I recently purchased the new Tablo since it added Apple TV support. I was hoping it was a worthy upgrade from our older Tablo which was having problems hanging during fast forwarding of a program being recorded. This started happening with the latest Apple TV OS.
Sadly, it doesn’t seem to handle one of our main use cases. We watch the 6 PM news at dinner, usually delayed by a few minutes so we can skip commercials,
Apparently there is no way to start from the beginning of a program that is being recorded.
“This player software is not able to differentiate between live streams and in-progress recordings as they both do not have specific start and end points.”
Wow. This seems like a basic feature. One that the older Tablos handled (albeit now buggy too).
@mpeirce Sadly, that is the case. I’m not the technical expert but it comes down to this – TV signals are encoded in a format that the AppleTV can read in real-time, or after a recording is complete. The AppleTV cannot decode time-shifted recordings still in progress.
Kills one of my main uses too - I love watching Football and starting about an hour late. That way I can skip the commercials
Note: I understand other boxes like the Roku supports the encoding so it can time-shift.
Tablo gen 3 supported transcoding. It received the TV signal in one format and in realtime, could translate it to an AppleTV-friendly format and relay the signal. Gen 4 cannot not do the realtime transcoding.
You’re joking, I assume. Tablo development resourcing has been starved since the Scripps takeover. I’d be surprised if they have a full headcount dedicated to AppleTV development.
My guess - the OTA DVR is not a super profitable, else someone would swoop in a capture it. Many have tried (Tablo, Homerun, Plex, Tivo) but sadly there’s no one in this niche fully funding development anymore.
I returned my 4th generation Tablo and hooked the QUAD back up, going to ride the ride as long as it lasts. Anyone wanting a Tablo should look to eBay for a legacy model.
