Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Video Recording and Home Media Center Technologies |
Founded | 2002 |
Headquarters | Inglewood, California, United States |
Products | SageTV digital video recorder software |
Website | www.SageTV.com; www.sage.tv |
SageTV Media Center, now open source, was a proprietary, commercial DVR (Digital Video Recording) and HTPC (Home theater PC) software for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It requires that the host computer have a hardware-based TV tuner card. The SageTV software has an integrated Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) that is updated via the Internet. The program provides a television interface for DVR, music, and photos on Windows and Linux. SageTV Media Center typically records in standard MPEG2, making it possible to transfer recordings to laptops or other devices. It also has a built-in conversion feature to transcode files into other formats compatible with iPod, PSP, cell phones and other portable devices. [1] [2] [3] [4]
A "lite" version is commonly shipped as part of an OEM software bundle. Both the lite and regular versions offer a Java API.
SageTV Placeshifter allows the user to watch TV from any high speed internet connection, similar to the Slingbox. As of Version 6, the SageTV Placeshifter is available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh platforms. The SageTV Media Extender set-top allows other TVs to connect to SageTV over a home network. There is also the ability to use the Hauppauge MediaMVP with SageTV by purchasing a MediaMVP Client License.
On June 18, 2011, Jeffrey Kardatzke, CTO and founder of the company, announced in a SageTV forum post that his company had been acquired by Google. An official press release followed later the same day, and since then the SageTV products have no longer been available for purchase. [5] [6] [7] [8]
On March 9, 2015, Jeffrey Kardatzke announced that SageTV would be open-sourced "in the near future (i.e. months, not years)". [9] Then a few months later, SageTV became open source, hosted on GitHub.
After the acquisition of SageTV, LLC by Google, they began modifying and updating it to work with Google's upcoming Google Fiber TV service. SageTV v8 was the initial platform used for the Google Fiber Storage Box (DVR) and TV Box (Client). It has since been replaced with an in-house developed software.
SageTV Media Center for Linux is compatible with most major Linux distributions. Information on a Gentoo distribution tuned for Media Center usage is available from the SageTV website. It runs on low cost PC and consumer electronics hardware including embedded processors (embedded only available for OEMs).
SageTV software also includes a SageTV Studio Development GUI that allows the customization of the user interface and development of add-ons. The company provides documentation so that these customizations can use a Java API. Built-in EPG support is available only for North America; however, the developer community has developed plug-ins that allow unsupported regions to access EPG info through sources such as XMLTV and ICETV in Australia. Additionally, there are IMDb and commercial skipping plugins.
TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "OnePass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList" searches which allow the user to find and record shows that match their interests by title, actor, director, category, or keyword. TiVo also provides a range of features when the TiVo DVR is connected to a home network, including film and TV show downloads, advanced search, online scheduling, and at one time, personal photo viewing and local music playback.
A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes (STB) with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices; such devices may alternatively be referred to as personal video recorders (PVRs), particularly in Canada. Similar small devices with built-in displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates.
Kodi is a free and open-source media player and technology convergence software application developed by the Kodi Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a software 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most streaming media, such as videos, music, podcasts, and videos from the Internet, as well as all common digital media files from local and network storage media, or TV gateway viewer.
MythTV is a free and open-source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living room TV. It turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or home theater personal computer. It can be considered a free and open-source alternative to TiVo or Windows Media Center. It runs on various operating systems, primarily Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Since the mid-2000s, other types of consumer electronics, including game consoles and dedicated media devices, have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computers.
Hauppauge Computer Works is a US manufacturer and marketer of electronic video hardware for personal computers. Although it is most widely known for its WinTV line of TV tuner cards for PCs, Hauppauge also produces personal video recorders, digital video editors, digital media players, hybrid video recorders and digital television products for both Windows and Mac. The company is named after the hamlet of Hauppauge, New York, in which it is based.
Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for current and upcoming broadcast programming. Some guides also feature backward scrolling to promote their catch up content. They are commonly known as guides or TV guides.
The TF5800PVR and similar TF5800PVRt is the UK Freeview version of Topfield's TF5000PVRt, which is a personal video recorder (PVR) with twin tuners; it is possible to record two programs and view a third so long as all programs do not use more than two multiplexes. Firmware upgrades were distributed over-the-air using the normal FreeView distribution method, and are also available for Internet download.
MediaPortal is an open-source media player and digital video recorder software project, often considered an alternative to Windows Media Center. It provides a 10-foot user interface for performing typical PVR/TiVo functionality, including playing, pausing, and recording live TV; playing DVDs, videos, and music; viewing pictures; and other functions. Plugins allow it to perform additional tasks, such as watching online video, listening to music from online services such as Last.fm, and launching other applications such as games. It interfaces with the hardware commonly found in HTPCs, such as TV tuners, infrared receivers, and LCD displays.
Windows Media Center (WMC) is a digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, as well as all editions of Windows 7 except Starter and Home Basic. It was also available on Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro as a paid add-on. It was discontinued as of Windows 10 and the operating system also removes all of Windows Media Center during an upgrade from previous versions of Windows, although it can reportedly be unofficially reinstalled using a series of Command Prompt commands.
ShowShifter, now obsolete, was a proprietary, commercial digital video recorder (DVR) and home theater PC (HTPC) software for Windows.
This is a comparison of digital video recorder (DVR), also known as personal video recorder (PVR), software packages. Note: this is may be considered a comparison of DVB software, not all listed packages have recording capabilities.
HDHomeRun is a network-attached digital television tuner box, produced by the company SiliconDust USA, Inc.
InterVideo WinDVR is a commercial digital video recorder (DVR) software package for Windows operating systems. It allows PCs to work as a TV set and a DVR at the same time, using a hardware-based TV turner card. It has an integrated electronic program guide (EPG) that is updated via the Internet. Its direct competition came from CyberLink PowerVCR.
GB-PVR was a PVR application, running on Microsoft Windows, whose main function was scheduling TV recordings and playing back live TV. GB-PVR is no longer under active development and has been superseded by NextPVR, also known as nPVR.
Monsoon Multimedia was a company that manufactured, developed and sold video streaming and place-shifting devices that allowed consumers to view and control live television on PCs connected to a local (home) network or remotely from a broadband-connected PC or mobile phone. It was one of 5 major transformations initiated by Prabhat Jain, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with 5 undergraduate and post graduate engineering degrees from Cal Berkeley and Univ of Vienna, Austria. On the even of Cisco acquiring Monsoon in 2017, EchoStar, the new parent of Sling sued Monsoon for patent infringement, having obtained confidential information about the date of the acquisition by Cisco from a Monsoon employee under murky circumstances. Monsoon settled the lawsuit by agreeing not to sell its products in the USA simply because it did not have the legal funds to fight mighty Echostar's legal maneuvers. EchoStar thus successfully removed its only competitor from the market place. This meant Monsoon's death knell.
IceTV is an Australian company providing an independently curated Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for digital free-to-air television. It also produces Smart Recording Software.
LinHES is a Linux distribution designed for use on Home Theater PCs (HTPCs). Before version 6, it was called KnoppMyth. The most recent release (R8), for 64-bit machines only, is based on Arch Linux, though previous versions were based on Knoppix and Debian.
OpenELEC is a discontinued Linux distribution designed for home theater PCs and based on the Kodi media player.