First credit must be given to AndyW and the posters in his original post at http://community.tablotv.com/discussion/420/found-a-way-to-copy-recordings-to-windows-and-play-them.
Additional credit to cjcox and his post that can be found at http://community.tablotv.com/discussion/226/can-i-pull-recorded-video-files-off-tablo/p1.
I came up with a process that works well for me using information from both of these users as well as information from the threads. I added a step that makes it easier and wanted to share my process with the community. The following is a compilation of their work with a very small addition of my own.
1. Get the show info–information from cjcox-
"If you look at: http://your-tablo-ip:18080/plex/rec_ids ; you will get the ids of the recorded shows on your TabloTV.
Let’s say you have a recording 18425
If you then go to:
http://your-tablo-ip:18080/pvr/18425/
You can browse the data including the pvr dir where the ts files are stored (there’s a meta.txt file too where you can pull the episode data, etc…)"
Let’s say you have a recording 18425
If you then go to:
http://your-tablo-ip:18080/pvr/18425/
You can browse the data including the pvr dir where the ts files are stored (there’s a meta.txt file too where you can pull the episode data, etc…)"
2. This is my step. AndyW’s use of extfs was a great idea but my tablo and hdd are in hard area to access in the basement. I decided to use a firefox plugin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/ to grab all the linked files.
Once you navigate to the folder using cjcox’s information in step one you will see a listing of all the files. My directory listing looks like this
The files are named
| 00001.ts | 2014-Oct-13 08:34:57 | 2.2M | video/MP2T |
| 00602.ts | 2014-Oct-13 10:15:05 | 43.5K | video/MP2T |
With the Firefox extension added you right click and select the “DownThemALL” option. Select all the files and then deselect the top file. The description will say “Parent Directory.” All the other file descriptions will have a description of the file name eg 00001.ts.
Choose a directory (your download folder is default) and download all the files. I made a folder called Tablodownload for mine. The files are small and on my local network I was able to download all 600+ files in about two minutes. For reference, my tablo is using an ethernet connection.
3. Using AndyW’s suggestion of Tssplitter is highly recommended. Open Tssplitter, click file, then open for joining. Choose your directory, ctrl-a to select all, add, and then join.
Tssplitter is very fast and combined all 600+ files in less than a minute creating a seamless file. I dropped the file into my plex media server and voila!!
There are still commercials that need to be removed. In the past I have used an automated tool for this but the name escapes me. I know it is possible to do it with other tools and perhaps somebody can help me out by sending me information or posting it here.
Again, the credit goes to the postings and users above. I would never have started the process without their insight on the possibility of accessing the Tablo and accessing the files.
I hope the guide helps.