Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Ultimate Directory of SageTV 3rd Party Applications

SageTV, one of the top HTPC programs on the market thrives because of its ability to quickly evolve and improve over time.  Meeting the users (many of which are very demanding enthusiasts) needs has been an important part of SageTV's success over the years.  But a small company like SageTV cant meet everyone's needs all of the time - it just isn't feasible. 

So how do they fill this vacuum of special wants and needs of it's enthusiast community?  The answer to this question points to an important part of what makes SageTV great - the ability to customize, develop themes and applications and a strong user community to develop these add-ons.

The average Home Theater PC (HTPC) enthusiast wants their HTPC software to have as much built-in as possible.  TV and PVR functionality is important to most of course, but there's also the movie player, the music player, the photo viewer and many other functions you want that HTPC to handle for all of your media.  A close second in importance to most HTPC users is the third party applications.  One of the great things about SageTV's HTPC software is that most of them allow the development and usage of excellent 3rd party apps to add to the experience.

SageTV User Interface Choices

Custom User Interface Replacements - SageTV is unique from other HTPC software programs because it has add-on programs that actually customize the entire user interface of SageTV completely.  This allows for an entirely customized User interface well beyond just theming the look, but also adding features and a different way for the interface itself to work.  

Here are the top UI's for SageTV:

  • SageTV Default - this is the user interface you get when you first install SageTV.  Developed by and updated by the guys at SageTV.

SageTV Default UI

  • SageMC - quite possibly the most popular add-on for SageTV ever.  SageMC doesn't really fit into one single category because it does so many things.

SageMC with BlueTwo Steel Theme

Meekell Alternate UI for SageTV

iSage Alternate UI for SageTV

 

 


3rd Party Apps for SageMC UI:

The applications listed below are third-party add-ons that can be used with the SageMC replacement UI:

  • SageMC Video Tools v3.0 - transcode, compress and convert video.  Cut commercials from shows, create DVDs from video and more.
  • Toolbar for SageMC - Make SageMC more mouse-friendly
  • Touchscreen Controls for SageMC - Add touchscreen control to SageMC
  • NetFlix for SageMC  - View, add and remove titles from your Netflix queue.  View movie previews and watch online streaming Netflix titles.
  • Pandora Internet Radio - Navigate and listen to your Pandora online radio stations.
  • Sage Movie Wall – A beautiful replacement movie interface for SageTV
  • Movie Info Screen  - Customize your movie screens with cover art, fanart animations and more.  You can make your movie screen look how you want it to.
  • TV Info Screen - Customize your TV screens with cover art, fanart, animations and more.  You can make your movie screen look how you want it to.
  • Grouped Recording Screen (NEW!) – replaces the SageMC grouped recording screen to show extra detail.
  • iMovies - Give your movie screen the Apple Coverflow look.  Lots of customization capabilities too.
  • Today – A new screen for SageMC that provides access to multiple TV windows on a single page.  Easily switch between news, weather and other TV channels – configurable to your preferences
  • Malore
  • Slim Player for SageMC - Online Radio support for Shoutcast, SiriusRadio, LastFM, Live365, AlienBBC and more.
  • Google Calendar for SageMC - View and manage Google Calendar from SageMC
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements Catalog Viewer - An alternative photo browser that uses Adobe Photoshop Elements as the driver - for viewing and controlling those photos and albums from within SageMC
  • JRMC Media Explorer 2 for SageMC - JRiver Media Center Front-end that puts JRMC to work behind the scenes of SageMC.  An alternative media (music, movies and more) from the SageMC interface.
  • Recipe Viewer for SageMC - View Recipe's from your SageMC HTPC.  Perfect for that Kitchen HTPC.
  • Day Plus/Minus while in Guide - Maps the "skip Back #2" and "Skip Foward #2" remote keys to day plus/minus while in guide
  • Display output resolution on Timebar  - shows the current output display resolution to the timebar
  • Advanced Mini Guide  - alternative to the standard mini-guide
  • Simple Mini Guide- another alternative to the standard mini-guide
  • TMG miniguide - yet alternative to the standard mini-guide.  This one based on the TiVo mini-guide.
  • Video Editing for Sage  - From your SageTV Interface, tweak the output from ComSkip, ShowAnalyzer or VideoReDo AdScan commercial markings and then save those edited commercial marks, clip parts of the video or just strip out all commercials and save the edited video for viewing on SageTV
  • OSDClock Adds a clock to the OSD during playback of media
  • Dead Pixel Test
  • Replacement Graphics (glassy icons etc) for SageMC

Themes for SageMC UI (those below without links are built-in options for SageMC)

 

3rd Party Apps for SageTV Default UI:

The applications listed below are third-party add-ons that can be used with the SageTV default UI:

Themes for SageTV Default UI

  • Other Customizations

    Automatic Commercial Detection and Advance

    SageTV Web Interface

     

    XML Metadata & other Metadata File Tools

     

    Media format conversion

     

    External Status Monitor

    Plugin: Status Monitor Interface by nielm
    Plugin: LCD Smartie status display by AndersNolberger
    Plugin: MizookLCD (Alternate SageTV LCDSmartie Plugin) by cslatt
    Utility: SageMCEDisplay -- LCD status display by Jere_Jones
    Utility: SageTray - SageTV tray application by k10ck3r
    Utility: Vista Sidebar Gadget by cncb

  • Themes for the SageTV HD Theater (HD200) in Media Player Mode

    • Cheetah - This is the standard theme built-in the HD-Theater for Media Player Mode
    • SagePro

     

    For the ever-growing list of SageTV customizations, check out this forum thread constantly updated by Andy (Opus4), the Sage of SageTV

    You can always find the SageTV Download at the SageTV Website

     

    Learn More About SageTV at the GeekTonic Ultimate Guide To SageTV

     

    For those SageTV users reading GeekTonic, let me know if I missed anything.  And anyone else, feel free to ask any questions about the many SageTV add-ons in the comments below.


    • at 3/11/2009 05:00:00 AM
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