Silicondust annual subscription fee?

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IownFIVEechos

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Silicondust annual subscription fee?

#1

Post by IownFIVEechos » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:02 pm

A CES youtube video interview is out and in it they interview the Silicondust exec. Am I the only one who heard him say $35 annual subscription fee for the guide? Have they already upped it from $30? Did he just say that in error? I do not participate on that forum, but I know a lot of people here do. So I bring it up here. Not a big deal; just curious if we are already seeing increases slip in? Also Happy New Year TGB folks!

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mcewinter

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#2

Post by mcewinter » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:14 pm

$35 seems to be the new/adjusted rate. Well worth it IMO. The fee covers per household as opposed to per device.

They did switch their data provider to Gracenote; that could be the reason for the $5 increase.
Last edited by mcewinter on Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

IownFIVEechos

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#3

Post by IownFIVEechos » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:16 pm

mcewinter wrote:$35 seems to be the new/adjusted rate. Well worth it IMO. The fee covers per household as opposed to per device.
Agreed; but what a way to find out :)

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mcewinter

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#4

Post by mcewinter » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:18 pm

It's not a big enough increase to create any angst. Moving to Gracenote does offer some value. The product is still in development so it's not out of line either.

Also, I'm pretty sure it's posted on their forums somewhere. I wasn't surprised to hear about the price.

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#5

Post by IownFIVEechos » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:20 pm

Well I am just waiting every day for it to be out fully ready. My media center is choking and I have no energy for it now. I have shields waiting on the side lines to put into play. But it is just taking way to long.

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#6

Post by IownFIVEechos » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:23 pm

mcewinter wrote:Also, I'm pretty sure it's posted on their forums somewhere. I wasn't surprised to hear about the price.
It was news to me and I read the forum way too much. Surprised I missed it. I would think it would have been a big topic of talk when announced. Perhaps it will be much higher on release date since it now can increase at will.

adam1991

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#7

Post by adam1991 » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:54 pm

OK, help me out here. I have a house full of Roku, I have three HD Homerun OTA tuners, and I'm pondering a Drobo or similar for other reasons. And BTW I also am running Plex on my Mac, but really minimally--just as a buffer for Netflix mail DVDs. I see the Plex app on my Rokus.

* is SD's DVR actually maturing? Last I heard they were still struggling.
* is it almost ready?
* will it run on Drobo, or should I consider something else?
* my current Plan B is a Tivo I bought on Black Friday; should that stay my Plan B, or should it move down to Plan C and Silicon Dust would be my Plan B?

Actually, now that I think about it, if the Silicon Dust software is reasonably buttoned up, there's no reason I couldn't take two of the tuners away from WMC and give them to the Silicon Dust DVR for playing around.

This might force my hand on getting a NAS. Now that I think about it, a NAS that supports both SD's DVR engine plus is a Plex server might be the answer. Or a BYO something, but I like the idea of RAID.

Decisions, decisions.

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#8

Post by adam1991 » Thu Jan 12, 2017 4:40 pm

BTW, their web site says it's a $60 annual fee:

https://www.silicondust.com/dvr-service/

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#9

Post by 3rob3 » Thu Jan 12, 2017 4:59 pm

$60 is for early (beta) access, it says on that page:
COST (Early release to progress builds)

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#10

Post by adam1991 » Thu Jan 12, 2017 5:09 pm

What does that mean? $60 today, but $35 once we release 1.0??

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mcewinter

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#11

Post by mcewinter » Thu Jan 12, 2017 7:17 pm

adam1991 wrote:What does that mean? $60 today, but $35 once we release 1.0??
You might read it as "today" but the kickstarter began well over a year ago. I will receive a free year when the product is released for my $60 investment.

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#12

Post by mcewinter » Thu Jan 12, 2017 7:20 pm

adam1991 wrote:OK, help me out here. I have a house full of Roku, I have three HD Homerun OTA tuners, and I'm pondering a Drobo or similar for other reasons. And BTW I also am running Plex on my Mac, but really minimally--just as a buffer for Netflix mail DVDs. I see the Plex app on my Rokus.

* is SD's DVR actually maturing? Last I heard they were still struggling.
* is it almost ready?
* will it run on Drobo, or should I consider something else?
* my current Plan B is a Tivo I bought on Black Friday; should that stay my Plan B, or should it move down to Plan C and Silicon Dust would be my Plan B?

Actually, now that I think about it, if the Silicon Dust software is reasonably buttoned up, there's no reason I couldn't take two of the tuners away from WMC and give them to the Silicon Dust DVR for playing around.

This might force my hand on getting a NAS. Now that I think about it, a NAS that supports both SD's DVR engine plus is a Plex server might be the answer. Or a BYO something, but I like the idea of RAID.

Decisions, decisions.
The recording engine can run on a PC or Mac, a Shield, and numerous NAS. If you already have SD tuners then the price of admission really is only the annual fee. You can add or change hardware as you see fit. I'm running the engine on a PC that is always on anyways and view on a Shield.

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#13

Post by gary94080 » Fri Jan 13, 2017 12:24 am

IownFIVEechos wrote:
mcewinter wrote:Also, I'm pretty sure it's posted on their forums somewhere. I wasn't surprised to hear about the price.
It was news to me and I read the forum way too much. Surprised I missed it. I would think it would have been a big topic of talk when announced. Perhaps it will be much higher on release date since it now can increase at will.
mcewinter wrote:It's not a big enough increase to create any angst. Moving to Gracenote does offer some value. The product is still in development so it's not out of line either.

Also, I'm pretty sure it's posted on their forums somewhere. I wasn't surprised to hear about the price.
from what I see of the SD forum that seems to be the last place any useful information is revealed.

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mcewinter

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#14

Post by mcewinter » Fri Jan 13, 2017 4:31 am

^There is definitely a lack of meaningful updates. The YouTube video is all the update I needed, speaking for myself.

YouTube Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFiIcXeKdf0&t=939s

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#15

Post by john321 » Wed Jan 18, 2017 2:52 am

I haven't checked the kickstarter page in a few months. Is the SD DVR actually working 100% yet???

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#16

Post by webminster » Wed Jan 18, 2017 4:25 am

100%? Not quite. Good enough for some people? I hear yes. Missing a lot of features I find critical (recorded content resume, DRM). Seemingly a lot of variability in client support (especially the Android client). Full disclosure, I have not run the software, only been following the forums since the project started. It's hard to gauge where SD thinks they're at, since they've not released a status update in months.
-Alan

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#17

Post by adam1991 » Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:13 pm

hmmmm, resembles Ceton in that regard, eh? "No word from them lately..."

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#18

Post by mcewinter » Wed Jan 18, 2017 5:40 pm

adam1991 wrote:hmmmm, resembles Ceton in that regard, eh? "No word from them lately..."
Silicondust isn't silent or MIA. Updates aren't their strong suit, that's all.

Ceton entered the world of MC somewhat aggressively and left us at the same pace.

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#19

Post by RyC » Wed Jan 18, 2017 5:59 pm

http://www.thedigitalmediazone.com/2017 ... -and-more/

They switched to Gracenote guide data
An RC version is coming soon
DRM doesn't work for what appears to be the foreseeable future (past official release), and those who require DRM support won't have their guide subscriptions started somehow

And I'm not so willing to let them slide with a lack of updates on the DRM front.

We contributed a decent chunk of money with the expectation that DRM would be supported. Throughout all of this, DRM support seems to have just been kicked down the road in nearly every update that they have given. I know they don't want to burn themselves by providing a timeframe that they may not be able to keep, but "officially releasing" without DRM support is ridiculous.

August 2015:
The top priorities we are working on today are: [...] The handling of protected channels.
January 2016:
Protected content (DRM) support is progressing.
February 2016:
The big feature in the works is protected content support. The plan is to release first on Android for live TV, following up with support for record and playback of protected content.
May 2016:
Protected channel support has been quite a frustration. We have live TV working in our Windows Universal app for Windows 10 however we can't release it because Microsoft does not allow a Windows Universal app to request/verify HDCP operation (required to meet the protection requirements). We are investigating a workaround which we think has a reasonable chance of working but is consuming time and resources.

Protected channel support on Android is nearing release. We will be releasing live TV support first, with recording support to follow next month.
August 2016:
The two critical features that remain under development are Pause/FF/RW of live TV and support for protected channels.

Goal is to have Pause/FF/RW of live TV released end of this month (2 weeks).

Support for protected content is an ongoing time-consuming headache which we are making progress on.
January 2017 (from the article):
For those of you with copy-protected channels using the HDHomeRun Prime, unfortunately you’re going to need to a wait a little longer. They’ve not forgotten about you, and there’s been a tremendous amount of work in making sure they will be able to support the capability on multiple platforms. They also need to make sure they do it right otherwise they could face massive fines. So expect support for copy-protected cable to come after the official release.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken, I would love to be mistaken, but AFAIK, all of those timeframes for supporting live DRM TV on Android were missed. Viewing DRM live TV, which was possible in a previous SD Android app, STILL does not work in the Android HDHR DVR app.

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#20

Post by mcewinter » Wed Jan 18, 2017 6:42 pm

If getting upset would speed things along then I would give it a try but right now I feel it's worth the wait. I'm slowly turning the page on Media Center and Tivo doesn't appeal to me so I'm choosing to be patient.

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