My Tablo Legacy died and I’m looking at a 4th Gen, Can I get commercial skip with the new Tablo if I’m paying for it now with my old Legacy?
No! Commercial Skip is only available on legacy devices and then only if you already subscribe to it. Legacy device users that are not currently subscribed, can not add the feature.
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I’d recommend you verify the old Tablo is really dead and the issue isn’t just a dead power supply. That’s a common issue not just on the Tablo but on many devices. It’s also a simple and cheap fix on the Tablo. Lot’s of people on the forum have recommended replacement power supplies.
See if you can find a used, “old” new stock, or refurb original Tablo. Double check with support but I think you can “switch” service to it. If you cancel or let commercial skip lapse that won’t be an option.
I actually scored a used 4 tuner 2nd gen at a thrift store for 50 cents, no hard drive or power supply but I had extra power supplies (another 50 cent thrift store find) and a hard drive.
That’s a ridiculously good deal!
From what I can see… I think the Gen4 has some HINTs of it… that it could be a possibility.
The screenshots that are made during a recording… I’ve seen 98% of them land when the shows ends to a commercial and starts from a commercial.
I think the technology / code is there.
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I haven’t seen this. Sure, it’s often very close on some shows…
But I have wondered the same thing when ripping shows from the device – every now and then it’ll convert and have no commercials. There’s something there.
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When Tablo was an independent company, they had incentive to develop commercial skip. Other DVR’s had it and they wanted to stay competitive. Once Scripps bought out Tablo, they discontinued the service for all new customers and if existing customers stop using the service, they are enable to start it again.
Scripps makes money from commercials. Why would they want to let you automatically skip their revenue stream? I don’t think you will ever see automatic commercial skip on the 4th gen Tablo.
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I can’t remember which channel specifically, but I’m pretty sure that it was a FAST I pulled. I also couldn’t tell you if the straight TS rip had commercials, or if that changed when I compressed it. Or if I did a direct m3u8 compression through ffmpeg!
I don’t recall any of this behavior when I put the drive into my computer and did the same.
I wish I could recall the specifics. Maybe in the next couple of days I’ll try to figure out some of the recordings. Sorry I can’t offer more, guys! I think I posted about it somewhere, but again… so many weeks ago!
A FAST channel is different, as commercials could be via outside injection (pause the stream, show the ads, resume the stream). Thus the commercials aren’t really part of the stream. Unlike OTA (at least today).
Interesting. I would have assumed that whatever way the Tablo stored it would be the way it ripped it.
Yup… if you look up Amagi and Wurl. There are sections of the sites where it talks about commercial injections.
Sorta makes sense when some of the stations will put a commercial break right in the middle of dialog, and return to the rest of the sentence when they’re done.