People confuse slick interface with useful. MCE has to many limits to what you can play and where you can put stuff. When the HD-PVR came out I decided to try SageTV since they had support first.

I was a long time BeyondTV user but really wanted music integration. Seems like I have tried them all at some point. I want something that acts like a box I bought off the shelf, but that supports things none of them do, like playback on any TV I want, DVD rips, BD rips, etc. I actually bought a Tivo once, returned it within a day or two. And I'm 100% happy to 'sacrifice' some shiny for that. I guess what it really comes down to is I expect CE device type solidity and reliability. MediaPortal, sorry guys but the TV section utterly pales in comparison to Sage, and it's just not as solid. MCE, it's 'shiny' but that's really all it's got going for it IMO. I tried BeyondTV once or twice but it was way too flaky for my tastes (at least in my config). What I mean by 'good enough' is Sage plays them perfectly, metadata and pictures are nice, and it would be cool if Sage handled that better, but in the end, I don't really care enough.

'Good enough' support for ripped DVDs and now BDs.Lots of options for favorites like limiting channels, etc.Networkability - clients, extenders, placeshifter.Basically what keeps me from going elsewhere: At first it was the PC Client, then the media (DVD) support got added, HD recording, frequent updates. What's kept me is largely what's already been mentioned. Sage provided good guide data, and lots of recording features, that's what got me in. MCE was around but unavailable (no OEM copies available) and Snapstream was still just Snapstream and (IMO at the time) a pile of crap for the sort of CE device alternative I was looking for. To be completely honest, I sort of 'lucked' into Sage, at the time there just wasn't anything else. Keep in mind I've been using Sage since 1.4, so why did I choose it?īecause it's recording features blew away anything else out there at the time, and still do.

Mediaportal schedules direct epg client