - but most HTPC systems use DVI->HDMI and 10m is pushing the length.

Having said that my 10m DVI->HDMI cable is fine.

ah yes, here it is:
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/whats-the-matter-with-hdmi.htm

I'm always a little surprised SDI and HD-SDI never caught on outside the broadcast market, 300 metres (HD is only 100 meters) on a single BNC.

Whoa! Who is suggesting that anyone runs something down a cable that is clearly not made for that purpose. Cat3 and Cat5e are a different cable spec so hardly what I am talking about.

I am talking about people still forking out £50+ for cables that have no chance of actually improving the quality of the picture or sound, maybe at a push they would help prevent a loss but no more than that.

What would be your definition of a good cable then, if cost wasn't the issue?

Cheers

Cris.

To someone who doesn't know anything about network cabling, cat3, cat5, cat5e and cat6 all look the same. 4 twisted pairs terminated with RJ45 connectors. The materials used in construction are different enough however to allow the correct cables to perform at higher specifications.

It was just an example. A cable for any purpose made with inferior materials may or may not be suitable for the intended purpose. I have a number of SVIDEO cables here that would be visually similar to most people yet I can clearly tell the difference between them when used. Most of the sets were actually the same price - just different quality materials. Then I have another one which is only slightly better than the others but cost 3 times as much.

I wouldn't pay $100 for a 5 foot HDMI cable. But I'd make sure that whatever cable I was getting was of good quality, regardless of price. Quality construction and quality materials. Good copper, solid soldering, good jacket and of course quality and durable terminators/connectors.

With an internet purchase it comes down to the reviews of other people to have a clue about this stuff ahead of time. In person even when something looks good, you will still have to test it for the final word - but it's much easier to return.

I hate the snake-oil approach to interconnect and accessory sales, but it's important to keep in mind that the quality of cabling does play an important role. Once you've achieved that minimum spec however, the voodoo attached to esoteric items isn't really going to do anything for you except drain your pocket book.