wow
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Tyler’s opinion certainly carries weight. His noting that data collection usurps a good viewing experience is spot on. Tablo needs to be revamped starting at the top. It’s shameful what this product and company have become.
The promised video should be interesting.
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About time somebody with a real voice weighed in and said everything that most of us want to. It’s official, tablo = TURD, and they should be offering money back to those of us who are unsatisfied with this “Not ready for prime time” P.O.S!
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It’s serious when an authority in this field feels they have to openly break with Tablo’s practices, which presumably he knows something about.
Opens up the whole privacy can of worms too.
Almost 2 weeks and counting.
Lon?
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They really need to speed up the offline solution fix. My guess is this will push HD Homerun sales above Tablos now.
I think my OG 2-tuner Legacy was $199 or $249 - cant remember + lifetime Guide was $150. So the HDHR is in line with that.
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If HDHR wins at the FCC it’s game over.
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I have no idea what you think a hdhomerun win at FCC means. Everyone wins if ATSC 3.0 DRM is forced to be turned off - including tablo. But plex still may not adopt ac-4. hdhomerun only has a DRM solution for some android boxes. This leaves a Roku, Apple, Windows, etc solution way in the future.
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Show me the Tablo that can decode ATSC 3.0 again? I must have missed it. Most users just want to connect their TV’s using Roku, firestick, apple or google tv’s or sticks. HDHR can do that now.
“ATSC 3.0 DRM-free content is compatible with Android, FireTV, AppleTV, Roku Ultra 4800X and newer, iPhone, iPad, Win 10/11, Mac. Not compatible with DRM protected channels”
I do agree DRM needs to go.
I guess what annoys me about Tablo, besides the crap going on now, is having to pay $4.99 a month for the guide.
Why not let those up us that have the month-to-month, make just one payment of $50 or $60 for a year.
Most companies want to get your payment for a year upfront.
It’s a piece of junk. If there were an easy alternative, I’d do it, but Tablo knows there isn’t anything. Then again, easy isn’t worth a hoot when you have all these problems. I guess they are trying to push everyone to streaming services.
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I’m not far from that point.
Only thing I watch live on Tablo, is news and NFL football.
I can plug antenna into TV for that.
About 75-80% that we DVR is on CBS. I have a Paramount+ subscription to handle that.
Stuff on Fox, NBC, and ABC we DVR isn’t much.
And the way production companies are going, with a season being 6-8 episodes, with a year or two until it returns, is making it more enticing to just have have a couple streaming services and wait until series to like show up there.
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Try a used Recast (?)
I don’t have any paid streaming services currently. If it comes to only paid services for what was once free OTA I will not subscribe and learn/adapt to live life without it.
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I can’t see free OTA going completely away. There will always be an audience for it, because it is FREE. There will always be advertisers who want to focus on the free OTA demographic. And there will always be TV broadcasts where the business model is to get the greatest number of viewers in the absolute, which requires free OTA access.
Like put wheel of fortune behind a paywall? I think they’d find there are plenty of people who want to watch for free, but a lot fewer viewers who are willing to pay. I watch a few minutes pretty often, but pay for it? Nope.
For me the paywalls are unattractive in any case, because they always devolve into complicated subscription schemes, a pain or nearly impossible to cancel, prices up all the time. No way to that jive!!!
BTW the above also IMO means there will always be a tablo business model, they just need to get their technical stuff in order.
Thanks for sharing this. I had also reached out to him when this Tablo nonsense started. He did tell me he would be putting out an update. Here it is, pretty scathing.
@SophieCat , I agree with you on the free stuff.
But I have a lot of things I watch that are only on Paramount+ and Disney+, the only services I pay for.
And the Plus side for me is CBS is on Paramount+
I get to watch CBS shows there without commercials instead of having to FF through them on Tablo.
We’ve stopped using our v4 Tablo. Switched to OTA and LG channels. Tablo it’s there in case we want to record something.
There’s been some word that Amazon is going to sunset Recast’s operability in the not too distant future, so there’s some risk with that.
@Vegas_Steve any of the HDhomerun Flex devices setup similar to Tablo: Tuner box with coax antenna connection, and USB port to connect an HDD drive for storage.
The differences are that you cannot connect the HDHR tuner to your network wirelessly, only by ethernet cable - which is the recommended way to connect Tablo anyway. And the HDHR tuner has no internal storage, while there’s some nominal space for 50 hours of compressed programs on the Tablo.
Then of course there’s the $35/year fee for the extended guide data that enables their DVR service. That is if you choose to use their app and the plug-and-play setup, which I imagine most Tablo users would do.
The alternative is creating a network server for storage, but it’s just that: an alternative. The plug-and-play setup is obviously easier and faster, comparable to Tablo’s.
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That’s fair, some won’t want to pay. But because there’s some talk out there (not from you!) about services like Channels, Plex, or HDhomerun “duping” or “misleading” people to pay for a “free” service, that’s just not true.
The hosting and facilitating of guide data for the operation of DVR isn’t free, and the support and software development these businesses provide have expenses of their own. And like any business, they’re supposed to make a profit.
Tablo’s business model and mission differ from the others. They collect data of its users’ viewing habits. That in turn is used and/or sold for marketing and research, and that revenue is what enables them to forego imposing a subscription fee on end users.
It’s probably been discussed here before, and you may already know the whole dynamic. I’m only saying it again because I suspect, given the recent services disruptions, there are more people visiting here that haven’t read about that.
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