SageTV HD300 Review Update – Multi Channel PCM Fix

The GeekTonic review of the SageTV HD300 listed this:

“Inability to handle multi-channel PCM output”

as a “negative” in review so I thought I would update everyone on a firmware update fix pushed out to all HD300’s last night.

The latest SageTV HD300 firmware addresses the multi-channel PCM issue.  Now non-Dolby/DTS, Multi-Channel formats are output as multi-channel PCM as you would expect.  I checked this out with a Blu-ray rip with 7.1 LPCM and the receiver (and my speakers) registered it as 7.1 channels.  I didn’t see this as a huge negative in the first place but great to see another example of the SageTV team pushing out firmware updates to address issues so quickly.

In case you were wondering the actual firmware changelog was as follows:

• Add HDMI multiple channels pcm output for non-bitstream formats (aac, pcm,flac, wmapro...)
• Send WOL packet to server on quick reconnect (Home button)
• Fix a network share connection issue

To the Point – A New HD Extender / Media Player from SageTV

Thought I’d give a little wrap-up of the SageTV news from today.

SageTV announced their next-generation, Extender/Media Player today after not having a CE extender available in their stores since June.  Here’s coverage from GeekTonic and from around the web on the new HD300:

• First Look – SageTV HD300 - GeekTonic
• SageTV HD300 HD Theater Review – GeekTonic
• MissingRemote HD300 Review – Another perspective on the HD300 by Andrew Van Til of MissingRemote with a very detailed look
• SageTV Launches New HD Extender – Front Line Geek talks of the HD300 and how it may push him to move to CE Extenders in place of HTPCs
• MediaSmartServer.net’s SageTV Hd300 Coverage
• SageTV Forums – Always interesting to see the talk in the forums

I see the HD300 as yet another example of the small niche company, SageTV answering their key customers – the enthusiasts needs and wants.  With the coming 3rd party UI Programs such as SageMyMovies, Project Ortus and Project Phoenix, the last few things I see missing from SageTV:

1. CableCard.  This is not an easy thing and may never happen for SageTV at least in the way MediaCenter has CableCard.  It matters to some, but is it feasible for SageTV?  We’'ll see, but it would be difficult in my opinion.
2. Netflix, Amazon or other Online Streaming native.  Yes, we have a great PlayOn plugin in SageTV that satisfies my current needs, but a native Netflix or other major online streaming app is something that would help SageTV get traction – especially in the standalone, media-player market.  Now that we have a DRM-capable HD300 and SageTV apparently has a PlayReady license I put this much higher in the realm of possibilities.  Not a word out of the SageTV folks so far though so we’ll have to wait and see.
3. Mobile Placeshifting App - Placeshifting is something many non-SageTV folks don’t realize SageTV offers.  It’s an awesome service that I use on occasion, but I think mobile placeshifting is where SageTV needs to go.  Offer up a company-built & supported mobile streaming app for iPhone, iPad, Android and other mobile platforms and you round out the already very capable HTPC offerings.

What do you think?  Is there something else you wish SageTV offered?

SageTV HD300 HD Theater GeekTonic Review

Earlier today SageTV announced their newest generation Home Theater PC (HTPC) Extender / Media Player called the HD Theater like its predecessor with a new model number – the STPHD300 or HD300 for short.  I’ve been using this HD300 model for several weeks and below offer up my opinions on how the HD300 compares to previous SageTV extenders as well as the Xbox360 (the only extender available to Microsoft MediaCenter) and other Media Players on the market.

What is the SageTV HD 300?

Before I get into the nitty gritty of the review, lets run through what the SageTV HD300 is and what it can do:
The HD Theater 300 was built to handle three key functions:

• Extender – With the SageTV HTPC software installed on any computer in your home you can use the HD300 to view Live TV, recorded TV, DVD Movies, Blu-ray movies (with AnyDVD installed), videos, music, photos and online content from any TV connected to your HD300.  You can do nearly anything using the HD300 that you could do with a full-blown HTPC with less complication, no noise, little heat, and little power consumption.
• Media Player – The HD300 and the HD200 before it includes a media player/standalone mode.  This allows you to stream your media from a PC, external hard drive or NAS to a TV.  It doesn’t include the DVR/TV Time-shifting functionality. but it does nearly everything else.  This functionality is similar to what you get with a PopCornHour, WDTV and other media players on the market.
• Placeshifter – Another use for the HD300 is as a placeshifter.  If you’re away from home, take along the HD300 and connect it to a TV and the internet and you can stream media from your home HTPC.  This is done by transcoding the content from the server based on the connection speed between the server and placeshifter, but it’s pretty nifty when you have a good connection.  And the smaller size of the HD300 makes this a much more viable option

The SageTV Extenders including the HD200 and now the HD300 extends your Home Theater PC (HTPC) to your TV using a consumer electronics device that is crazy-simple to set up and easy to use.  Support for DVDs (ripped or streamed) with menus, Blu-ray Disks (BDMV ripped or streamed), as well as the more difficult formats such as MKV, FLAC, files with subtitles etc just work.  All at a lower price than required with a full-blown HTPC computer.

The HD300 replaces the no-longer-available HD200 model that has been out of stock since June 1st.

About SageTV

SageTV is a HTPC software that brings together television, video, music, photos and online content into a complete, easy-to-use home media experience controlled from an existing PC or home server. SageTV Media Center, the company’s flagship product, can be deployed on either Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7, WHS), Mac or Linux and supports multiple tuners, networking and intelligent recording and includes support for a software extender, a hardware-based SD extender and now HD extenders. SageTV also has the ability to access the SageTV experience when you're away from home with SageTV Placeshifter.  SageTV, like Windows Media Center allows you to watch HD and SD premium cable or satellite (requires a Hauppauge HD-PVR) in pretty much any room in the house that has an Ethernet or wireless network connection.  The SageTV HD300s, HD200s and the HD100s before it are branded and sold by SageTV itself.  Frequent firmware updates, which provide additional features and bug fixes are created by the SageTV developers themselves.

Review Setup

I connected the main review-HD300 to the following equipment for this review:

• Panasonic 58-inch TC-P58VT25 1080p VIERA Plasma HDTV - I love this TV and need to write up a few articles about it.  PQ is awesome
• Pioneer VSX-820 Audio/Video Receiver – A great AV Receiver that has the HD Audio (DTS-HD®, Dolby® TrueHD, and Dolby Pro Logic IIz) options I needed to test the new audio features of the HD300
• SageTV 7 installed on PC running Windows 7 on the server in the office
• The HD300 used in this review was running beta firmware – actually I transitioned through many firmware updates over the review time as SageTV does a very frequent beta release cycle to continually evolve and improve the software inside the CE device – a good thing for the end user.  Just know some issues I may have run into may be or may have been addressed with a firmware update.  Even SageTV 7 – the HTPC software running things behind the scenes is still in beta so the final software and firmware may vary from what was used in this review.

Note that I also ran a second HD300 for a shorter amount of time on a 46” Sharp LCD TV coupled with an older model Onkyo that didn’t have the HD Audio.  This helped ensure the down-mixing of HD Audio from Blu-rays worked as advertised.
What's Included with the SageTV HD Theater? 

• SageTV HD Theater model STP-HD300
• Power adapter & cord
• HDMI Cable
• Breakout cable for composite, component & analog L/R Audio
• Ethernet network cable
• IR remote control
• 2 AAA batteries for remote
• Setup Guide

The HD Theater is shipped in a small, white box with details about the contents and the SageTV logo on the side.

More after the jump.....

Read more »

Roku Drops Prices $69 for HD and $99 for HD-XR

Roku is responding to competition from Sony and possibly others (rumors of Apple TV and Netflix Streaming are leaking out tonight) with a decent price drop on their popular streamer boxes:

The Roku SD Player is now $59 (was $79)

The Roku HD Player is now $69 (was $99)

and the Roku HD-XR Player is now $99 (was $129)

Add to this the fact that the Roku HD-XR is due to receive 1080p streaming support later this year and you have an interesting story.  I expect the competition to get really tough for those focusing on Netflix streaming as this will become a very common thing in hardware that does much more – especially if it does turn out to be a feature in the rumored AppleTV upgrades.

SiliconDust HDHomeRun Software Update Available

The ever popular SiliconDust HDHomeRun dual network tuner received a software & firmware update to Gold this week with Release 20100828.  The update includes several improvements all around including those for SageTV, GBPVR, MediaPortal and even XBMC!

This tuner is one of my all-time favorites – especially useful if you have any QAM channels in the clear.  Read my original and somewhat dated review on the HDHomeRun for more.

The complete Changelog from SiliconDust:

20100828:

• Windows: HDHomeRun Setup / drivers:
  • Automatically generate channel Playlist for Windows Media Player.
  • Add support for remapping DVB-C channels to DVB-T for use with Windows Media Center.
  • Add support for user-specified symbol rates for DVBC.
  • Add support for application For The Record.
  • Generate XBMC files if XBMC is selected as the application, even if XBMC is not detected.
  • Make “Remove channels not found in scan” option persistent.
  • Fix SageTV SCN file generation for clean v7 installs.
  • Fix problem where tuner driver was not de-registered when tuner disabled and removed.
  • Update postcode validation rules.
  • Updated beta release of the WMC Sync utility.
  • Update to firmware 20100828.
• Windows: HDHomeRun QuickTV / Windows Media Player:
  • Add support for MPEG1 video in QuickTV/Windows Media Player.
  • Disable codec-missing messages incorrectly triggered when rapidly changing channels.
• Windows: HDHomeRun Config GUI:
  • Add support for TECH SNR numbers with higher precision than 1dB.
  • Improvements to channel selection.
  • Detect channelmap list from device.
  • Fix problem where HDHomeRun Config GUI could cause a tuner to lose program selection if the channel was tuned by a different application while HDHomeRun Config GUI was running.
  • Fix application crash if HDHR was unplugged while user has program list showing for selection.
• Mac:
  • Update to firmware 20100828.
• libhdhomerun:
  • Fix missing fclose in the hdhomerun_config upgrade code.
  • Fix random lockkey generation.
  • Fix const warnings.

Download is available at SiliconDust

The Next Generation SageTV Extender Arrives – Hello HD300

Over the past several years SageTV has been able to differentiate itself from the Home Theater PC (HTPC) crowd with their dedicated hardware.  Their last extender – the SageTV HD Theater HD200 model was a definite success and considered top of the class when it comes to HTPC extenders.  Anyone who has wanted a new extender for SageTV recently has been out of luck since it’s been out of stock at the SageTV store since June 1st causing much speculation on the forums.  We now learn the reason for the lack of extenders this summer – the next-generation, SageTV HD300 is here.

I’ve been using this new Extender/Media Player for weeks now and will have the full, GeekTonic review of the new HD300 later this afternoon (UPDATE:  The complete HD300 Review is here), but I wanted to run through the important highlights of this next-generation SageTV HD Theater:

Small & Light Footprint

5 1/16" W x 1 1/2" H x 4" D

The HD300 has a small footprint.  Even smaller than the last version HD200.  Here’s a photo of the HD300 next to a deck of cards to give you a feel for how small.

 

Faster CPU & More Memory

Compared to the HD200 it has a 1.5x faster processor, 2x more memory bandwidth, and 2x the total RAM memory.  I’ll go into more detail on the chipset & capabilities in the review.

HD Audio & DTS Decode/downmix

HDMI 1.3 output w/ support for Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD/MA passthrough.  An important feature that many SageTV enthusiasts have been clamoring for.

DTS decode/downmix to 2 channel – Those Blu-ray discs will play on all TVs and receivers even if you don’t have HD-Audio.

External IR Receiver Support

An external IR receiver is sold separately.  I have one with my test HD300 and it not only allows you to hide the HD300 in a cabinet or mount behind your flat-screen TV – it also gives you excellent IR range.

Less Annoying LED Light

One of the things that annoyed many HD200 users was the ever-blinking and too-bright LED light on the front.  The LED on the front of the HD300 is much more subdued (not as bright) and doesn’t blink constantly.  We’ll put this under minor, but welcome improvements.

Cheaper Price

I’m not sure if anyone saw this one coming.  The HD200 sold for $200 and more recently $180 after discount.  The new HD300 beats both of those prices with a $149.95 retail price!

Semi-Programmable Remote

We still get the same mostly-boring & geeky remote control that came with the HD100 & HD200 with a couple of changes.  They’ve added 3 IR-Learning buttons for TV Volume Up/Down and TV Power.  Note: The Online, Search, Prev CH and DVD Return buttons are removed from the old remotes to make room for these buttons.

More Internal Memory

The number of import files allowed when using in standalone mode (for media-player use without HTPC server) is increased to around 100,000 (HD200 was around 15,000).  This should take care of the biggest problem we saw using the HD200 as a standalone media player.

Other Info:

• 10/100 Ethernet (still no gigabit Ethernet)
• 2 USB Ports
• S/PDIF output
• Breakout cable with Composite, analog audio and component video connections included
• Power supply plug is designed to fit into most power strips w/out blocking other outlets

 

Without question the top 3 Important Changes the SageTV HD300 brings to the table are:

1. Tiny size.  It’s small – very small
2. Price – Cheaper is something I didn’t see coming.  I expected it to cost about the same as the HD200.  But I’m not complaining.  Hopefully, we’ll see these drop to $125 or even less with discounts down the road as we did with the HD200.  But $150 is a pretty good price in my opinion – especially for the featureset compared to other non-HTPC extenders even.
3. Audio Improvements – the HD Audio and ability to downmix HD Audio to your old TV & audio components is a great improvement. 

To read the complete, GeekTonic Review of the SageTV HD300 HD Theater click here

Preorder your SageTV HD300 at the SageTV Store – expected ship date is September 10th

Plex Nine Released along with iPhone and iPad Apps

Plex, the popular Mac-fork of the XBMC project released their long-awaited version nine today.

If you have a Mac and a desire to make that Mac be a Media Center, you’ll want to check out Plex.  Plex is a very nice Mac-based HTPC software program that continues to have a healthy amount of software updates as well as plugins and themes as well.

Plex nine brings a completely revamped media server that makes things easier to use and setup.  Many, many additional features have been added as well so head over to PlexApp to get the download and run through the complete changelog.

Another important, new capability of Plex is it’s new iOS apps.  There is now an iPhone and iPad app available that lets you use your iDevice as a remote AND even stream your media over your wireless network to your devices. This is

Crunchgear has a nice first-look video that includes a hands-on with Plex Nine as well as the Plex App for iPhone & iPad:

 

via Crunchgear and the Plex Blog