AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › PSA: The SageTV HD300 is available for pre-order!
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

PSA: The SageTV HD300 is available for pre-order!

post #1 of 46
8/31/10 at 9:29am
Thread Starter 
Although this has already been posted in the streamers forum, I'm sure there are a number of people here that might want the head's up.

SageTV has announced the HD300 extender! You can get all the details from the Sage site, but the two (check that) Three big ones are:

HDMI 1.3 support for bitstreaming TrueHD/DTSHDMA - Check!

-Edit- Now with 400% more FLAC! (Reports from Sage that they have 7.1 FLAC support working.) Audio encoded in 5.1 or 7.1 FLAC will be decoded and output as 5.1 or 7.1 PCM via HDMI!

Price - $150

Check it out: www.sagetv.com

First look review here: http://www.geektonic.com/2010/08/nex...r-arrives.html


-Suntan
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 46
8/31/10 at 10:25am
Looks like they fixed all my gripes with the 200 and they made it cheaper to boot!. It might be time to switch from 7mc to sage, especially with my movies.

missingremote also has a review up.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 46
8/31/10 at 10:46am
Definitely makes things interesting. Right now it looks like the biggest roadblock is no support for multi channel LPCM (so I guess you could say the mkv + FLAC guys won't be running to the HD300 anytime soon).
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 46
8/31/10 at 10:49am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

(so I guess you could say the mkv + FLAC guys won't be running to the HD300 anytime soon).

Eh... Who needs them. They smell anyway.

-Suntan
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 46
8/31/10 at 10:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suntan View Post

Eh... Who needs them. They smell anyway.

-Suntan

Lol... When they come knocking on this thread I don't know you
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 46
8/31/10 at 10:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek K. View Post

missingremote also has a review up.

And my first unboxing video
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 46
8/31/10 at 10:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by babgvant View Post

And my first unboxing video

Andy - do you have an HD200? If so would you recommend that there is enough with the HD300 for current HD200 owners to upgrade?
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 46
8/31/10 at 11:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

Right now it looks like the biggest roadblock is no support for multi channel LPCM...

I'm trying to figure out if that will be an issue for me. I have a few disney bd's with only lpcm. I guess I could rerip those 2 or 3 movies, but I'd rather not.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 46
8/31/10 at 11:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek K. View Post

I'm trying to figure out if that will be an issue for me. I have a few disney bd's with only lpcm. I guess I could rerip those 2 or 3 movies, but I'd rather not.

I think maybe Casino Royale and a few others are lpcm for me. I guess you could rerip and convert the lpcm to DTS?
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 46
8/31/10 at 11:13am
missing lpcm is strange. I'd think that would be the easiest audio to do. why can't they just pass it along to the external decoder and let it do its thing?
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 46
8/31/10 at 11:37am
I could never get LPCM to work in my rips correctly. I have them converted to FLAC, which the HD300 supports. Plus I have my older rips from before I was able to bitstream that are in FLAC. I gave up on LPCM.

SageTV has really interested me lately. I'd like to get away from the Time Warner Cable HD-DVR, it's monthly fees, and lack of storage. But the biggest issue it that we like the OnDemand services and have HBO and Showtime. From what I can tell nothing other then the HD-DVR provided by the cable company can play and record these channels. It really is disappointing.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 46
8/31/10 at 12:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tlmaclennan View Post

I could never get LPCM to work in my rips correctly. I have them converted to FLAC, which the HD300 supports. Plus I have my older rips from before I was able to bitstream that are in FLAC. I gave up on LPCM.

SageTV has really interested me lately. I'd like to get away from the Time Warner Cable HD-DVR, it's monthly fees, and lack of storage. But the biggest issue it that we like the OnDemand services and have HBO and Showtime. From what I can tell nothing other then the HD-DVR provided by the cable company can play and record these channels. It really is disappointing.

Pretty sure it applies to flac as well, the hd300 will decode and send out as 2ch stereo
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 46
8/31/10 at 12:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

Andy - do you have an HD200? If so would you recommend that there is enough with the HD300 for current HD200 owners to upgrade?

I used to have one. Sold it several months ago because I was frustrated with the lack of WOL and local DTS decoding (for DVDs). If those or HDMI 1.3 aren't blocking features I'm not sure it's worth the jump just for the better form factor and UI speed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

I think maybe Casino Royale and a few others are lpcm for me. I guess you could rerip and convert the lpcm to DTS?

CR has a TrueHD track (it's my AVC/THD test file )

Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

Pretty sure it applies to flac as well, the hd300 will decode and send out as 2ch stereo

It does. Any audio decoded on the device can only output as stereo.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 46
8/31/10 at 12:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tlmaclennan View Post

But the biggest issue it that we like the OnDemand services and have HBO and Showtime. From what I can tell nothing other then the HD-DVR provided by the cable company can play and record these channels. It really is disappointing.

Can the default cable player box (not their DVR, but the basic box you get from them) play the HBO and on demand stuff? If so, I would assume you could get Sage to record/DVR them by way of an HD PVR 1212 capture device. But I haven't had cable since before they offered DVR or on demand so I don't know for sure.

-Suntan
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 46
8/31/10 at 2:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

Andy - do you have an HD200? If so would you recommend that there is enough with the HD300 for current HD200 owners to upgrade?

If you use standalone mode, it's definitely worth it, it's way, way faster there. Otherwise I echo Andy's thoughts. If you don't care about HDMI 1.3, DTS decoding, the IR receiver, WOL, or the programmable remote, then it's a harder sell.
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 46
8/31/10 at 6:05pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:


or the programmable remote, then it's a harder sell.

The programmable remote will be available independently through the Sage website at a later date.

-Suntan
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 46
9/1/10 at 4:30am
Writeup/Review by Geektonic (i.e. Brent Evans):

http://www.geektonic.com/2010/08/sag...geektonic.html
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 46
9/1/10 at 5:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

Writeup/Review by Geektonic (i.e. Brent Evans):

http://www.geektonic.com/2010/08/sag...geektonic.html

no multi-channel lpcm. bummer. it is _so_ close, too.

looks like I need to re-rip a few disney bds.
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 46
9/1/10 at 9:17am
Where's the lack of PCM info coming from? I don't recall seeing anything official that it doesn't support it. (Unfortunately I don't have the equipment to test it).
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 46
9/1/10 at 9:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post

Where's the lack of PCM info coming from? I don't recall seeing anything official that it doesn't support it. (Unfortunately I don't have the equipment to test it).

The HD300 will play files with multi-channel LPCM but it down mixes to stereo.
Reply
Reply
post #21 of 46
9/1/10 at 9:45am
Quote:
Right now it looks like the biggest roadblock is no support for multi channel LPCM (so I guess you could say the mkv + FLAC guys won't be running to the HD300 anytime soon).

You got that right. All of my rips are .MKV with multi-channel FLAC (even the LPCM tracks have been re-encoded to FLAC). You would think that with the popularity of FLAC that some company, somewhere would support it, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. I guess my HTPC will be sticking around for a long time to come...
Reply
Reply
post #22 of 46
9/1/10 at 9:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Sorel View Post

You got that right. All of my rips are .MKV with multi-channel FLAC (even the LPCM tracks have been re-encoded to FLAC). You would think that with the popularity of FLAC that some company, somewhere would support it, but it just doesn't seem to be happening.I guess my HTPC will be sticking around for a long time to come...

If you haven't already asked for multi-channel FLAC support submit a request; Sage is really good about adding features that people want - especially ones that should be free (ignoring development costs).
Reply
Reply
post #23 of 46
9/1/10 at 9:58am
Quote:
If you haven't already asked for multi-channel FLAC support submit a request; Sage is really good about adding features that people want - especially ones that should be free (ignoring development costs).

I will do just that...thanks!

Edit: I sent them this message, short and sweet:
Quote:
Hello,

I am interested in purchasing SageTV, but from what I understand, you do not support the FLAC codec. There are quite a lot of us folks who rip our Blu-rays and remux to .MKV. In doing so, we decode both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio to LPCM and then re-encode to multi-channel FLAC – the same with raw LPCM tracks. If SageTV were to support such a format, I feel confident that you would gain a significant amount of new customers for your product.

Sincerely,

Bob Sorel
AVS Forum HTPC moderator
Reply
Reply
post #24 of 46
9/1/10 at 10:12am
To be clear the HD300 does support FLAC playback, it (like every audio codec decoded on the device) is output as stereo.
Reply
Reply
post #25 of 46
9/1/10 at 7:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by babgvant View Post

To be clear the HD300 does support FLAC playback, it (like every audio codec decoded on the device) is output as stereo.

A firmware update was released tonight that addresses this. Non Dolby/DTS multi-channel formats are output as multi-channel PCM now.
Reply
Reply
post #26 of 46
9/2/10 at 6:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by babgvant View Post

A firmware update was released tonight that addresses this. Non Dolby/DTS multi-channel formats are output as multi-channel PCM now.

so now bd rips with lpcm only tracks output lpcm (no downmix)?
Reply
Reply
post #27 of 46
9/2/10 at 6:13am
Quote:


A firmware update was released tonight that addresses this. Non Dolby/DTS multi-channel formats are output as multi-channel PCM now.

Does that mean that multi-channel FLAC inside of .MKV will be decoded and sent out as multi-channel PCM? I know it seems like you already answered my question, but I am asking about multi-channel FLAC specifically. I also want to be sure that the channels are properly mapped 1:1.
Reply
Reply
post #28 of 46
9/2/10 at 6:50am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Sorel View Post

I also want to be sure that the channels are properly mapped 1:1.

Picky, picky...

It doesn't hurt to have clarity on these matters, multi-channel PCM and multi-channel FLAC support are really the last hurtles in making this thing the Bee's Knees for a lot of people. I too hope they get both PCM and FLAC completely sorted, even though I don't use them much.

-Suntan
Reply
Reply
post #29 of 46
9/2/10 at 7:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by babgvant View Post

A firmware update was released tonight that addresses this. Non Dolby/DTS multi-channel formats are output as multi-channel PCM now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Sorel View Post

Does that mean that multi-channel FLAC inside of .MKV will be decoded and sent out as multi-channel PCM? I know it seems like you already answered my question, but I am asking about multi-channel FLAC specifically. I also want to be sure that the channels are properly mapped 1:1.

Yes. I only did some quick tests last night to make sure audio was present in the surrounds and it seemed to be mapped correctly. Channel mapping with special audio files is on the todo list.
Reply
Reply
post #30 of 46
9/2/10 at 7:57am
I think I know the answer to this question, but can the extender (or sage - doesn't matter to me) encode lpcm audio on the fly to dd or dts like pdvd does?
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Home Theater Computers

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › PSA: The SageTV HD300 is available for pre-order!