Friday, May 02, 2008

SageTV HD Extender Gets Reviewed Again - And Misunderstood Again


PC World decided to take a stab at reviewing the SageTV HD100 Extender and did a decent job at some of the main points, but as often happens with HTPC components, the reviewer didn't really understand what he had.  He seemed to be under the impression that the device had to be close to his PC and that wireless is a key feature in an HTPC extender.  While wireless would be nice, it's extremely unlikely that HD streaming across a WiFi network would provide consistently good results in most homes.

An other con that was focused on was difficult setup. I think this stems from non SageTV users have more difficulty getting the SageTV software installed on their server PC. It also stems from a total misunderstanding of the device they are reviewing - the reviewer lumped it in the same category with the AppleTV, Netgear EVA800 and Dlink DSM520.

A quote by the PCWorld reviewer that made me scratch my head more than once (emphasis mine):

"I had to laugh at the included 1.5-meter ethernet cord; if only my TV were that close to my PC"

Lets just say it's difficult to get a good idea of the device being reviewed when the reviewer doesn't even understand what he's dealing with.

Check out the PCWorld Review or  the Crunchgear SageTV HD100 review for their take.

And if you missed it, check out my review of the SageTV HD100 Extender.  I wrote it from the perspective of a long-time HTPC user, but one who had used Beyond TV and Meedio before it as my primary HTPC software.