SageTvHdTheater
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SageTV's HD Theater gets Blu-ray streaming
Fans of SageTV will love this one -- out now in the latest beta release of the software is HD Theater streamer playback of ripped Blu-ray discs. There's no support for the interactive features, but based on what we've seen from BD-Live so far, you won't be missing much; what you are able to do is point the HD Theater at the ripped BDMV folder on your SageTV PC and enjoy multiple audio tracks and chapter support, with subtitles promised somewhere down the road. For now, this only works when the HD Theater is used in extender mode, but a future firmware upgrade promises to bring the functionality to streamers used in standalone mode. This certainly gives SageTV something to crow about with respect to, say, a Kaleidescape setup, doesn't it? Beta testers, let us know how this feature works out for you.
SageTV HD Theater review
When we first heard about the new SageTV HD Theater, we thought it was just a smaller version of the HD100, but boy we're we wrong. The reason is simple, the new HD Theater from SageTV does everything we loved about the HD100 -- like extending HD from SageTV DVR software to any TV in the house -- but is now smaller and adds a great new twist: it will work as a standalone media streamer. Now we know what you're thinking, "great, like we need yet another media streamer." We know it, because that's exactly what we were thinking. But this is different because it will play every codec under the sun -- including MKV and H.264 -- and at the same time give you direct access to online content from the likes of YouTube and HD Podcasts -- Hulu was demoed at CES, but isn't live yet. Before you get too excited though, this wonder box isn't perfect, but you'll just have to click on through to learn all about that. %Gallery-42656%
Video: Hulu on the SageTV HD Theater
After seeing a few pictures of the Hulu access on the SageTV HD Theater, we wanted to go by and check it out for ourselves, and while we were there we took a quick video -- sorry it isn't in HD. Overall we liked the interface, and although we've given SageTV a hard time about the lack of richness in regards to the interface in the past, we were impressed overall. As we mentioned before, this isn't available to the public yet and one of the reasons is that right now the ads aren't coming through, but Sage assured us this would be fixed before it's released -- shucks.
Hulu on its way to the SageTV HD Theater
Although most of us didn't think Hulu stood a chance, it has not only proven us wrong in a big way, but now it's the hottest online source for video, featuring some of the best shows on television. The problem of course is that despite what some may tell you, most people want to enjoy their TV shows on their TV -- shocker huh? So we were happy to see that an already very useful media streamer like the new SageTV HD Theater has a working Hulu demo at CES. The bad news is that it isn't out in public beta yet and from the sounds of it, it doesn't integrate as tightly with SageTV as much as we'd like. The good side of this is that a SageTV server won't be required to use the new feature, but yeah we want our cake and eat it too.
