Comments on: SageTV HD Media Extender Review

By: Ted Hartman

Ted Hartman — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:55:44 +0000

SageTV customer seervice is by email only. Its slow.

If you get a defective 100, it will take some time to get anyone’s attention at Sage.

There is no telephone number on their site.

This gives SageTV a poor mark compared to sites like Newegg and Tigerdirect who offer instant customer service and someone who will answer a phone.

Its tough to get a non-working unit and have to wait for a email to get anything done. Just call me spoiled…

By: Matthew Friedman

Matthew Friedman — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:10:28 +0000

I have this extender working with my Mac Mini running Leopard 10.5.2. I’ve had it for a week and it’s worked pretty much flawlessly. To me, the biggest downside is that support is not good at all, especially for mac users. You only get support by email, and in my experience the techs never read past the first line of the email, so you have to be specific and concise. Multiple questions need a seperate email for each one or they simply won’t get answered.

The product website says you need SageTV 6.X, but this isn’t true. You need at least 6.3. And it wasn’t until multiple emails with tech support that they told me this is a beta version for the mac and has to get downloaded from a special link.

But now that is all sorted out, it seems to work great. The picture and sound quality are perfect. Haven’t thrown a lot of HD at it… mainly using it to play back a HD library of SD DVDs. Regardless, it’s ten times better than the other Sage hardware, which I eventually gave up on getting to work with my mac.

Hope this helps!

By: geogecko

geogecko — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:05:22 +0000

Thanks for the review, very informative. Can’t wait to get one of these guys.

As for EK, the remote is not programmable, so you’ll have to rely on another universal remote, such as a Harmony to integrate everything into one remote.

By: toricred

toricred — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:11:42 +0000

I’ve been using SageTV for about 2 years now. This will simplify my life (trouble-shooting HD on 2 clients) and I can’t wait to get one.

By: craig

craig — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:54:15 +0000

Does that remote happen to be a programmable remote, so we can use it for the TV and the box?

By: EK

EK — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:05:57 +0000

Hmm, it would be wonderful if it can play DVR-MS over SMB/Windows Shared folder. I want to keep my MCE2005 for PVR, and use this extender in other rooms.

By: Rodalpho

Rodalpho — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:52:32 +0000

I totally agree with Mike. If this product could pull video off a simple SMB share and handled 720p MKV files (standard format for downloaded TV shows) I’d buy it in an instant. So would about 20 other people in my office currently stuck on XBMC because there’s just no better alternative that offers HD.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:52:37 +0000

Most of the HD files I’ve been downloading are 720p or 1080i MKV format x.264 with AAC or DTS audio. I’ve found a program that will convert the container and audio format while leaving the video intact. This works on my Xbox 360 but its still a pain. And it doesn’t work with DTS audio. Also, my xbox 360 seemed unable to handle 1080i (it chunked on the file I tried.) I just want something like XBMC that will play any format you throw at it… and in high def. I’d rather not build a dedicated HTPC at this point.