Snapstream or Sage??

[jbuszkie]

I'm currently trying to decide wich PRV software I want to get.
I'm demoing Sage right now and I did a quick demo of SnapStream several weeks ago. Maybe you guys can help me
decide. Here are the features that are most important to me.

1. PQ. The picture quality of the Sage was great. The PQ of Snap was horrible! There were terrible interlacing artifacts.

2. Multiple tuner support. Sage has this. Snap doesn't? I'd like to have multiple PVR250's to be able to record one and watch another (live) or even record two different shows.

3. PIP. I don't think either supports this. It's on Sage's list.. but not for a while. What about snap?

4. Mouse support. Sage has this, snap doesn't. This really isn't that big of an issue since I'll eventually set up girder.

5 Transparent guide. Snap has this. Sage will have this in Sage2 coming out this fall.

6 HDTV Support - Sage is working on HDTV tuner suport for sage2. What about Snap? I have a FusionII and I would like to be able to use it (eventually) with the PVR software or at least be able to have both concurrently running.

7 Cost - Sage $60 - Snap - $65. Not a big deal.

Is there anything else that I'm missing? What other benifits of Snap over Sage are there?

I'm going to try SnapStream again. Maybe I can get rid of the crappy PQ.

When will SnapStream support multiple tuners? This along with the PQ are the biggest reasons to buy Sage instead.

I'm sure there are a bunch of Sage haters that will be able to help me out!

Thanks,

Jim

[cmasters]

Don't forget about Stability (subjective), Intelligent Recording, and full MPEG2 streaming (though this will add cost) in Sage.

SnapStream has SnapStream.net, automatic transcoding to a more compressed format, and the UI does look better today (though like you say only for the next few weeks). SnapStream also supports all of the US with the guide. Sage won't till November 1.

PQ is pretty far behind in SnapStream right now, but I hear the next release will help. I want to know when they will add support for DScaler, Hauppauge 350 TV out, or XCard output.

One more thing, check out the differences in time to add new features between the two. That is very important.

You have the right idea, though, try them both.

Good luck!

[sloanja]

One more thing that Sage TV has that Snaptream DOESN'T: It's software is not all one big executable. It's instead broken into sections. If one peice fails, the whole house of cards doesn't fall. That is the BIGGEST thing I hate about Snapstream. Do I still use Snapstream, hell ya, but maybe not for much longer.

[SHS]

jbuszkie you forgot one of the biggest thing about Sage it also support hardware decoder that most important features SnapStream lack is overlay support the video card drivers MUST have a DX9 driver.
The rest of other thing that SnapStream don't have can be add but keep in mind that SnapStream is at lease 9 mos behind Sage when start doing MPEG hardware encoder card.
But in the long run sage can ported to any other OS faster soon as there are drivers.

As for
3. PIP. I don't think either supports this. It's on Sage's list.. but not for a while. What about snap?.
This dual MPEG stream there one major problem with this soft MPEG deocder will dbl+ in CPU usage so that leave you with only a few option a BIG BAD CPU HosePower or we need Hardware decoder that can do simultaneously MPEG deocding.

But like all things they both have there up and down

[rkuo]

sloanja,
The entire recompression and postprocessing engine exists in a separate process as of 3.3. More components are going to be moving there with each subsequent release.

SHS,
The reason we aren't using overlays is because overlays going away with the advent of 3D accelerators and hardware assisted MPEG-2 decoding. Even Microsoft is moving away from overlays from DX9 onwards.

PIP...it's on our list, I can't say exactly when since we're still banging out all the other features people are asking for. PIP probably is more feasible for SnapStream to do than any other software precisely because we decided to go with the DX9 approach.

With the release of 3.3 we will have support for more hardware encoders than any other PVR software on the market. I'd say we're ahead. We've had relationships with all of the hardware vendors for a long time behind the scenes and that's going to become increasingly clear from them and us as the year goes on.

Well, in conclusion, don't get me wrong, I've heard the features that some people want that we don't have yet and I'm working literally 100 hour weeks here to make it happen. And really, I appreciate all the feedback as it lets me figure out what things are most important to our customers. Thanks for continuing to take the time to post.

[SHS]

rkuo
I under stand that but that leave a lot people out in cold you know thoses folks that are using older Graphics card or old system and do know some of US do have a REAL Hardware MPEG decoder (REALmagic Xcard) that run circle around all so call Hardware MPEG decoder Graphics card.
Overlay not dead they just made it better by add more cool features which is now VMR-9

[sloanja]

Rkuo,

at the time i posted that message, i had not yet checked the betasite for the new beta. Yesterday Morning (friday morning), I installed 3.3 beta onto my machine. I am indeed impressed with the seperation of the functions. However, I note that when the recompression scheme is finished, SS does not clear it off the task list. Is this supposed to happen as above, or is it supposed to call the SSBatchProcessor and release it when finished?

Personally, I'd have written it to call and release when finished.

I also note that the SSBatchProcessor has a higher process priority than SETIatHome Service, THANKS.

[Soundman]

Originally posted by sloanja
However, I note that when the recompression scheme is finished, SS does not clear it off the task list. Is this supposed to happen as above, or is it supposed to call the SSBatchProcessor and release it when finished?

This is actually a feature It means that you can change the priority class of SSBatchProcessor to "BelowNormal" or "Low" one time and not worry about it again as long as you don't totally exit SS.

My hunch is that SSBatchProcessor runs as a service that the main SS sends a message to when it wants it to do something. That seems OK to me.

Soundman

[RobertH]

it doesnt actually run as a service it is kicked off when snapstream starts up and is terminated when/if it shuts down. it runs at normal priority by default as according to taskman but im sure its internal threads run lower than that.

[sloanja]

I was hoping that this would be my solution to the conflict between Snapstream's Recompression and my Seti@home service. Apparently, though, even though the Recompression is now a different thread and running at a higher priority, Seti@home still takes the lead and the recompression takes FOREVER to process.

The programmers have a good idea... but they need to call the service when needed, and then release it when not needed. In SETI@home service, I can pause the processing of units when a thread appears in the task list. If that task stays there forever, it does me no good to put it in the pause list. If they increase the thread's priority INTERNALLY to require more than just LOW, then I'd be satisified there too.

This has been my ONE complaint about Snapstream from the Beginning of BETAPROGRAM.Snapstream.com. My troublecall is STILL open and in the developer's hands to fix. Should it REALLY be this hard to fix??

[riekl]

Umm .. might i just sugest not using seti@home on your HTPC ? Seems rather counterproductive to run useless cpu eating software on a machine that needs all the cpu power it can get ...

[mdorion]

SageTV does support non-english version of Windows.

Snapstream can't use a PVR250/350 on non-english windows.

[sloanja]

actually, i have a P4 2.4G processor with 1.5Gigs of DDR333 RAM. I have no problem running SETI and SS3 at the same time.

[rkuo]

For the moment we're still going to default to idle priority, but there will be an INI option to adjust the priority of post processing plug-ins to whatever you want. Not in this upcoming beta, probably the next build that goes out after that.

[riekl]

sloanja,

That wasn't really my point, you CAN do it .. my question is why would you want to ?

Things like Seti@Home have always baffled me .. is it simply the competition to see how high of a ranking you can get on a list no one ever looks at. Or do you really think you are helping in the search for extraterstrial life ?

Putting additional load on your CPU that provides no benefit seems like wasted resources to me, a CPU that is idling, is running cooler and going to have a longer liftime then one you are pushing to the max all day for no good reason ..