11. The Score Is Tallied

So what's the bottom line? On a scale of 1-5, five being the best, and one being the worst. I scored SageTV on my initial media center top ten attributes list. My comments on each score are in italics.

Must be easy to set up and maintain, so that I don't get fed up with it and quit.
[Score = 3] I ran into a couple of problems during the initial setup and wasn't able to resolve them without relying on trial and error, which was frustrating. Must be compatible with the hardware that I want to use.
[Score = 5] SageTV's hardware requirements are very easy to comply with and I didn't encounter any hardware compatibility problems. Must have an interface simple and intuitive enough that less geek-savvy people are not intimidated by it.
[Score = 3] I eventually became accustomed to the menu structure, but someone less comfortable with media center interfaces could easily become lost. Must be able to schedule, record, manage and view live and recorded TV programs.
[Score = 5] I had no problem scheduling recordings or changing recording preferences. The search function was impressive and the intelligent recording feature was unnecessary, but fun to use. Must be able to organize and play video files that have been compressed using DivX, Xvid, etc.
[Score = 4] This received a 4 because it is an important feature to me and was buried in the menu structure. Must be able to play DVDs.
[Score = 5] Once I disabled the Windows autorun popup DVD playback was fine. Must be able to and organize and play audio files in an easy and user-friendly way.
[Score = 2] The audio library was difficult to organize and would have taken a lot of time to configure my audio files to be compatible with it. The organization options were minimal and the one visualization was unimpressive. Must be able to manage and display digital pictures.
[Score = 5] The digital pictures could be organized and displayed in thumbnail or full size views or in a slide show. Must look nice.
[Score = 3] I wasn't impressed with the look of SageTV. Its text-only menus and utilitarian feel might appeal to some, but a little more pizzazz wouldn't hurt! Must be reasonably priced.
[Score = 4] While it's not the cheapest media center program available, it is definitely not going to break the bank in the overall cost of an HTPC.

This yields an average score: 3.9, which is not too bad.

As long as I'm talking about numbers, let's talk cost. Sage TV comes at a bargain price of $79.95 for the full media center application. Not a bad deal if you already have the PC and you're just looking for a media center front end. Considering the lightweight hardware requirements, you can throw a couple of hardware tuners and a PC remote into a cheap PIII rig and Sage TV will have you in the driver's seat in no time.

Alternatively, if you're planning on building a new HTPC from scratch to run SageTV, you may have to factor in the cost of an operating system. The Windows version of SageTV is not bundled with an OS, so you'll need to select an appropriate operating system to run it on. Fortunately, SageTV is very accommodating and can be installed on several versions of Windows.

Windows XP Home costs about $100 (I know you can probably find it cheaper somewhere) and would bring the grand total up to about $180 in software for a Windows based SageTV system. This is significantly more than the $120 or so that what you'd pay for a Windows MCE OEM license (the only way to buy it besides in a new PC), so in this case, it's not the cheapest way to go.

However, if you're not opposed to having a Linux adventure, for $79.95 Sage TV can be installed as part of a Linux distribution, eliminating the extra cost of an OS.