SageTV in a notice to its users said on Saturday that it had been bought out by Google. The open-source home theater software developer said it signed onboard because of a "shared vision for open technology" that would move their Internet-focused experience. They hoped to reach an "even larger audience" on different products, platforms, and services, hinting it wouldn't necessarily be limited to Android.
SageTV is now shipping the SageTV HD Theater 300. The media player streams media files from the internet or a local network to the connected television and supports full 1080p. It will also play media files from USB storage devices.
Catering explicitly to home theater computers, GlideTV today produced an unusual controller known as the Navigator. The bowl-shaped peripheral has a trackpad for mouse pointing but is surrounded by AV controls and a directional pad that ease navigating through common apps. It can steer through Front Row and iTunes on Macs, Windows Media Center, and platform-independent apps like Boxee or SageTV.
SageTV has launched a new HD extender over the weekend, called the HD Theater or HD200. The HD200 has many of the same functions of the HD100 it replaces, including the same video and audio format support. The HD200 will connect to home networks or directly to PCs preloaded with software that makes them DHCP servers via an Ethernet jack. It has a rear- and front-panel USB port for connecting external drives or USB flash drives for local streaming to users' HDTVs.
