Pissy about SnapStream

[tmar89]

I've been a strong supporter of SnapStream for many years now and spent alot of money towards making my system work with SS products and supported products like the FireFly remote. And lately I've been having so many problems with newer technologies that they only beta support like ClearQAM and the HD-PVR. However, SageTV has a very active support group and community and it just seems like SnapStream is avoiding their consumer base and shifting all efforts towards their Enterprise base. Fine, I understand the motivation to move towards the money, but they also have a group of supporters that are eager to see improvements in their consumer products. And things are just stale right now. And I'm at the point where I decided to give SageTV a try for the first time and I'm blown away. I could easily switch, but I don't feel like spending all that money again on software that I spent with SnapStream. I've given up on Beyond Media finally. Now, I just want Beyond TV to work and have the capabilities we all want (ie, closed captions?)

Hello, SnapStream?? Are you out there? Do you care about us anymore?

Ugh, just felt like venting...

[cfaslave]

Have you considered mentioning that to Rakesh directly? While I don't know what he can tell you to help you never know. At least that's what I would do if I were in your position.

[tmar89]

No I haven't. I don't have a line of communication with him, nor have I ever personally contacted him. Also, I haven't seen him posting in the forums lately.

[ZetaVu]

email him, rakesh@snapstream.com, or send him a PM, or try calling their main number. He's not hard to get hold of. You can also do the same with Myktek, Matt or Zack, Myktek and Matt have been active on the betas and posting.

[tmar89]

ZetaVu,
You've been very active and verbal lately about your concerns with BTV and in your opinion, are you still sticking it out with BTV or do you feel that you will eventually have to jump ship to say Sage in the near future? Do you believe that SS will be able to provide a stable product with the latest hardware out there for HD and recording?

[ZetaVu]

Like I've said, my system is rock solid. I'm running four OTA atsc inputs (three tuners) one SD from satellite and one HD PVR from Satellite. I've gotten zero errors since finishing the last beta, and there my errors were all related to the sensitivity to antenna signal strength. I tried Sage out a couple months back because SS was not being responsive to my issues, but any improvement Sage had was offset by a lot of their own shortcomings. Do I expect to migrate to Sage? Honestly I doubt I will, unless SS suddenly decides to shut down their guide data and go belly up.

I sent Brent my notes from Sage testing, not sure if he'll put them on Geektonic or not, but overall I was able to do everything I wanted much better with BTV and Media Portal than with Sage alone. (I have Beyond Media, but never really got that into it, and the latest MP blows everything else away, except for tv of course).

Long term I see myself going linux anyway, and that was really the most disappointing thing about Sage, their linux placeshifting was abysmal. I got better results doing the unsupported placeshifting from BTV to vlc, except for some audio issues with two local channels, that I've got bugs here and at vlc.

SS got really slow earlier this year, probably around the time they were putting together that Trends website, but they got back on the ball in the betas in May. Since the beta I assume they are either taking vacations or dealing with tech service requests. The forums are light but that's typical for summer time, we see this every year. Sadly a lot of the longtime users have moved to Sage (you can visit them on the forums) but the vast majority of those switched for integration. I would like an integrated product, but since I don't need anything to run Media Portal (free as in beer) I gladly use that for the non-pvr portions.

Now that the Vpau hardware acceleration is getting integrated into linux (vlc, mythtv, mplayer) I can start playing H.264 files there with hardware acceleration. This makes Mythtv something worth checking out again. You think sage has a big support structure, myth is bigger, but of course there's a learning curve. Biggest hurdle beyond setup and learning curve is guide data, but I've seen a lot of implementations to address that. (would love to be able to use SS data, since I own licenses for it)

So, long story short, no, I don't see myself going to Sage unless something catastrophic happens to SS quickly. SS is stable for me with new technology and while SS is slow they are responsive. Long term I see myself on linux (although I did order a W7 upgrade, just in case) but my preference is to use SS as a main server and have clients in linux. Even if I do a complete Mythtv migration, that is probably several years off, and by then the tv landscape may change drastically.

[Eric3a]

I'm a huge supporter of Snapstream myself and have been very active in the past. I too am getting disappointed and wondering what's happening. I realize the HDPVRs are frustrating animals as no one seems to have found the root cause of their lockups so I understand to an extent Snapstream's position.

On top of the Beta status of the HDPVRs, running HDPVRS also means loosing some of the best features of BTV: SmartSkip and Showsqueeze. Again I understand the logic and technical problems, but it does make the move easier.

I hesitated on the "switch" for the same reasons you did, but at the end of the day I thought "it's only money" while on the other hand I was spending monster amounts of time to try and troubleshoot why my HDPVRs weren't working and locking all the time with BTV. If I add up all the time I spent on trying to get the HDPVRs to work for BTV I probably paid myself 3rd world hourly wages!

I can't say it's a true "switch" though as I feel I have no option. BTV doesn't work with my configuration and HDPVRs. I gave it well over 3 months and no progress. I have no other choice if I want to get my own HD recordings on my shiny new HDTVs spread around the house.

I am ready to "switch" back anytime, and have kept an image of my BTV install so I can return to it easily if I want to. Ideally that's where I want to be soon.
For years my BTV install was as stable as a a computer can get. I'd have occasional hiccups and invariably I would trace it down to an imminent HD failure. WIth now 6 HDs in the machine and the heavy load they're under I am not shocked at having to replace one once in a while. A quick HD swap and I'd be good.

I miss THAT BTV. I miss the ease of use, the accurate smartskip, the logical interface, the showsqueezed shows ready to be copied over to my travel PMP, the overall stability and reliable machine I had for years.

I am not sure what the solution is. I intend to continue to download and test Betas. If I get THAT Btv back, I intend to "switch" back. Of course though if it takes too long I may very well find that I have become too vested in my new install. I doubt this will happen as a top SageTV install seems like a very geekish/maintenance heavy thing to me, and I lack the time to spend on it. So stability will win.

I too haven't yet brought this to the attention of "the powers that be". Mostly because I am not sure I have a constructive solution to offer. Still I suppose making them aware that "old farts" like me are wondering and considering a switch might be useful.
Eric

[cfaslave]

Originally Posted by ZetaVu

I sent Brent my notes from Sage testing, not sure if he'll put them on Geektonic or not, but ...

I will - just been busy & distracted lately

[tmar89]

Those will be interesting to read. Looking forward to it.

And I have to give SS a gold star for their support. Every time I submit a ticket, I get a prompt response. So I know "something" is going on behind the scenes, but I also admit that not seeing public updates or something like a twitter from SS about what they are doing for the consumer product is disconcerting.

ZetaVu, can you tell me what drivers you are using for the 2250 and your HD-PVR? Even better, can you send me them? I'm using the 1.0.5.6 for the PVR now and so far I'm getting fair results. But the latest 2250 drivers are killing me!

[Nick Burns]

My only technical issue on my computer is that it occasionally loses HDMI sound. But this is a technical fault of the ATI/HDMI and nothing with SS/BTV. Sometimes the sound returns, but usually a quick reboot, as long as BTV is in idle, will fix the problem.

Beyond that I have been very happy with BTV.

[tmar89]

That's great, Nick. For very long I've had very good results with BTV and want to get back to that level of stability, but lately I've been frustrated with not hearing anything coming down the SS pipe. With stability should come evolution too and other products are making leaps into the whole home media center experience while BTV just remains stale. Granted, their niche is recording and playback of TV and they can do it very well when it all works. However, things like a plugin architecture and UI updates are in dyer need. Many people here have screamed for it for very long. And of course I want them to fix the bugs going on with the product so there is alot that needs to be done but to just have that comfort of knowing what's coming along would be great.

[nanook105]

I've been using/beta testing software for Snapstream for a number of years (since 2003), and up until several months ago was a very active poster in the forums. However, I was really put off by the Beyond Media decision (even though I sorta knew that it was dying on the vine), so I just decided to step back and now often go weeks at a time without reading just about every post in the forums. During this same period, my main BTV recorder/server has been having many, many issues (I suspect it is hard drive related since I have two other BTV servers that seem to work just fine). I'm going to give it one more try this weekend, and then may just have to pull BTV from our family room TV (so that we can at least watch live TV).

I've seen lulls in activity (especially during the summer months) in the past, but with the current version hitting 4.9X, I suspect that SS is stepping back and looking at the viability of doing something worthy of a major release or just putting 4.9X on the shelf as the last major release.

I hope I am wrong

[ZetaVu]

I posted the 2250 driver on the other thread - http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/softw...cd/cd_4.6a.zip , for the HD PVr I use the 1.053 driver - I believe it is http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/softw...v1.0.5.301.zip. I also have hdpvr_v1.1.zip so I'm not sure if that is it or not. I'll check out when I get home and get back to you.

[tmar89]

Thanks, again.

[ZetaVu]

I think this is the correct link for 1.053 - http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/softw...dpvr_v1053.zip