Google Fiber TV–Is It’s HTPC DNA SageTV?

Google had their official unveiling of Google Fiber last week in Kansas City and I was watching very closely.  I expected this to be an interesting announcement with it’s fiber-to-the-home bringing gigabit internet (up and down) along with a rumored TV service.  I’m thrilled about both of these services, but especially curious about the TV-side of the announcement.  Now that I’ve delved a little more into this I think the Google Fiber TV just might be bigger than some people realize.

Not only am I very interested in a “better” TV/DVR than what you can currently get from the cable companies – I also live in the downtown Kansas City area where I felt my odds were good for getting Google Fiber.  So yes, I’m likely more interested in this than those outside of the Kansas City area.  But I’m even more excited about this because I suspect there is quite a bit of SageTV Home Theater PC inside of Google Fiber TV. SageTV is a Home Theater PC or Home Media company that Google purchased just over a year ago and it seems that this is what the SageTV team has been working on since being acquired.

I stopped by the Google Fiber Place where they have a large “showroom” to demo some of the ways you can use Google Fiber in the real world.  As you can imagine I spent a lot of time in the Fiber TV section where they had the actual Fiber TV hardware running and where I could see the EPG (TV Guide), menus and settings page.  We switched channels, displayed a guide that looked awfully familiar to this SageTV user and went through some of the menus.  When we were on the settings page I think I caught a glimpse of the words “SageTV” on the page.  The TV show page had similar info and details pages available just like I see on SageTV.  It certainly wasn’t exactly like the last version of SageTV, but it was pretty similar.  Add to this experience you can check this Google + thread where a little confirmation of SageTV involvement was mentioned:

I had a chance to try out the Fiber TV app on the Nexus 7 tablet and that has similar functionality to the 3rd party SageTV web app I’m used to using but in a much improved UI

One last thing to note before I close today – Fiber TV is a Media device with a server/client architecture, just like SageTV is.  It includes music and movies and Google is integrating Netflix and their own Google-brand of instant movies.  The ability to stream your movies and music and ge the super-powered DVR with tuners that work on all content (Read: not blocked for certain channels or requiring CableCard setup) makes this HTPC enthusiast very, very happy.  I don’t know how much SageTV is inside Fiber TV, but I’m pretty confident it has quite a bit inside.

Lots of questions from the HTPC crowd to talk about here such as: what about plugins, DRM on movies, commercial skip etc.  I’ll have more to say about Google Fiber TV soon.  Stay tuned.

TV Networks Sue Dish Over Commercial Skip

Dish Network launched a very limited version of commercial skipping for their satellite TV customers and now most of the big TV networks have sued Dish over it.

In the meantime, I continue to enjoy REAL commercial skipping with my aging SageTV setup.  I enjoy living in that no commercials world as long as I can.  I’m not surprised at all by the TV Networks lawsuit against Dish.  My bet is that Dish expects to quickly pull the feature after agreement from the networks that they will withdraw the lawsuit and in the end come out the tragic do-gooder brought down by the “big guys.”  All along Dish is getting valuable PR.

via ZatzNotFunny

Google TV Hints at Monday Announcements

A bit short on details but the GoogleTV Facebook page is hinting at some “big announcements” for GoogleTV coming Monday.

Whole Home Music Streaming Device?

Some are speculating that it will be a Sonos competitor based on a WSJ article

“Google Inc. is developing a home-entertainment system that streams music wirelessly throughout the home and would be marketed under the company's own brand, according to people briefed on the company's plans.”

I suppose that is possible given Google’s continued attempt to bring Google Music to peoples attention, but I suspect the announcement will be one of two things:

Guess #1:

New content providers – the new Verizon/Redbox streaming solution discussed this past month could be one of the new providers and there is certainly room for others.  This would be a “nice-to-have” announcement, but wouldn’t be “big” in my eyes.

Guess #2:

New GoogleTV Devices – this is more of a long-shot, but this is the one I hope we will hear about.  I know that Google has a team working on some significant upgrades to GoogleTV that could bring it closer to the Media/HTPC world (more on this soon), but I didn’t expect anything until later in 2012.  It’s possible they want to give the world a sneak peak at what they are working on to beat Apple to the punch.

Guess #3:

Some sort of software update?  Google has said there will be several updates coming this year – in particular Ice Cream Sandwich (Android) will come to GoogleTV.  This could be that announcement.

On a sidenote, I find it curious that this tease from GoogleTV was posted only on Facebook and not on Google+.  The Google+ GoogleTV page has nothing about it at least thus far.

 

via GoogleTV Facebook Page

GoogleTV Will Be In Majority of TVs By Summer 2012?

Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt is a pretty positive guy.  Okay he’s possibly an unreasonably optimistic guy when it comes to GoogleTV.  Here’s what he said at LeWeb 2011 about GoogleTV:

“By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in it,”

Don’t believe it?  Here’s Schmidt saying those words at the LeWeb Conference this week

(Video begins at 38 minutes in – thanks to Richard Lawler for finding the clip)

He went on to say “Android will be bigger than iOS” and many other interesting predictions favorable to his company.  What do you think?

via Paidcontent

Boxee Adds Limited LiveTV Support

Boxee has continued to be one of the better HTPC solutions for those not needing a TV tuner as part of their system.  Today Boxee added support for one TV tuner to provide LiveTV support for a single channel if you’d like to add some over-the-air (antenna) or unencrypted QAM cable content to the equation.  Don’t get too excited though as there is no DVR support which makes it very limited to most of us.

The tuner is a Boxee branded USB tuner – I’m guessing it’s a Hauppauge tuner built for Boxee.  The support is limited to only this one tuner and without the ability to record those shows it’s very, very limited in real-world usage.  Better than nothing? Yes.  But add the fact you can’t tune encrypted cable channels which means no satellite support and very few channels for most cable systems – none for some.

Read more at Boxee

Logitech Quitting GoogleTV

It’s been widely accepted that GoogleTV’s launch was premature and much less than successful.  So this latest bit of news won’t surprise many of you – Logitech’s CEO Guerrino De Luca announced his company is dropping GoogleTV for the time being.  Here’s an excerpt from his talk at the Logitech “Analyst and Investor Day”

He begins talking about GoogleTV with the admission that Logitech had extremely high expectations in terms of sales:

“…I would definitely want to have Google establish Google TV, but with a significantly smaller and more prudent approach. It’s always the case people will tend to overestimate the short-term and underestimate the long-term.

More on Logitech’s (and Google’s) over-reaching expectation that Television and the internet integration would be accepted (and work) overnight at launch:

Google TV or a child of Google TV or the grandchild of Google TV will happen. The integration of television in Internet is inevitable. But the idea that it would happen overnight in Christmas 2010 was very misguided and that also caused us dearly. As you know, we dramatically reduced the price of the box to what we thought the consumers valued it and actually doing fine.

Here he goes on to discuss how Logitech misinterpreted consumer behavior.  And how that misinterpretation caused Logitech to make a $100 Million mistake in operating profits on the GoogleTV/Revue:

Our third mistake is actually of a different nature and it’s probably more significant. We had paid much less attention to our product portfolio than we should have. Over the course of the last two or three years we just, we thought that quantity could replace quality and we just did not fully understand what the consumer behavior is at the point of sale, and how to create exciting proposition that made somebody take it and roll up and give us demand. So also because we weren’t focusing on certain things particularly in the living room and Google TV there was an underlying opportunity out there and which we did not focus in other things were happening and we are closer and more real and more existing to when I’ve always been a fan of going to something that already exists, I suppose to completely getting out into the stratosphere of what might happen.”

If you’re wanting to pick up a Logitech Revue watch for even more price drops as Logitech is working to sell the remainder of their inventory by March 2012 (end of their fiscal year 2012) if not sooner:

“We brought contracts to match their preview they mentioned about substantial price drop. The products are selling we believe that we will be out of their inventory by the end of fiscal ’12 and that’s kind of a cautious statement, we may be out of inventory even somewhat sooner than that date. We have no plan to build another box.”

I understand Microsoft and Google not wanting to make the hardware for HTPC/ConnectedTV devices.  The problem is it’s a huge risk for a consumer electronics company to be that hardware maker for an unproven, alpha/beta product.  Google needs only to look at Microsoft’s extender debacle to see what direction they ended up with.  Microsoft’s only extender device is their very own XBox 360.  The first key to making this connectedTV platform succeed and be widely adopted is to produce your own hardware where you control the firmware updates and the hardware.  Make it work extremely well for the consumer and then your platform it’s built on will succeed.  Google can look to their newly purchased SageTV to see the success of this model on a much smaller scale.

via theVerge and SeekingAlpha

Boxee Adding LiveTV–A DVR Short of Useful

The big HTPC news this week was that Boxee is adding support for an OTA & cable unencrypted USB TV Tuner.  My first reaction was positive as there really aren’t many DVR options remaining for DVR/HTPC fans these days now that BeyondTV and SageTV are out of the game for new entrants.  But then I realized this was only for liveTV and no DVR support.

Sorry but true DVR functionality is a necessity for my HTPC.  And factor in that you can only use this for over-the-air and unencrypted cable TV.  I want fully-functional DVR and the ability to tune those encrypted cable channels.  Otherwise it’s not enough for 99.9% of my TV use.  Yes this is welcome news because it’s better than no DVR support, but not enough in my opinion.  I’m still hoping for something good coming from GoogleTV and AppleTV.  Otherwise HTPC as we know it will die as Microsoft lets their MediaCenter product whither on the vine.

Read more about the coming Boxee 1.5 Update with LiveTV support at GigaOM

Microsoft: Media Center Will be Part of Windows 8

Microsoft addressed the growing doubt about the survival of Media Center in their Windows Operating System today with a blog article.  In the article Microsoft confirmed that Media Center would in fact be part of Windows 8 – with some caveats.

Media Center Lives On

Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky says in the article:

“I want to reassure customers that Media Center will definitely be part of Windows 8.”

No Media Center in Pre-Release Builds

He goes on to say that while they do plan to include Media Center in the new version of their flagship operating system, interestingly it will not be in the early pre-release builds:

“Media Center will not be part of the first pre-release builds. …. These are engineering decisions as well as business decisions.”

Probably No Changes to Media Center in Windows 8

He left the door open for how Media Center might be packaged with the Operating System – so it could be handled as it was in Windows 7 or it could be separated in some way.  I read no mention of any improvements or additions to the Media Center look, feel, or functionality and the fact they will not include it in the early releases leads me to believe it will remain largely unchanged from the version we now have with Windows 7.

HTPC’s Still tiny Niche Market

Another interesting tidbit in the article was about actual usage of Media Center.  here’s a quote that confirms what we already know – Media Center as all HTPC products still serve a small, niche market:

Our opt-in usage telemetry shows that in July, Windows Media Center was launched by 6% of Windows 7 users globally with the heaviest usage in Russia, Mexico, and Brazil (frequency and time). However, most people are just looking around; only one quarter (25% of 6%) of these people used it for more than 10 minutes per session (individual averages), and in 59% of Media Center sessions (by these 6% of users) we see almost no activity (less than a minute or two of usage).

Continuing to tell us a little more about usage, he goes on to say that of the functions used in Media Center, TV was used most often followed by streaming content and finally DVD and CD.  These numbers pale in comparison to Media Player which was used by 66% of Windows users in July.  If I was consulting for Microsoft, I would advise them to break out Media Center from the OS as a low-cost add-on for the operating system.  Market it as a “premium” product that is valued something beyond MS Paint.   Microsoft had been alluding to the possibility that Media Center would be dropped based on “The Future of the Living Room” focused on XBox and Bing.  So this confirmation of Media Centers survival will bring a sigh of relief to many.

So I see this as some bad news – no notable, new improvements to Media Center, but good news – Media Center survives.  And in this day and age of dwindling HTPC’s in the world, survival probably sounds pretty good to those HTPC enthusiasts in the world.

Read the complete article, Building Windows 8 at MSDN Blogs

Microsoft – The Future of the Living Room is NOT Windows

Signs of Media Center not being a windows product continue to appear and today’s article by Microsoft “The Future of the Living Room” pretty much says what everyone has been assuming – the connected living room will have nothing to do with Windows.

The article doesn’t say there will be no MediaCenter, but they might as well.  The focus for the future of TV, entertainment and the living room in Microsoft’s eyes are Xbox, Kinect and Bing!  You read that right, Bing.  Here’s a quote from the article:

As you can see, integration of products and services like Xbox, Kinect and Bing is at the heart of our strategy.

What do you think?  Is Microsoft abandoning Media Center for Windows and instead focusing on embedding some of those features in Xbox only?  Definitely a must-read for MediaCenter fans – The Future of the Living Room

Stuff I Want - Wristband Remote Control Concept

There aren’t many remote controls that I put in the cool category, but today I discovered a concept design (read: not available to purchase) that I find beautiful and something that just might appeal to the masses.  It’s the Baand Remote by Kristian Ulrich Larsen!

It’s a wearable, touch-screen device that shows the “menu” on the remote itself.  As described by the designer:

“The remote is basically one big scrollwheel, so the way you navigate around is by scrolling. This gives a much more quick, fluid and direct feeling, so instead of going arrow up, arrow down, one step at the time, you glide through the interface in a fluid motion.”

Watch the concept video to get a better picture of how it might work:

Baand Remote UI example from Kristian Ulrich Larsen on Vimeo.

 

The unfortunate thing is that you can’t buy this today as it’s only a design concept.  It sure looks like a perfect companion to a HTPC-type home media setup to me though.  Would you use it?

Read more about this concept design at the designer’s web page

Found via  Yanko Design

SageTV Poll–Who uses SageTV?

I’m preparing some articles about SageTV and looking for some input to help me decide how much work I should put towards SageTV articles and what my focus should be given the fact that SageTV is no longer available to new users.

So if you’re using SageTV for your Home Theater PC give me a shout in the comments and answer the following questions in your comment:

1. What HTPC software do you use for DVR functions?  SageTV or something else?

2. What HTPC software do you use for Movie playback – non-TV movies?

3. What do you use for music in your home?

4. If you use SageTV do you use the default menu or something else?  Phoenix, Diamond or something else?

 

Thanks in advance for your response!

SageTV App for Boxee Progressing

Boxee is about to get some SageTV goodness.  Since GoogleTV “stole” away the SageTV team to work on their fledgling GoogleTV the SageTV user group – many of whom tend to lean towards the developer-crowd has been trying to find ways to make the most of the situation.  A group of these developers recently started a project to make a SageTV for Boxee app that will at least help the situation.

Sample Logo pictured above was created by Karl Ricker – one of many possible logos to be used in the final app.

I’ve been following the discussion of this project since July 19th when a thread about making a SageTV for Roku app evolved into this Boxee app discussion.  Two of the big issues with Google’s purchase of SageTV – at least for SageTV owners include:

1. No new licenses – You can’t purchase a new license for SageTV.  This means no new users, and no expanding to additional computers beyond what you already have licenses for.  They did offer free upgrades to the latest version of SageTV if you already owned an older version however.

2. No new extenders – SageTV sold their own awesome SageTV extender/media player devices which was one of the appeals of SageTV.  But the moment Google purchased the company, those extenders were no longer for sale.

One of SageTV’s strengths is it’s DVR functionality.  It would just so happen that one of Boxeee’s weaknesses is the inability to “do DVR.”  In just a matter of days, a fairly large number of developers who have worked on various SageTV 3rd party apps have joined together to build a SageTV for Boxee app.  They even have a proof of concept version of this app available to download!  This boxee app should work on both the Boxee computer software version AND the Boxee Box!

The proof of concept already has the standard SageTV UI which bodes well for getting the awesome 3rd party add-ons (Phoenix and Diamond anyone?) on Boxee.  Some video playback works great already, but the Boxee box is more limited in playback capability compared to the SageTV HD300.  Longer-term they plan/hope to get LiveTV working as well.  It’s not as good as seeing SageTV HD300’s go up for sale again, but it’s pretty good news for most of us using SageTV still.  Plus you get the online video awesomeness of Boxee as well.  This is just one example of how devoted and talented the SageTV community is.  I hope Google recognizes this is part of what they were getting when they purchased SageTV – whether they realized it at first or not!

Recordings Screenshot of next update:

Where to find out more:

• GigaOm Story
• SageTV for Boxee Google Group
• Boxee Box as SageTV Extender Thread at SageTV Forums
• SageTV App for Boxee Thread on Boxee Forums

Logitech Financials Crushed by Failure of 1st Gen GoogleTV

Google launched GoogleTV with much fanfare. It was to be a serious competitor in the digital home front backed by a major player. Logitech was one of the big consumer electronics companies backing the new GoogleTV platform with their Logitech Revue set-top-box. Unfortunately GoogleTV hasn't found much success with it's first generation of software and associated devices. This weak performance was amplified this week with Logitech's financials showing the sales of the GoogleTV-powered Revue devices very poor. Matter of fact Logitech experienced more returns of the devices in the first quarter of the year than they sold!

Logitech has now dropped the price of the GoogleTV Revue down to $99 after dropping it to $199 this past May. My guess is they are desperate to just unload these and hope to recover at least some of their costs. Google doesn't seem to be giving up on their GoogleTV platform even though they haven't captured the attention of many consumers thus far. For GoogleTV to get traction they need to do the following - and do it quickly:

1. Make expensive agreements with content providers to get TV/Movie content. Alternatively, aquire a company already doing this with longer-term agreements. Hulu fits this category nicely as long as the purchase includes a deal with the content providers long enough to make the money spent worth it. Given Google's focus on online streaming, this is crucial - more crucial than apps or anything else.
2. Make the TV smart enough to compete with your dumb CableBox DVR. I know many have argued that Google isn't interested in tuning or capturing TV content. I beg to differ - while I do think tuning wasn't high on Google's list of priorities at first, I think they know this is a feaure consumers expect when you have "TV" in the product name. This doesn't HAVE to be CableCard at first - it could be a OTA and open QAM tuner, things SageTV (Google just purchased HTPC/DVR Software Firm, SageTV recently) did very well. Longer term CableCard or the next iteration of CableCard - AllVid.
3. Make mobile an important extension of GoogleTV. I'm thinking of placeshifting (like Slingbox) and media control from any mobile device here. The more features you can put on devices people already own, the more apt they are to be interested in yet another box for the home.

Logitech is taking a major hit here on Google, so much that their CEO, Gerald Quindlen has stepped down and their sales, revenue and outlook are extremely weak now. If Google wants to attract the CE companies likely eyeing Apple's digital home ambitions, they need to act fast and produce something very improved. It should be interesting to see how things turn for GoogleTV.

It sounds like May's price reduction of the GoogleTV-based Logitech Revue to $199 wasn't enough to goose sales of the struggling device because Logitech has decided to reduce the price again this quarter to $99. Apparently, the whole affair has been enough to cause Logitech and now former CEO, Gerald P. Quindlen, to part ways. Even with the new pricing, it's a bit difficult to imagine the Revue taking off in any meaningful way until the GoogleTV platform itself has been updated and considering that several content owners have blocked the device. What do you think? Can a $99 Logitech Revue compete with the likes of AppleTV and Roku?

From the Logitech Press Release:

"Sales of Logitech Revue were slightly negative during the quarter, as returns of the
product were higher than the very modest sales. We believe the significantly lower
everyday price for Logitech Revue, reduced from $249 to $99, will generate improved
sales."

Read the full press release here

Microsoft Media Center Add-on Shows Commercial Breaks

Most Home Theater PC users - at least those from BeyondTV, SageTV, GBPVR and a few others take this for granted, but this is a big deal for those using Microsoft MediaCenter. Thanks to some ingenious coding by Mark Terborg - working around Microsoft's restrictions, you will be able to view the commercial breaks detected with commercial detection software right in the Media Center User Interface. This is just one of many features of the Recorded TV HD Plugin for MediaCenter.

Get the beta download at the Recorded TV Website

You can try out Recorded TV HD for 30 days free. A single license is $19.99 and $39.99 for an entire household.

via MissingRemote

Plex 9 HPTC Software Gets Update

Plex, the popular Mac-fork of the XBMC project released an interim update to Plex V9 with V0.9.3.3.  Plex is HTPC software that allows you to use a Mac, Windows or Linux computer as a media server and a Mac or Roku, LG TV, Samsung Blu-ray Players and TVs, or mobile device as a client.  There is not TV/DVR functionality, but movies, music and other media are all part of the program – much like XBMC.

Updates in this release include:

• Support for deleting files in the library.
• Initial support for Photo library sections.
• Support for DTS > AC3 transcoding in transcoder (useful for LG TV, ATV2 and others).
• Plex should now be Lion-ready
• Windows iTunes support
• Windows/Linux Support for timed and automatic library refreshes.
• Support for “Various Artists” (compilations) in music sections.
• Initial support for multi-disc albums in music sections.
• Much faster TV and music metadata loading.
• Many bugs fixes
• Many enhancements to the Plex Media Server API.

You can read the complete list of changes in this update and get the download at the Plex website.  The update will also be available as an auto-update in the next day or so.

How I See It… From the Non-Geek Geek

Reflections on the Google purchase of SageTV by MrsGeekTonic

In the middle of June Sage TV announced that they had been acquired by Google, and shock was heard round the world. JK! 99.8% of the world has no idea what Sage TV is. The tech world is not quite as big as most enthusiasts would believe. Even amongst the tech world, my guess is that most do not bother with HTPC systems. Therefore, the HTPC “circle” (using Google’s latest word) is fairly small.

Google TV to revolutionize your television????

In May 2010, Google announced they were developing Google TV. In September Apple followed with a similar announcement. Google TV was launched in October to mass hysteria and a run on the partnering devices. Again, just kidding! Google’s own website claims that there are 5 billion TV views in the world, so of course it is only natural that they want to create a product that all 5 billion of those people HAVE to have. Sorry, but GTV is not the internet’s answer to Blu-Ray. Here is what I believe their big mistake was…. They market the product as a way to bring the internet (which they know A LOT about) to your TV (which they obviously know nothing about). They discount the idea that people have TVs to, I don’t know, watch TV?

In November of 2010 a blog (Home System Integration) had an article, “Can Google TV take down a HTPC?”, in which the author ruminates “This unit seems targeted at the general consumer who probably has never considered having a keyboard in the Living Room, let alone performing everyday tasks like checking email or banking from the comfort of their own couch!”

Guess what? I don’t want a keyboard in my living room!

The average TV watcher is struggling with the 3 remotes (minimum) they already have. Not everyone has picked up on the universal remote concept yet. I actually had to buy a coffee table with drawers to house our plethora of remotes. Furthermore, has the author ever heard of the laptop… or iPad? Our family of 3 can watch our favorite show AND compute (our own interests not the person who controls the remote) at the same time. Now, granted the average family doesn’t have a laptop for everyone in the house, but still…. I am also getting older (eyes aren’t what they used to be) and I need my computer screen to be a little closer than the TV. I have a hard enough time reading the “guide” let alone try to type a document from the” comfort of my own couch.” Even the early reviews said “This much is clear: Google TV may be interesting to technophiles, but it’s not for average people” –NYTimes. I contend that it doesn’t really interest technophiles either, because it has a LONG way to go. Add to this most networks have blocked GTV from accessing their content… Sooo basically it is a computer for the living room. GACK!

So how does Google fix its GTV problem without completely throwing out the concept? Well they could have spent time and money developing their own system that will do what the HTPC folks had already accomplished or buy a Linux based system that has some additional perks and devices that they can learn from. Enter Sage. (Oh, and because they are Google they also buy one of the companies that blocked their content – HULU). I don’t know what it was about Sage that they wanted. I am sure many of you have been speculating about that. For all I know, it could be just for the UI, but the reality is it is probably for something that was still in development/negotiations that Sagies haven’t even had access to yet.

 

Here is what I think will happen in the future. (Mind you I know nothing! Remember, I am not even a geek… I am just married to one).

1. Sage will continue as it is for awhile – although no new sales of extenders and licenses will be available
2. Google will integrate the best Sage has into GTV2 (this could take some time so no need to panic yet).
3. Google will then release GTV2 to the mass market.
4. Google will shut Sage down to force you all to buy their product (which will fail because it will not be as intuitive.
5. Google will allow 3^rd parties to write add-ons for GTV. (This is a HOPE more than anything.) They do have 3^rd parties writing “apps” for GTV now… Hopefully, that would be allowed for the TV side of things.

The unfortunate part of this whole buy-out is that the W in WAF, in Google’s world, is not “wife” it is “world”. They will dumb down a pretty good system for the masses. Hopefully, they will not lock it down so that those who know what they are doing can still use it.

My suggestion is that all of you Sagies get on the board and start a thread of the MOST important things Sage has to offer that would have to show up on GTV for you to, even in a million years, consider buying it. You know someone at Google is reading that forum.

So “Can Google take down a HTPC?” The answer is, yes and no. They have taken Sage, but I believe others will pop up as well. Remember, Google’s goal is 5 billion TVs. Enthusiasts will make smarter systems for their own personal use, but buy the new and improved GTV for their mom.

This is a companion article to the Why Did Google Buy SageTV & What it Means for GoogleTV written by MrsGeekTonic.

Why Did Google Buy SageTV?

It’s been three weeks since Google gobbled up the tiny Home Theater PC company, SageTV.  The tech blogs, mainstream media publications and even former competition have weighed in on the acquisition.  Now that the dust has settled it’s time to review what we know.  There are many things about SageTV that might have been appealing to Google.  Google is a company looking to acquire technology where they can inject quick & tested technology for it’s vision of home media.  Read on for my take on the reasons Google acquired SageTV.

 

How Did Google Find SageTV in the First Place?

Before we jump into why Google made this purchase, lets step back and ask a question less often considered – how did Google find out about SageTV?  It might be helpful to understand Google’s recent strategy of buying smaller companies like SageTV.  Here’s a quote from Eric Schmidt in the NYTimes article, Google’s Deal-Making Math:

“Last year, as part of our policy, we agreed to accelerate our rate of acquisition of small companies,” he said. “Because it’s the fastest way to fill out some of these broader strategies.”

SageTV is a company that’s been around since 2002.  Home Theater PC software (HTPC) was relatively new at that point – especially as a commercial business.  There was Snapstream’s BeyondTV started in 2000, SageTV started in 2002 and several other apps available for free at first.  The concept for these HTPC ventures was very similar – make the computer the hub of home media.  For SageTV that meant a more DIY version of TiVo with movie, music and photo playback built-in.  This HTPC technology became popular with the techies and Microsoft jumped in shortly after highlighting BeyondTV software at a CES event.  MediaCenter was born and everyone thought Microsoft would make HTPC’s relevant to all consumers – not just the tech-savvy crowd.  Well that didn’t really happen in the broader sense at least.  Snapstream ended their consumer, BeyondTV & BeyondMedia products to focus on TV search for businesses, Microsoft bundled their product with the OS & spent less & less money developing and marketing the Media Center feature and SageTV prospered as a very small company that focused on the very small niche of HTPC enthusiasts.

It is certainly possible that Google had SageTV on their radar for longer than five months, but I suspect they really became aware and interested in SageTV’s capabilities when Google joined forces with Sony Electronics, TiVo, Best Buy, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics, Nagravision and SageTV in February of 2011.  There have been multiple meetings of these member companies working on the FCC to push AllVid – which they hope will be the replacement for CableCard.  SageTV CTO Jeff Kardatzke was very involved in the AllVid Tech Company Alliance and I suspect that this was the beginning of Google’s awareness of SageTV and it’s capabilities.

Read on for why Google purchased SageTV – And for what this means to GoogleTV

Google Didn’t Purchase SageTV For These Reasons:

There are plenty of reasons why Google was interested in SageTV, but these probably aren’t among them.

• Buy It to Eliminate Competition - There is no way Google was threatened by SageTV.  SageTV didn’t really threaten any other company except perhaps Snapstream which left the consumer business long ago anyway.  SageTV’s market reach while notable for a small company – isn’t even in the same world as Google, Microsoft or Apple.
• CableCard and/or a PlayReady License – Yes, SageTV did purchase a PlayReady license.  Some speculated this was because SageTV wanted CableCard.  While I would have loved to see CableCard as an option for SageTV, I don’t think it was ever a consideration for SageTV to add CableCard tuner capabilities.  AllVid was the next great hope for SageTV and that is where their focus was in terms of getting encrypted content to SageTV (Note: You can already access encrypted content on SageTV via the Hauppauge HD-PVR and Colossus tuning devices, but they both require an external cable box to do so.)
• SageTV Studio – Studio is the application used by 3rd party developers to create customizations and plugins for SageTV – some truly amazing things have been created for SageTV with this product and I imagine GoogleTV users would love to see some of that move under the GoogleTV platform.  This is probably not something Google is interested in though.  I’m told by 3rd party SageTV developers building an app for Android would be much easier than with Studio.

 

What Does Google Want with SageTV?

So what was Google’s motive to purchase the mostly unknown, little company called SageTV?  I think there are many possibilities and I’ll add a few of my own ideas as possibilities.

• DVR Technology – As it stands today, GoogleTV connects to your Cable box and hopefully controls it with an IR blaster.  SageTV brings with it one of the smartest and most powerful recording engines available.  Web video is nice and all, but most of the world still consumes TV from either over the air signals, cable or satellite – which means you need a DVR with one or more tuners built in.  Giving GoogleTV a way to tune and record TV content – even if it’s only the unencrypted content positions them ahead of Apple.  There is a market for a smarter over-the-air DVR device in the U.S. even if they don’t tackle the complicated & messy cable & satellite encryption issues yet.  Google is obviously very interested in AllVid which would give them the non-CableCard entry-point they want for TV tuning.  In the meantime, they have purchased a company that arguably has the most advanced DVR capability on the market today.  Yes, DVR can be complicated – but mostly in the setup of the system.  Setting up a recording, favorite etc is as easy as a google search and clicking “save”.  Sounds google-like if you ask me.

Rakesh Agrawal and GigaOm both argued that it is unlikely that Google would mess with DVR.  I would agree that Apple would not go this route, but I don’t buy the argument that Google wouldn’t.  If Google wasn’t interested in DVR they wouldn’t have any reason to invest time and political capital on the FCC’s adoption of AllVid

• Whole Home Media Network (Server/Client Architecture) – SageTV was designed from the start to serve media from one server doing all the tuning, recording, everything for the entire system.  Record & store your media once, play anywhere with the ability to stop playback on one device and pick up where you left off at another device.  You only have to set up recordings once – and you access those recordings and their underlying settings from all connected devices.  This is where the market is going – just check out U-Verse and others like Time Warner all moving this direction.

• Placeshifting – SageTV placeshifter software can be installed on any laptop or other computer and allows you to view your home media with the same user interface and capabilities over the web – simply extending your media system to anywhere you have an internet connection.  Add to that mobile device control and streaming capability that some speculate the SageTV team was working on and you have something akin to Sling, but more powerful. 
• Set-Top Box Upgrade – SageTV was years ahead of the pack when it comes to media player/extender devices.  Just check out the video reviews of GoogleTV devices and compare their capabilities to the SageTV HD300.  SageTV has a more powerful set top box software they can easily embed into devices – especially since it uses Google-friendly java.  Rakesh Agrawal (CEO of Snapstream a former competitor to SageTV in the consumer HTPC market before they abandoned consumer software for a business-centric TV-Search & record technology) speculated that perhaps Google wanted SageTV to bring over it’s expertise writing STB middleware like their Sigma-based extender/media player reference design for set-top-boxes to provide a cheap reference design for those consumer electronics companies wanting to sell a GoogleTV device.
• Mastering the EPG data – SageTV has made great strides in leveraging the TV-guide data used for TV tuning, recording and searching.  SageTV can pull in season and episode number data for each TV show, screen-shots, fanart, links to data from IMDB and TV.com websites and more.  The SageTV software has the “smarts” for fairly complicated TV search “favorite” settings – much like TiVo and dare I say, much like Google Search.  You can search for all season premieres & finales, series premieres & finales, specials, anything that has the  words “Kansas City” for your specified channels, all shows with a certain actor, producer or director.  The list goes on and on.  And the data is all accessible – something Google might find very useful since their typical end-goal is to drive ads to the user/viewer that are relevant.
• Team Value – Even if Google does nothing with the existing SageTV product they just purchased (which I doubt), Google still obtains some value from the small SageTV team.  In particular Jeff (CTO and co-founder), Jean-Francois (Known as Demo on SageTV Forums) and Quian (Senior Software Engineer known on the forums as Donkey on SageTV forums) have some very valuable knowledge of the Home Media Technology world.

Look over the list above and think about which of those things could Google have easily done on their own?  Placeshifting, acquiring talent (SageTV employees), even the nice handle on EPG data that SageTV has is something Google could do simply and quickly on their own without tossing money at SageTV.

Jeff Kardatzke, the CTO and co-founder of SageTV had this to say two years ago when I interviewed him for GeekTonic.com:

"So by simplifying that part of the process we can sell what essentially are appliances for home entertainment, this would enable us to expand the market from something that is currently relegated to those willing to take on the setup of a full-blown Home Theater PC to someone who needs more of a powerful plug-in-and-go system.  We want to help make HTPC and whole home entertainment setup as easy as a DVD Player."

Except for the impressive SageTV extender/mediaplayers, Jeff was never able to make this “HTPC as easy as a DVD Player” happen while at SageTV.  But his vision does make a lot of sense when you talk about a souped-up GoogleTV.   I see the TV/DVR Recording engine, transcoding on-the-fly capability along with the client/server architecture that SageTV is built on as the strongest assets that Google could use in a GoogleTV platform.  Yes, as Rakesh from Snasptream argued, Google IS all about storing your stuff in the “cloud”, but they are also pretty good at taking a step back after failure (GoogleTV, Wave, etc) and revising what they do for the next version and I see them adding actual TV Tuning to the mix.  When you do a search on your GoogleTV device you’ll be searching for content on the web and on your home hard drive seamlessly.  Google will simplify things (read: it won’t be nearly as customizable as SageTV is/was) and it will be end-user friendly.

 The Google vision will be: Search all media from the cloud and your home, watch that media on any Google device, share that viewing experience with your friends via Google+ and Google wins by learning more about their customers so they can offer similar media, relevant advertisements and products we might like.

Google is in this game to win and the competition will be Apple and possibly Microsoft.  Don’t listen to Steve Jobs saying AppleTV is a hobby – long-term all of these companies are serious about home media tech.  Yes, it’s possible this was a purchase that will cause the SageTV technology to whither away and die forever.  But my bet is on something much improved for GoogleTV.  It’s my opinion that this purchase can only be good news for GoogleTV fans.  Unfortunately it’s bad news for those of us who have relied on SageTV & become used to frequent updates and new features is this:  While those of us that already own a SageTV HTPC setup, SageTV as a brand is gone forever.  Best of luck to the new Google team members.

  Related Articles:

• What’s Next for SageTV Customers?
• SageTV Offers Free Upgrade to Existing Customers

What’s Next for SageTV Customers Post-Google?

 

Since receiving word of Google’s acquisition of leading MediaPC company, SageTV this past Saturday fear and speculation has been the norm for the existing SageTV user base.  Saturday I reached out to SageTV and Google representatives to gather as much information as possible.  Keep in mind the transaction very likely had just been finalized so it takes some time to sort through all of the details including sales of existing products, supporting existing users etc. etc. 

Today I received some answers for many of my questions – most of these are focused on what happens next for SageTV users.  We won’t be receiving any official information on Google’s plans with the future of SageTV + Google for now, although I plan to share my thoughts on that soon as well.

Note:  In the responses below, “we” typically means “SageTV/Google” since they are now one and the same company.

Answers from Google/SageTV are in bold below:

EPG Data

If you already use SageTV and rely on it for your TV recording and viewing needs, the first thing you want to know is what happens to the Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) data that is used for seeing what shows are scheduled on your TV – it’s an essential part of your DVR. 

SageTV’s EPG data will continue to remain active for at least one year.

Existing SageTV Keys & SageTV Beta Status

The most recent version of SageTV was in a public beta so I asked what happens to that beta?

The beta versions do not expire. SageTV/Google does not currently have plans relating to posting a final release of V7.1; the current release candidate is of 'release' quality based on SageTV’s prior standards. 

 

Existing, Purchased SageTV Product Keys

Purchased keys from SageTV products will continue to be valid. There is no time limit on them.

 

SageTV Software as we know it – Is There a Future?

I asked the obvious question, Will the software & hardware we know as SageTV exist in any form post acquisition?  The answer, as expected is “we cannot comment at this time.”

That isn’t as good as “yes”, but it’s better than a flat out no.  I’m not surprised to get the no comment answer on that one for now.  We’ll have to see what happens at Google Labs and/or GoogleTV – could be a while.

 

SageTV Forums & Downloads

I asked what would happen to the existing SageTV forums & downloads currently hosted by SageTV?  Will users continue to have access to these resources important to the SageTV software? 

Yes, the forums will remain open and we plan to make current version downloads available to current customers.  Plans are to continue making the 3rd Party plug-in downloads available as well.

SageTV HD300 (Extender/Player) Warranty/Service

I asked if the warranty for those who recently purchased SageTV HD300’s will be honored.

Google will be honoring the 1 year warranty policy on the HD300.

Will HD300’s Be Available for Purchase?

Many SageTV users have been wanting to purchase another HD300, but the SageTV store has been closed since the acquisition.  So I asked if they had plans to sell any of the existing HD300 stock or perhaps even sell new ones.

Unfortunately the answer here was “we can't comment at this time.” 

Google Beta Testing?

I threw this one in hoping to get a “feel” for the SageTV/Google future:  “Does Google need an awesome group of beta testers (aka SageTV beta group)?  I many SageTV users would love to contribute.

Yes, Google will be interested in beta testers in the future. We will inform the community of any related opportunities.

Role for SageTV 3rd Party Developers?

I asked if there was any chance the existing group of 3rd party developers most of which worked on these projects for "fun" could contribute towards similar 3rd party add-ons with Google's future GoogleTV?

No comment related to Google TV. But we do want the developer community to remain alive and strong. They've been an integral part of SageTV's success and we value them greatly, as does Google.

Software-Only GoogleTV/SageTV Future?

I threw out this one as a long-shot:  Does Google plan to provide any software-only installation of GoogleTV/SageTV in the future like SageTV allows for today?

The answer was as expected:  “We can't comment at this time.”

GoogleTV DVR Capability?

Another long-shot question from me:  Any hope for DVR capability in GoogleTV with this acquisition?  That was one of SageTV's strengths over the competition.

The answer again was as expected:  “We can't comment at this time.”

There you have it – existing SageTV will still have SageTV available to us along with the EPG data, downloads, 3rd party plug-ins etc at least for the next year.  Forums will continue to be hosted and maintained as well.  Beyond that though we just don’t know.  I saw no indication or even hope of new licenses or hardware being available making it difficult if you need to upgrade your HTPC system with an additional TV for instance.

As far as what Google plans to do with SageTV I think there are some things we can read from the above.  I get the feeling they really do plan on doing something with the SageTV assets directly with the next iteration of Google TV.  Does that mean DVR capability, placeshifting of some kind or something else?  We don’t know yet – I have my thoughts/educated guesses and will share it with you soon.  I don’t think much of the tech media really understands this acquisition yet – but they will soon.

Thanks to both the SageTV team and Google for responding to these questions!

SageTV Acquired By Google

Updated with an Official (but short) Statement from Google:

Huge news for niche Home Theater PC company, SageTV today as the CTO and founder of SageTV announced that the SageTV company was acquired by Google.

No this is definitely not a joke.  Jeffrey Kardatzke, CTO and founder of SageTV, LLC announced today on the company forums that Google acquired their company.  Here’s the announcement from SageTV:

We are thrilled to announce that SageTV has been acquired by Google.
Since 2002, we’ve worked to change the TV viewing experience by building cutting-edge software and technology that allows you to create and control your media center from multiple devices. And as the media landscape continues to evolve, we think its time our vision of entertainment management grows as well. By teaming up with Google, we believe our ideas will reach an even larger audience of users worldwide on many different products, platforms and services.

We’ve seen how Google's developer efforts are designed to stimulate innovation across the web, and as developers have played a core role in the success of SageTV, we think our shared vision for open technology will help us advance the online entertainment experience. We look forward to joining Google, and while we don't have anything specific to announce at this time, we encourage interested developers to email sagetv-dev@google.com.
Full speed ahead!
The SageTV team

Jeffrey Kardatzke, CTO & Founder of SageTV, LLC

I’m very happy for Jeff at SageTV, but this in my eyes is a very bad thing for SageTV users.  I hope I”m wrong about this but I remember the Meedios days when Yahoo purchased them.  I’ll definitely have much more on this topic very, very soon.  In the meantime, you’ll notice the SageTV website has absolutely nothing for us other than the official statement.  The store is down as well which to me is a sign of the end of SageTV as we know it – sigh…  Or… perhaps the HD300 or something like it is the new Google TV.  We’ll just have to see what Google does with things and hope they don’t pull a Yahoo (Yahoo purchased Meedio and essentially destroyed the potential that was there).

Updated with an Official (but short) Statement from Google:

“The SageTV team has developed the latest in media management software, and we look forward to working with them to take this technology to the next level.”

Quick gut reaction from me based on the above statement from Google is this:  I see this as a small, but positive sign that Google plans to at least use some of the good stuff (technology) SageTV excelled at.  But I also think we’ll never see another SageTV update going forward outside of some GoogleTV device.  I’m in the process of asking additional questions to GoogleTV since Jeff is not able to discuss at this time.  Let me know any questions you have in the commets and I’ll see what I can find out.

SageTV 7.1 Release Candidate Arrives

While I was away, SageTV released another update to their SageTV HTPC software, SageTV V7.1.8 and just this week the 7.1.9 Release Candidate.

7.1.8 included several bug fixes and a few new features including:

• New Security API for dealing with security profiles and permissions
• Change the storage of title/episode information for imported Video, Picture, DVD and BluRay Content so the show title field now holds the actual title instead of the relative path plus title.

 

7.1.9 brings the first “release candidate” which means we are very close to 7.1 being released from beta. 

• One significant update in this version is the option to edit the title, episode and description for imported videos.

Additional details of all updates and the download link can be found at the SageTV forums