For example, say you were stuck at work and didn’t want to miss, you could use the Placeshifter client to connect to your Sage system at home and watch Live TV, no need to miss a thing. it’s software that runs on your PC) but you use it outside of your home network. Windows Media Center users have been asking for PC based extenders (aka SoftSled) for years and Microsoft have never delivered, Sage users on the other hand have been enjoying PC clients for a long time, not only that but Sage also has a client they call the Placeshifter, this is effectively the same as a PC based client (i.e. What is probably my most favourite feature of Sage though is its server/client architecture. Out of all the media center apps I’ve ever used Sage has always offered the most rock solid TV recording and playback experience (MediaPortal has been rock solid recording for the last year or so but playback can still occasionally be flaky), if that’s your main priority in selecting a media center then Sage is the perfect choice. While Sage may not be kings of the UI, the one thing they have always done well is the recording and playing back of content. The main menu has been given a facelift and is now very similar to many of the skins you see for XBMC, however drill down into the various sections and you begin to see that it still has that same busy looking feel that the last version did.
In fact, Sage themselves must feel the same as version 7, which has recently been released, has a re-designed UI, albeit in my eyes it looks more like a coat of paint than a complete re-design. In my opinion the problems with Sage’s UI is the one major stumbling block that’s stopping Sage from elevating itself from being *just* a great media center into a superb media center. The subject of Sage’s UI has come up in countless topics in the support forums, with many polarised views, some people love it, some hate it, some put up with it, the one thing that most users seem to be able to agree on however is that good or bad UI Sage is still a great media center. In my eyes it’s always been too busy and has never had the same kind of polish as Windows Media Center, Media Portal or XBMC et al. The main reason I have never used SageTV as my media center of choice is because of the UI. I still think it’s worthwhile discussing why I chose not to use SageTV in the first place before moving on to why I’m now switching over. Damn, I started writing this post over a year ago, much has changed since then, not least the fact that I’m actually in the process of switching to SageTV, whereas this time last year I had no intention of doing so.
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