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#46
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Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?
In article , "Char Jackson"
said... The bar isn't nearly that low. A completely different motherboard might trigger a reactivation, but not a video card or hard drive (by themselves). Regardless, if reactivation is required, it can usually be done online. In extreme cases, a phone call may be required. That was my experience. New MB called for a phone call. An explanation that I had to swap out the MB was all they needed and they activated it. |
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#47
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Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?
In message , Steve Hayes
writes: [] Home Premium - like Home Basic, but also lets you watch and record TV on your PC, and create DVDs from your camcorder footage [] I've always been puzzled about that bit: surely to watch TV, you either need (a) a TV receive stick, which will come with its own driver allowing you to both watch and record it anyway (even on XP), or (b) a pretty unlimited - and good - internet connection? (And similarly for the DVD bit: I'd expect most camcorders these days, i. e. digital ones, _or_ anything that can capture from an old analogue camcorder, to come with at least some video editing software - and either DVD writing would come as part of that software, or is at least available free online from various sources [as is video editing software].) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf aibohphobia, n., The fear of palindromes. |
#48
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Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?
On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:28:32 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: In message , Steve Hayes writes: [] Home Premium - like Home Basic, but also lets you watch and record TV on your PC, and create DVDs from your camcorder footage [] I've always been puzzled about that bit: surely to watch TV, you either need (a) a TV receive stick, which will come with its own driver allowing you to both watch and record it anyway (even on XP), or (b) a pretty unlimited - and good - internet connection? An Internet connection isn't usually required, except perhaps in cases where you're trying to watch online content. Typical TV programming (here in the States, anyway) is delivered via cable or OTA (Over-the-air). As for the basic TV apps that come bundled with aftermarket tuners, they are shamefully barebones, to be nice about it. Third parties rushed in with offerings such as BeyondTV, SageTV (what I use), MythTV, and others. Wikipedia has an exhaustive list. Finally, with Win 7, we get a fairly capable media center application. It has a proper GUI that includes an extended program guide (EPG), full PVR support, support for a wide range of tuner hardware, cover art and show icons, and more. I don't think anyone is going to use the basic app that comes with a tuner when they have Win 7's MC available. -- Char Jackson |
#49
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Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?
Per Char Jackson:
SageTV (what I use) Have you developed a fallback position for the day Sage breaks? I have not based on the assumption that, by the time it does, there will be other possibilities than what is out there today. -- Pete Cresswell |
#50
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SageTV (was Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?)
On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 10:56:21 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote: Per Char Jackson: SageTV (what I use) Have you developed a fallback position for the day Sage breaks? AFAIK, Google hasn't said what they plan to do with it, so for now I'm just riding the Sage horse until it dies or swerves off in a bad direction. I have not based on the assumption that, by the time it does, there will be other possibilities than what is out there today. To be honest, I'll probably use Win 7's Media Center. For my needs, it does most of what Sage does, but its recorded files have the .wtv extension rather than .mpg, which is a drawback for me since my favorite video editor doesn't handle .wtv. I've also been keeping tabs on the free Media Portal project, which seems to have some excitement surrounding it. I looked at an earlier version of MP, but IMO it wasn't ready yet at the time, or maybe it was just me who wasn't ready. Anyway, I love Sage and hope Google doesn't screw it up or kill it. How do my experiences compare to yours? -- Char Jackson |
#51
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SageTV (was Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?)
Per Char Jackson:
How do my experiences compare to yours? When I tried Media Center, the dumbing-down of the UI made me crazy... but I suspect I'm a little crazy to begin with... maybe a closet Type-A. When I was an obese pre-adolescent, my dad took me to this fat doctor in NYC, who put me on a starvation diet and amphetamines - which seem to have formed much of my personality as an adult.... -) I never got to the .wtv thing - but a proprietary format was the first thing to put me off of BeyondTV back when I was looking for a MythTV replacement... so that would be make Media Center even harder to swallow. I'm running XP and Sage just keeps on tickin'.... mostly... Managed to mess it up a little when I migrated my RecordedTV from a NAS box to a couple of 2-TB drives on the Sage server. Pauses on playback.... but I am pretty sure that was because I forgot to format the drives properly (64k blocks) and it's struggling with the inevitably-fragmented disc. I am also having major pixellation problems on certain channels at certain times of day. I had the Silicon Dust support guys check my tuner logs and they say there's no signal problem... so I'm hoping that it's somehow an artifact of the bad blocking and/or a flaky drive. Another possibility is growth of tree branches between antenna and transmitters - but the TOD thing would have tb explained for that one to work... and the onset of fall/winter may dispose of it with no effort on my part. As long as I can keep the Sage box running XP - or even a version of 7 where it works the only thing I've heard so far that might break it is some driver issue if/when I have to go to a new mobo. I really *like* SageTV... Having said that, if Google and the old Frey team were to come out with a functional clone with the same customizability for under $200.... -- Pete Cresswell |
#52
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SageTV (was Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?)
On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:22:47 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote: Per Char Jackson: How do my experiences compare to yours? When I tried Media Center, the dumbing-down of the UI made me crazy... but I suspect I'm a little crazy to begin with... maybe a closet Type-A. When I was an obese pre-adolescent, my dad took me to this fat doctor in NYC, who put me on a starvation diet and amphetamines - which seem to have formed much of my personality as an adult.... -) Was that dumbed-down UI under Win 7 or XP or what? I really don't have a problem with Win 7's MC interface. Of course, I rarely ever see the (Sage) interface. It just quietly does it's thing, recording from my two dual HDHomerun tuners, and I access those recordings from another PC on the LAN, never from the box that recorded them. I never got to the .wtv thing - but a proprietary format was the first thing to put me off of BeyondTV back when I was looking for a MythTV replacement... so that would be make Media Center even harder to swallow. I tried BeyondTV several years ago and liked it, but what turned me off when I got the HDHR tuners is that BTV is effectively a dead product. Its developer has openly said he is no longer interested in it and has shifted his focus away from the consumer space into a more commercial space. One of the things I liked about BTV was the fact that it created standard MPG files that any MPG editor was able to work with. I'm surprised to hear that you found the files to be proprietary. That may be something that changed later, after I had moved on. I'm running XP and Sage just keeps on tickin'.... mostly... Managed to mess it up a little when I migrated my RecordedTV from a NAS box to a couple of 2-TB drives on the Sage server. Pauses on playback.... but I am pretty sure that was because I forgot to format the drives properly (64k blocks) and it's struggling with the inevitably-fragmented disc. My Sage drive pool is comprised of 15 2TB Samsung drives, configured as a single 27.2TB volume. Even with all 4 tuners recording to the pool, I can watch (stream) a recorded program from across the LAN. Of course, in my case, I might be recording to one or more physical drives and pulling content from an entirely different drive. Who knows. The drives are all formatted with the default settings. I haven't checked their fragmentation status. I'm going to wait until I have a problem. I am also having major pixellation problems on certain channels at certain times of day. I had the Silicon Dust support guys check my tuner logs and they say there's no signal problem... so I'm hoping that it's somehow an artifact of the bad blocking and/or a flaky drive. Another possibility is growth of tree branches between antenna and transmitters - but the TOD thing would have tb explained for that one to work... and the onset of fall/winter may dispose of it with no effort on my part. When I first got the HDHR's, I was a bit mesmerized with the ability to watch their signal strength in real time. If you see any problems, you might want to fire up the HDHR Config program to check it out. Signal Strength, Signal Quality, and Symbol Quality are all available in real time. All of my tuners are using a single OTA antenna as their source, and my signal levels range from 93% to 100% across all of the channels. Signal Quality and Symbol Quality are always pegged at 100%. I did have a signal strength problem with one half of one dual tuner at first. Signal Strength would never get above 60% on that one. I did some basic t-shooting by moving cables around, then opened a case with HDHR support. They were excellent, by quickly reviewing my reported complaint and immediately issuing an RMA. They didn't cross ship the replacement, but even so, I had the new one in about 8 days from when I mailed back the bad one. Before getting the HDHR tuners, I messed around with several other brands and types (PCI cards, USB sticks, etc), and I'm kicking myself for waiting as long as I did. These things absolutely rock. The two things I like best are 1)no coax cables running to the server!, and 2)the tuners are available to any PC on the network and are pooled, so instead of connecting to a specific tuner, you connect to any available tuner in the pool. As you know, Sage is able to take advantage of that pooling, as does Win 7's Media Center. As long as I can keep the Sage box running XP - or even a version of 7 where it works the only thing I've heard so far that might break it is some driver issue if/when I have to go to a new mobo. No issues running Sage on Win 7. I didn't need any drivers since there's no hardware involved. I really *like* SageTV... Having said that, if Google and the old Frey team were to come out with a functional clone with the same customizability for under $200.... I hope they just leave well enough alone, but I suppose they didn't buy it with the idea of doing nothing. We'll see. -- Char Jackson |
#53
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SageTV (was Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?)
Per Char Jackson:
One of the things I liked about BTV was the fact that it created standard MPG files that any MPG editor was able to work with. I'm surprised to hear that you found the files to be proprietary. That may be something that changed later, after I had moved on. More likely, I got it mixed up with some other product. I think the same product I was thinking of also "Phoned Home" every time it booted up - so if the publisher's server was down or something, the user was unable to run the product. As far as WMC's dumbed-down interface making me crazy goes... You're probably normal.... Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of people must like it just fine.... But I'm one of those fault-finding PITAs. Just read Steve Job's biography, and I feel a bond with the guy. I've got the same arrogant attitude towards product - or at least UI - design... it's just that he had the brains to accompany it and I don't... -) -- Pete Cresswell |
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