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SageTV shows love for Linux

SageTV shows love for Linux

Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
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Dan Ackerman
DIY types love building and tinkering around with Linux systems. Anecdotally, we can also say they love TV, despite a professed antipathy toward corporate entertainment. It's too bad that the most popular software app for watching and recording TV programming through a computer is Windows Media Center--not exactly the first place a Linux fan is likely to turn.

Fortunately, one of the big names in DVR software, SageTV, has been supporting Linux for some time now (there are also other Linux-friendly DVR apps, such as MythTV). Sage is now offering a Linux edition of SageTV 5, including the add-on Placeshifter app, which we looked at when it was released for PCs back in April. The whole package is called SageTV Media Center for Linux V5 OEM Edition and runs $99.99, or $79.99 without the Placeshifter software.

Placeshifter, kind of like a software version of the Slingbox, lets you log in to your home media library and stream videos, music, and photos, plus live and recorded TV, from any remote machine with the Placeshifter client app. We tried out the Windows version in April and generally liked it. The new Linux version also works with Sage's Wireless Media Extender, a $159 box that connects to your TV and gives you access to media on your home network.

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