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So, what do the shows look like? Great! Well, you've got some choice there, so quality is a result of your choices. SageTV® has eleven different picture qualities for its recordings. Of course, there are some pretty dramatic differences in the amount of hard drive space they take, too.
The default recording speed is 2 GB per hour, which gets a picture that is much better than your standard video cassette can do. The files are recorded in the MPEG2 (.mpg) format, which is readable by Windows Media Player, so you can even copy the file to another pc and play it easily.
Notice that the screen shots show a Windows bar at the top -- this is not the case if you are in "full-screen" mode. These pictures were actually pictures of the "active window," which can be copied by pressing Alt and PrintScreen at the same time.
The on-screen display is nice -- it shows you what you're watching, the current time, and the progress bar at the bottom of the screen. The progress bar doubles as a movement control. You can also click on the "VCR controls" at the lower right to go back 10 seconds, pause (or play, if paused) or go forward 10 seconds. Simply clicking the mouse on the screen is enough to call up the on-screen display.
The final picture shows the menu which is brought up by right-clicking the mouse. You can jump elsewhere in the SageTV program (and the show will continue to play in a window or as background, depending on your settings). You can also close the screen from here, change the screen format (16x9, 4x3, or "source"), and toggle to Full Screen display.
Copyright © 2004-2008 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.
