My take on SageTV being acquired by Google.

SageTV is some awesome PVR software that runs on a PC. I have been running it for 3 years now and I have Extenders on every TV in my house. I don't run coax to my TV's just Ethernet to the extenders.  All the recording. scheduling, program guide etc is on my SageTV server.  I have 4 tuners and can record up to 4 HD shows at once.  I love this system. Before SageTV I was a Beyond TV user for 5 years. I haven't had a regular DVR in my house in a long long time.  In fact I just built a new "server" for SageTV and upgraded to version 7, wow it looks awesome now.

My first reaction to the news of being acquired by Google was negative. I LOVE this product and it runs my house, all our TV, Movies, Music and Pictures are accessible from any TV, PC or Laptop, whether they are in the house or not. My kids all know how to use it, even the 2 yr old is picking it up.  I can't imagine what I would do if I had to replace it. Google has a history of buying products, trying them out and leaving them for dead.  For example Orkut. They also try new things and then kill them, IE Wave.

I've been thinking though, Google TV is supposed to interact with existing DVR's. SageTV has mentioned several times over the last few years that they were working on a Linux based DVR on USB stick concept. Take stock hardware, add a supported tuner, plug in the USB jump drive, boot from USB and have a fully functioning DVR with none of the configuration problems.

So maybe, just maybe this is a good thing. Maybe the next GoogleTV companion product is a SageTV based DVR appliance.  Maybe through the power of Google we get official Cable Card support in SageTV? Interesting.....

Now, what does this mean to me and all the SageTV guys that run windows based PVR's?  I don't know and that kind of scares me.  

Google and SageTV, please don't screw this up and make me use Windows Media Center. I am not building a PC or buying an XBox for all my Tv's.


Here is to hoping that Google is quick to make an Android Placeshifter client for SageTV. That would be awesome.