Parents In Control
Parents should control what their kids watch by knowing what they're watching while they're watching it. However, anyone who has kids knows that you can't be everywhere at once. Kids will get away with watching shows you don't want them to watch if they can. For that reason, I'm a big proponent of tools that enable parents to keep a better grip on what kids are watching.
SageTV has a beefy set of parental control features that enable full control over what can be watched as shown in figure 6. This is a critical feature that is lacking in some other products. I'm glad to see that SageTV realizes the importance that parental controls play in today's world.
Figure 6 - SageTV's beefy parental controls.
Overall
SageTV is an excellent choice in the PC PVR market. It has an excellent feature set, a committed user community that is busy creating all kinds of customizations, powerful parental controls, and problem-free recording capabilities. In case you're still wondering if you should get a TiVo or similar box instead of using your computer as your PVR, consider this: TiVo and like devices allow you to record 40 or so hours of television. SageTV allows you to record as much television as you'd like because you can easily add new hard drives for more capacity. Considering the current trend of low-cost, high-capacity hard drives, there's simply no reason why you would choose any other method. Add the fact that commercials are skipped entirely (instead of having to fast-forward through them), and it's clearly a no-brainer.
Jimco Software awards SageTV 4 our Jimco Software's Choice award. SageTV 4 edges out the competition specifically because of the inclusion of parental controls. Jimco Software is a strong advocate for keeping children safe from inappropriate content. Parental controls are no substitute from good parents, but they are an important tool in a parent's arsenal. Way to go SageTV for putting focus into this area.
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