SAGETV - A DIFFERENT PVR
SOFTWARE PROGRAM FOR
THE CREATIVE VIDEO BLASTER
DIGITAL VCR CARD

I've been playing with the SageTV PVR software from Frey Technologies. SageTV is personal video recording (PVR) software with a built-in integrated enhanced program guide (EPG) for scheduling and watching your favorite TV shows on your own personal television primetime schedule. SageTV is software that has a limited time price tag of $49.95 (normally has a price tag of $74.95). The EPG ("SageGuide") in SageTV requires the SageTV Service which provides the TV listings data that fills up the grid in the SageTV EPG. SageTV Service for the EPG is now FREE as of May 19, 2003.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a newbie, don't be confused: The Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card already comes with its own excellent PVR software that you can use right away without having to buy any other PVR software. For more information about the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card and the PVR software that it already has, you can click here. However, if you are interested in a different PVR software program, and I know that there are power users out there who have been clamoring for new software, then keep reading this webpage.

So, if you are interested in SageTV, this review will discuss the following: (1) how to install the SageTV software including very important configuration settings with regard to the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card; (2) using SageTV to watch television; and (3) what does Ruel really think about SageTV as to whether or not it really works when used with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. You can click here if you want to skip to the bottomline to read what is Ruel's opinion on SageTV. Along the way, there will be comparisons to the original default PVR software that is already provided with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. It is only natural to compare the new SageTV software with the existing software that is already provided with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.

SageTV has a built-in integrated EPG to help you schedule and
watch personal TV with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR
card. (This is the NEW Blue Background Motif for SageTV.)

This review is specifically with regard to using SageTV with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. Please note that the SageTV software is very new having been introduced at the beginning of March 2003.

You can look up detailed descriptions of TV shows.

FYI, SageTV can only be used with TV Tuner cards which must have a built-in hardware MPEG encoder. The Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card has a built-in hardware MPEG encoder. There are a limited number of TV Tuner cards that have the built-in hardware MPEG encoder. (NOTE: That's MPEG2 video ENCODER in the hardware, not necessarily the decoder.) The advantage of having a built-in hardware MPEG encoder is that the TV Tuner card with the built-in hardware MPEG encoder handles all of the resource-consuming PVR recording activity. If you want a point of reference, you should note that the new so-called Media Center PCs running WinXP MCE all use TV Tuner cards that have a built-in hardware encoder. In my opinion, if you want a really good PVR, then you need a TV Tuner card with a built-in hardware encoder even if you have a high-powered Pentium 4 computer.

INSTALLING SAGETV FOR
USE WITH THE CREATIVE VIDEO
BLASTER DIGITAL VCR CARD

Required Software to Install for SageTV:

1. Sun Java
2. SageTV (version 1.3.8 or higher)

Optional Software for SageTV (for the
Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card):

1. Elecard:  MPEG2 Video Decoder
2. Elecard:  MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder for DirectShow (go to Elecard download page and it should be the eleventh link further down on that download page; click here if you are having problems installing the audio encoder)
3. PowerDVD (for the Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder)

Other Suggested Optional Software:

1. Windows Media Player (for playing SageTV videos outside of SageTV)
2. PowerDVD (for playing SageTV videos if Windows Media Player doesn't properly play the video files)
3. WinDVD (for playing SageTV videos if Windows Media Player doesn't properly play the video files)

There are two major software requirements that you will need in order to install SageTV for use with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. First, you will need to install Sun Microsystems' Java version 1.4.0 or higher. SageTV uses java for managing its interface. And, second, you will need to install SageTV from Frey Technologies.

NOTE: If you are reading this webpage, then the chances are you are using a Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. And if you are, then you will also need additional software including the Elecard MPEG2 Video Decoder, the Elecard MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder, and PowerDVD, which provides the Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder, in order to make SageTV work with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. If you have a DVD drive on your PC, there's probably a chance that you may already have PowerDVD. Again, you will need this additional software if you are using the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.

There are a few other software programs that I would recommend. I would suggest that you also use Windows Media Player or PowerDVD or WinDVD if you want to play the SageTV MPEG2 video files outside of SageTV. FYI, needless to say, you could also watch your SageTV recorded videos inside SageTV. I'm told that Windows Media Player should be good enough for most people for playing the video files outside of SageTV. However, I've found that Windows Media Player played the video files with the picture shifted to the right in an off-center manner on my PC -- I think that's due to the mix of different multiple codecs that I have on my PC -- but both PowerDVD and WinDVD could properly play the SageTV recorded videos. If you have a DVD drive on your PC, there's a chance that you may already have PowerDVD or WinDVD on your PC. Again, needless to say, you could always watch your SageTV recorded videos in SageTV.

When you are installing the SageTV software, the SageTV PDF documentation file should come up after the installation. Read the SageTV PDF documentation in order to familiarize yourself with how SageTV works because SageTV works a little bit differently than the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. SageTV is different -- so you should read the documentation.

After you have installed the SageTV software, you should turn off the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. Do not uninstall the original software but instead turn it off by right-clicking the VideoBlaster Digital VCR icon in the system tray and clicking quit. This will ensure that the original software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card does not interfere with SageTV during the current session. It is assumed that you have the original software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card loading at the windows startup. Further below after several paragraphs, we will discuss how to *NOT* let SageTV load at the windows startup in order to avoid a conflict between the two PVR software programs.

Then run the SageTV software and go through the Setup Wizard where you will set up the EPG including setting up your TV channels. During that process, you will be asked to select the capture device: Be sure to select VBDVCR for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. While setting up the EPG, you will need to be online in order to download the TV listings data for the EPG. FYI, the SageTV EPG creates a WIZ.BIN database file in the SageTV directory. For the XMLTV fans out there, the SageTV EPG does NOT do XMLTV. The SageTV EPG service areas are currently limited to the top 25 television markets in the United States. The folks at Frey Technologies say that they plan to provide full coverage to the rest of the U.S. by the end of 2003. Fortunately, it appears that TV listings for basic antenna broadcast coverage may be provided for most of the U.S. And the TV listings for DirecTV and Dish satellite television appears to cover most of the U.S. However, cable coverage may not be complete for most areas in the U.S. You can use SageTV with antenna broadcast TV, regular cable TV, digital cable TV, satellite TV, and digital satellite TV.

EPG TIP IF YOU DON'T LIVE IN ONE OF THE TOP TWENTY-FIVE TV MARKETS IN THE UNITED STATES: Unfortunately, the SageTV EPG does not provide cable TV listings for my area in San Diego. San Diego is covered for regular antenna broadcast listings as well as for DirecTV and Dish satellite TV listings. So, what I did as a workaround was to take the antenna broadcast listings plus a bunch of channels from the DirecTV listings and then I remapped those channels to the appropriate channels on cable. (I could probably also remap the listings from a provider in one of the top 25 markets also.) You can do the same thing if you too are not living in one of the so-called top 25 television markets in the U.S. To remap the channels, while you are in the Setup Wizard or in the Channel Setup, select a channel and press "Options" to remap the channel to a different channel number. There were no equivalent channels for a couple of specific channels for my area. So, I had to remap completely different channels for those missing channels even though the schedule listings for those two channels were completely wrong.

ANOTHER EPG TIP FOR CHANNEL CHANGING: If you want to be able to access a channel in SageTV, then be sure that you have that channel listed or mapped into the EPG. A channel has to be in the EPG or else you cannot change to that channel at all. You cannot even manually change to the channel by punching in the channel number if the channel is not listed in the EPG.

TIP FOR SWITCHING BETWEEN CREATIVE SOFTWARE AND SAGETV SOFTWARE: After you have finished setting up the EPG, go to the SageTV main menu, then go into the Setup, then go into the "Detailed Setup," then on the "Advanced" tab, select "Do Not Load at Startup" and then click "Apply." I personally prefer the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card to load at windows startup instead of loading SageTV at startup. For now, I would rather manually run SageTV whenever I may want to use SageTV. So, whenever you want to run SageTV, be sure to first turn off the original software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card and then run SageTV.

(You may also have to tweak your windows startup to further ensure that SageTV does not load at windows startup. To do that, after you have finished configuring SageTV and exited from SageTV, you would run MSCONFIG -- click START, RUN, and then type in MSCONFIG and press enter -- and then on the "Startup" tab uncheck the box for the command for
"C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\SageTV.exe -s"
to make sure that SageTV does not start up when windows boots up. Run MSCONFIG along with these extra configuration steps after you are done configuring SageTV as discussed on this webpage and after you have exited from SageTV.)

While you are still in the "Detailed Setup," click the "Video" tab, and since you are most likely using the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card if you are reading this webpage then select "Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder" (which should have been installed with the installation of PowerDVD) and click "Apply." Then click the "Audio" tab and check to see that the audio settings are set to default. Then click the "Multimedia" tab and make sure the "AV Capture Device" is set to "VBDVCR Capture."

One other setting that I like to use on the "Multimedia" tab is to uncheck the box for "Enable Toolbars" -- I personally don't like having the toolbar enabled because the toolbar's icons are too small and too many on the SageTV menus. And those toolbar icons also clutter up the "time bar" when you pull up that "time bar" while you are watching TV. Click "Apply" after you disable the toolbar if you choose to disable the toolbar. You may want to disable the toolbar later after you have played with SageTV for a while. Also, after you configure the remote control as described below, you may eventually want to disable the toolbar.

Now, while you are still in the "Detailed Setup," click the "Commands" tab which is for configuring the remote control.

You will have to map the remote control buttons
for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card
to appropriate commands for use with SageTV.
(Click HERE to see much larger view and
mapping info for Sage.properties file.)

Fortunately, the remote control for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card will work with SageTV. However, you will have to configure the remote control for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card to use SageTV commands. So, if you are on the "Commands" tab in the "Detailed Setup," then you will have to select the command for a remote control button, then click "Link Remote Control Button to Sage Command," then click the appropriate button on the remote control, and then repeat for each button on the remote control. Click HERE for detailed pictures on configuring the remote control -- plus the easier to cut-and-paste remote control mapping information that you can put in the Sage.properties file if you want to have my exact button mappings (see below for more information about editing the Sage.properties file). Note that I am using the Skip Backward and the Skip Forward commands on the "Replay" button and on the "Skip" button as well as on the "Rew" button and the "FF" button since SageTV does not have a rewind command or fast forward command. SageTV does have a the Play Faster (only 2x) command, as well as a Play Slower (half-speed) command, but the Skip commands are quicker for moving around in a SageTV recording.

(As a point of comparison, the ORIGINAL software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card has fast forward and rewind commands with more multiple speeds, a replay command similar to the Skip Backward command, a 30-second skip command similar to the Skip Forward command, and the pause button can be used in combination with the fast forward and rewind commands for multiple slow motion speeds. In contrast, SageTV does NOT have those commands but instead has the one-speed Play Faster command, the half-speed Play Slower command, no rewind command, and the Skip Forward and Skip Backward commands.)

After you have finished setting up the buttons for the remote control, click "OK" to get out of the "Detailed Setup" and then exit out of SageTV. Note: One way to exit out of SageTV is to right-click the SageTV icon in the system tray and clicking "Exit SageTV" -- but note that if you have any other programs running, you may have to minimize those programs in order to see the SageTV exit dialog menu.

Now that we have exited out of SageTV, there are some other settings that I like to use in SageTV's Sage.properties file which can be found in the SageTV file directory. You will have to use NOTEPAD to edit the Sage.properties file. Be sure that you have exited out of SageTV before editing the Sage.properties file.

The one important setting that you should change in the Sage.properties file is a setting that should help when you are trying to get rid of the SageTV channel-changing sound sync problem that may occur with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card:
  seeker/fast_mux_switch=false  
By using this setting which should be set to false, this should help you in trying to prevent the SageTV channel-changing sound sync problem from occurring. If you keep this setting as set to "true," the SageTV channel-changing sound sync problem may become very noticable and more difficult to fix without changing the setting. After making this change, if the sound does go out of sync, then change the channel again and then change the channel back to bring the sound back into sync. (Note, as a point of comparison, you do NOT have this channel-changing sound sync problem with the original PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.)

Another setting that you may want to change in the Sage.properties file is for changing the background in SageTV. You will have to use NOTEPAD to edit the Sage.properties file to change the background setting:
  ui/background_image=name-of-background-goes-here.jpg  

SageTV can guide you when using the personal television
capabilities of the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.
(This screenshot shows the new default blue background.)

Related to this setting is another setting for how the SageTV menu colors appear on the screen. For instance, if the default blue color appears as a very bright light blue color which makes the text very hard to read, then you may want to use this setting:
  ui/ntsc_colors=false  

Beginning with version 1.2.4 of SageTV, there are also a bunch of uc/colors/... settings that you can manually change in the Sage.properties file for changing the colors in SageTV, but you will have to figure out the RGB numbers for particular colors that you may want to use. Beginning with version 1.3.x of SageTV, you will get the new blue background in SageTV plus the new translucent menu and buttons in SageTV which are all very nice. If the menu and buttons look a little too green, you may want to delete all of the ui/colors/... settings in the Sage.properties file.

Another setting that I like to use is to force SageTV to open up in fullscreen mode and not in a window:
  ui/last_win_fs=true  
SageTV opens up in a window by default -- thus forcing the user to click the maximize button on the windows titlebar. The setting of ui/last_win_fs=true forces SageTV to open up in the much better fullscreen mode.

Two other settings that I have changed in the Sage.properties file are for the Skip Forward and Skip Backward commands. SageTV doesn't really have fast-forward or rewind commands. (See the previous discussion on this webpage for how I mapped the Skip Forward and Skip Backward commands to the remote control.) I set these Skip commands to 15 seconds each instead of the default 10 seconds.
  videoframe/ff_time=15000  
  videoframe/rew_time=-15000  
I could set the Skip Forward command to 30 seconds, but, since SageTV doesn't have a fast forward command, 15 seconds ensures that you don't overshoot too much when you merely want to go forward in the video a little bit. If want to skip ahead 30 seconds, then you can merely press Skip Forward twice.

After you have made all of the changes to the Sage.properties file, then save the file, exit out of NOTEPAD, and then backup the Sage.properties file and the WIZ.BIN file to a backup directory. What I did was make a backup directory off of the SageTV directory and copied the Sage.properties file and the WIZ.BIN file to that backup directory. You will want to have those two files backed up for the unfortunate situation when SageTV may possibly crash and wipe out your settings. This has happened to me several times where my settings were destroyed after a SageTV crash and I had to start all over again in setting up SageTV to way I want it to run.

Lastly for this installation section, here's one more tip for those power users who like to install new versions of software all the time.

Note For Those Of You Who Love Upgrading Your Software But
You Need To Go Back To An Old Version: If you need to uninstall
SageTV to go back to a past version of SageTV, then you should
run the downloaded SageTV installation file to remove SageTV
completely. Unfortunately, SageTV may not completely uninstall
if you try using Add / Remove in the windows Control Panel.

If you are one of those impulsive power users who likes to install the latest version of software immediately whenever the latest version comes out, but you unfortunately find out that the latest version somehow doesn't work for you, then you will have to go back to the previous working version of SageTV. Instead of uninstalling the latest version of SageTV using Add / Remove in the windows Control Panel, you may want to run the SageTV installation file and then select "Remove" from the installation program. Otherwise, you may not be able to completely clean out the latest version of SageTV and that could possibly result in an unsuccessful reinstall of the previous version of SageTV. Since the SageTV installation program does not have a roll-back option, you will have to use the "Remove" option found in the installation program and then reinstall the previous version if the latest version does not work for you.

WATCHING TV ON A 3-SECOND
(OR LONGER) TIME DELAY: USING
THE SAGETV PVR & THE SAGETV EPG
WITH THE CREATIVE VIDEO BLASTER
DIGITAL VCR CARD

Okay, you should hopefully have SageTV successfully installed and configured so you can watch your own personal television on your own schedule using the SageTV PVR software. Click the SageTV icon on the desktop or from the Start Menu and then wait for SageTV's main menu to appear on the screen. On the main menu you can explore the six buttons for "Guide," "Library," "Search," "TV," "Setup," and "Sleep" -- or since you have already set up the remote control then you can merely press the "TV" button on the remote control to start watching TV or you can press the "Guide" button on the remote control to pull up the EPG to check out the TV listings schedule to find out what's on TV.

With SageTV, you are using completely different
software instead of using the original software for
your Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.

When you are watching TV, you may see a couple of onscreen displays (OSD) or you can press "Info" to make the displays appear on the TV screen. For instance, you may see a "time bar" towards the bottom section of the screen and you may see a status box in the upper right hand corner of the screen. The "time bar" tells you at what point in time you are in a TV show. The status box in the upper right hand corner of the screen tells you what you are watching. (The status box reminds me of the OSD that you may see on some of Zenith TV sets which are able to get TV show title information from the TV broadcast -- but SageTV gets the TV show title information from the EPG.) You will also notice the "time bar" has the colors white, green, and red. White means you have already watched part of the TV show. Green means there is still part of a TV show you haven't watched yet. And Red means there are parts of the TV show that were not recorded. If you use a mouse, you can drag the arrow on the "time bar" to any point within the TV show.

The SageTV EPG can show what's on television,
change the channel when watching "live TV," and
schedule recordings of TV shows to watch later.

When you change the channels in SageTV, there will probably be what I would call a momentary channel changing latency delay with the screen going blank for a moment between the changing of the channels. This is similar to the channel changing latency delay that you may get when changing channels with digital cable TV. After a while you may get used to this latency delay so that you don't notice it. Similar to this is the latency delay when a TV show ends and a new TV show begins on the same channel when the TV screen goes blank for a brief moment when the previous TV show stops recording while waiting for the new TV show to show up on the screen -- this would happen in coordination with the EPG schedule of TV shows. It's like SageTV is queuing up the new TV show.

This aforementioned latency is apparently related to the PVR delay that you have with SageTV. I've compared the "live TV" on SageTV (which has the PVR delay) to actual live TV on a regular TV set (which would have no PVR delay) and confirmed that the SageTV PVR delay is at least three seconds long. SageTV is recording all the time and has the three-second PVR delay in displaying the "live TV" to allow you to pause the "live TV" and to allow you to skip backwards in a TV show to give you an instant replay of whatever you are watching. Of course, if you pause or rewind the TV for a long period of time, then the delay would be much longer. The TV also pauses when you go to the EPG or to a SageTV menu and the TV picks up where you left off when you go back to the TV.

(As a point of comparison, the SageTV three-second PVR delay is longer that the one-second PVR delay that you have with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card's original software which doesn't blank the screen.)

FYI, when you are changing channels in SageTV, you can change channels to *ONLY* the channels that you have in the EPG. If you don't have a particular channel in the EPG, then you cannot change to that channel. So you have to set up that channel in the EPG even if you have to remap a different TV channel with the wrong TV schedule listings to the channel number that you want to have access to. With SageTV, your TV watching is locked into whatever you have on the EPG.

(As an additional point of comparison, you can change to *ANY* channel number with the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.)

The SageTV EPG can display an info description of a TV show.

As for the EPG itself, the SageTV EPG is fun to use. The SageTV EPG, which is officially called "SageGuide," has two weeks of TV schedules. With the SageTV EPG, you can do both: (1) schedule a TV show for recording from the EPG; and (2) change channels on the EPG to go to a TV show that is on right now that you want to watch in "live TV." And any recordings that were made will appear in the EPG. You can also look at more detailed information about a TV show -- select a TV show on the EPG grid and press "Info" which will expand that section of the EPG to give you a synopsis of the TV show.

You have options as to how you may want
to watch television using SageTV with the
Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.

Also, after you have selected a TV show on the EPG grid, you can press "Options" to get a menu of more options including setting up the recording, pulling up more detailed information about the TV show, and also checking out if there are any additional times that the TV show may be broadcast (although most likely for different episodes of the TV show).

As a point of comparison, the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card does not officially have a built-in integrated EPG. However, you can use third-party EPGs like DigiGuide with add-on plugin software to both (1) schedule TV show recordings and (2) change channels on the EPG to watch a "live TV" show on the original PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster VCR card. (You can click here and here for information about using DigiGuide or another EPG to interact with the original software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.) In comparing the SageTV EPG and DigiGuide, the SageTV EPG needs a command for going to the primetime section of the day's TV schedule.

There are three shortcuts for moving around the SageTV EPG: (1) you can press "Guide" to return to the current time after looking at a different time in the EPG; (2) you can press "Play" to jump between the "Live TV" section, the "Recording Schedule" section, and the "Sage Recordings" section in the EPG; and (3) you can press a number on the remote control and then press the "Skip Forward" button or the "Skip Back" button to jump ahead or backwards in the EPG for those number of days. What is missing is a shortcut to go to the primetime 8:00 PM schedule for the current day.

The SageTV EPG can let you see the different times
and dates when a particular TV show may be airing
such as when a sports-related show is on televison.

As previously mentioned, you can look up additional times for a TV show. For instance, if you are in the middle of watching the television "March Madness" schedule of NCAA basketball, you can click on a "College Basketball" game, press "Options," and then look up current and future airings of "College Basketball." Needless to say, you can do the same thing with any TV show.

You can search the SageTV EPG in various ways.

You can also search the EPG for various TV shows. You can search for keywords in the titles of TV shows, in the description of TV shows, by person in the TV show, or by searching all of those search fields. The SageTV EPG search capability also includes a built-in onscreen virtual keyboard for typing in the keywords that you want to use in your search.

The SageTV EPG search capability
has an onscreen virtual keyboard.

A search example would include searching all TV shows for the keyword "SPORTS" and that may result in all possible TV shows that happen to deal with "SPORTS." FYI, for another point of comparison, if you were to use DigiGuide with the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card, you would have similar search capabilities in DigiGuide except the DigiGuide search function would not have a built-in virtual onscreen keyboard. Although there are similar EPG capabilities, you should note that the SageTV EPG is directly integrated into SageTV which may be attractive to those users who insist on having an EPG that is already a part of the PVR software.

A search for "SPORTS" in the SageTV EPG has
many results for any show involving "SPORTS."

So, those are the basics for watching your own personal television with SageTV. There is a whole lot more to SageTV such as SageTV's "intelligent recording" capability including the intelligent recording commands to tell SageTV that you have "watched" a particular TV show or that you "don't like" a particular TV show which are somewhat similar to the TiVo thumbs up / thumbs down commands for teaching SageTV what to intelligently record according to your TV viewing habits. There is also the "Favorites Manager" for managing your "favorite" TV shows that you want automatically recorded, the optional "Parental Controls" for restricting what can be watched, and the "Library" for storing your archived SageTV video recordings on a more permanent basis (which is similar to "Keepers" in the original PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card).

OKAY, WHAT'S THE
NITTY GRITTY ON
RECORDING & THE
SAGETV VIDEO FILES?

There are some users who don't care about the differences between SageTV and the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. Those are the users who only want one thing: they want to be able to record TV shows and be able to take the video files made by the PVR and then be able to immediately burn those recordings to DVDs and SVCDs that can be played on a DVD player. That's the magic question for users who are looking for the holy grail for making compliant MPEG2 video files that don't need any massaging in order to burn DVDs and SVCDs. So, can you do that with the video files made by SageTV? Well, SageTV has the potential for doing that since SageTV has more flexible settings for making recordings. As to whether it will work for you, all I can tell you is that you will have to try it yourself. Pick a show in the EPG, press "Options," select record, then press "Options" again, and then select "Change Recording Quality" to change the DVD / SVCD recording quality setting that you want to try out. Then, after the recording is made, fire up your video editor / burner software and load the video from among the video files found in the SageTV video directory at:
  C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\Video
(unless if you put the video directory on a different harddrive). The video files are right there for you to immediately access without having to "export" them.

Once you set up a TV show for recording, you will have
more options such to change the start / end times for the
recording and you can also change the recording quality.

Note that when SageTV records TV shows, the recorded TV shows will show up in the SageTV EPG under "Sage Recordings." Also note that if you leave SageTV on, SageTV will keep recording on the channel you left it on even if you have SageTV in background sleep mode and even if you did not schedule any recordings. This is SageTV's "intelligent recording" capability at work. You can make SageTV more smart as to what should be intelligently recorded (to automatically change the channel at a certain time to record a TV show) by using the "watched" and "don't like" commands which are somewhat similar to the TiVo thumbs up and thumbs down commands to teach the PVR what to record according to your television viewing habits. "Intelligent recording" is different from individually scheduling a particular TV show to be recorded and is also different from setting a TV show as a "favorite" to be recorded weekly, daily, and at every other time a "favorite" TV show may be broadcast. According to the SageTV manual, "intelligent recording" is suppose to automatically record TV shows "based on your prior viewing habits."

FYI, SageTV will keep recording and recording if you have the "intelligent recording" capability turned on. If you don't want SageTV to constantly keep recording, then you will have to go into the "Detailed Setup" in SageTV, go to the "General" tab, and then uncheck the box for "Enable Intelligent Recording." If you disable the "intelligent recording," the only recordings that will be made will only be your "favorites" and whatever other TV shows you may have specifically scheduled in the EPG plus the timeshift recordings of whatever "live TV" that you may have been watching.

With regard to how much harddrive space to devote to video recording files, the SageTV manual suggests that you have 20 gigabytes be devoted to video harddrive space. You can get by with much less harddrive space (maybe as little as 4 to 5 gigabytes), but whether you enable or disable the "intelligent recording," I would suggest that you set up a very large separate video harddrive that is 40 gigabytes or much larger for storing the SageTV video files and change the settings in SageTV's "Detailed Setup" to use that dedicated separate video harddrive. The video files can be large and I think that you would be happy if you devoted a separate video harddrive to SageTV.

SageTV recording settings.

As for the recording settings that you have in SageTV, you have generic settings for Best, Great, Good, and Fair. And then you have specific settings for DVD Standard Play, DVD Long Play, DVD Extra Long Play, SVCD Standard Play, SVCD Long Play, SVCD Extra Long Play, CVD, and MPEG2 Max Quality. Those settings should be compliant for making DVDs and SVCDs. However, you will have to experiment to see if any of those settings will work for you and if they will work with whatever burner software that you may have.

Continuation of SageTV recording settings.

FYI, if you want to directly play the SageTV MPEG2 video files "as is" outside of SageTV, you can find the video files in the default SageTV video directory found at:
  C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\Video
(unless if you put the video directory on another harddrive). I've found that I could properly play the SageTV MPEG2 video files using either PowerDVD or WinDVD. (I highly recommend PowerDVD if you want to play both the SageTV MPEG2 video files and the exported MPEG2 video files made by the original default PVR software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card.) You can also play the SageTV video files in Windows Media Player (WMP), but I found on my system that the video picture was off-center in WMP. Needless to say, you can also play the SageTV videos within SageTV without having to use a different software program.

BOTTOMLINE ON SAGETV:
DOES SAGETV REALLY WORK
WITH THE CREATIVE VIDEO
BLASTER DIGITAL VCR CARD
AND DOES RUEL LIKE SAGETV?

So, what do I think of SageTV? When I was previously reading the very glowing comments by some overly enthusiastic users of a very early pre-release version of SageTV, I was wondering if SageTV was really that good. Yes, you can use SageTV as a PVR software program with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card. You can use SageTV to record TV shows and you can watch those recorded TV shows on your own personal primetime schedule instead of watching "live TV" when you may be constantly changing channels and finding out there may be nothing to watch on "live TV" at the moment. (FYI, some people say that watching "live TV" is "appointment TV" when you are tied down to inflexible specific times on the television networks' schedules.) For the EPG fans, the SageTV EPG is a built-in integrated EPG which should please those users who insist on having a built-in integrated EPG.

As for the interface, SageTV has a greatly improved interface that I think you may enjoy using. But I also still like what I have with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card's original default PVR software which I think is easier to install and configure and which I also feel has an excellent PVR interface (click here to compare). Nonetheless, I think you may like the newly revamped interface for SageTV.

Fortunately, SageTV is moving on towards better things since recent new versions of SageTV can work with multiple TV Tuner cards -- and there are networking capabilities in early development although not publicly released yet. So, even though I am still using the original software for the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card as my preferred primary PVR software, I can say that I do like SageTV and that I am keeping a keen eye on SageTV's progress. FYI, as far as I can tell, the folks at Frey Technologies are very receptive to feedback with regard to their intriguing SageTV software. SageTV looks to have a promising future. However what counts for today, for those who are wondering if they want to use SageTV, is that SageTV does work with the Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR card although you will have to do a bit of tweaking to the SageTV configuration.

Despite my own personal opinion on SageTV, I think there are two types of users who may immediately embrace SageTV: (1) the power users who are early adopters in a constant search for new software; and (2) the DVD / SVCD burner fanatics. (Note: SageTV also has a cousin named SageRecorder which the power users and particularly the DVD / SVCD burner fanatics may certainly embrace.) For those power users who are always looking for new software and who are demanding upgrades to their existing software, well, SageTV may be for you if you want to switch to something new. For those DVD / SVCD burner fanatics, what SageTV has going for it is that SageTV has more recording settings that are more compliant for burning DVDs and SVCDs -- and for those users who want to burn DVDs / SVCDs, their being able to immediately use the video files without any additional conversion or massaging of the video files may be all that matters.

Happy PC-TV Watching!
Ruel

NOTICE: Ruel provides many free links seen on these pages. If you buy anything, your purchases would be from a linked third-party website(s). The links are for your convenience since everyone asks for suggestions about products. The products should come with their own guarantees and warranties. As for return policies, the various online vendors who are linked should have return policies -- look at the specific vendor information carefully and decide for yourself what card, device, or other product you may want to get.