Can I pull recorded video files off Tablo?

This is something we're working on guys - stay tuned!

@TabloTV Is there a way to copy recordings from the Tablo?  This is from an old post back in May 2014

@beastman

There is no official way yet, but read this thread for 3 different ways of doing it:

http://community.tablotv.com/discussion/1712/videos-off-of-old-hard-drive

@beastman - Not yet, but our users have come up with a few different workarounds. 

@TabloTV  - For some reason if the movie is over 2 hours and 15 minutes the VLC plugin does not do the whole movie.

@beastman - Unfortunately I’m not sure why this is the case. It may be the settings within this third-party plugin.

@beastman - Unfortunately I'm not sure why this is the case. It may be the settings within this third-party plugin.

@TabloTV - I hope the official app doesn’t have that problem.  First things first though - The new Roku channel!

@beastman - When we do get around to adding a download, we’ll make sure it works right! 

Shame…simple.tv has a downloader. They’ve had one for a while. In fact, someone came up with their own android app that people were able to install that downloaded straight to the android devices from the HD connected to the simple.tv. I am surprised after all this time that tablo (who had done soooooooo many things so well and in a timely manner) hasn’t gotten to this just yet.

I’m in a pickle right now over this very thing.  Having no good way to move usable content to my PLEX server. I have a 1.5TB Seagate Expansion Drive 80% full and the Tablo isn’t functioning because of some glitch over this.  The drive is fine, as I tested it on my PC using Paragon’s ExtFS so it’s useable on the PC.  My only option at this point is to back it up and start deleting content until it starts working again.  I have a 2TB Seagate Expansion Drive I’ve converted to Ext3 and am in the process of transferring all the data over to it.  It will be 15~20 hours before that’s done, but really no choice at this point.  I tried VLC and it fails to pull all of the content, so unless I want less than a full episode copied, that’s not good.  Looked at the other 2 options and seems so convoluted and am just not interested in taking the time to learn.  Somehow the Tablo folks need to be convinced this is a top priority for those of us who really want to keep our recordings.  I absolutely want them available in my PLEX server, as this is the hub to my entire home theater.


-Rodger 

If you use the above command for ffmpeg, it will copy in real time. If you remove the “-re” flag, it will go as fast as your network connection and cpu allow. I was able to do a 30 minute show in 35 seconds. If you are a linux user, this is a great option.

What does the -re command do?

-re (input)
Read input at native frame rate. Mainly used to simulate a grab device. or live input stream (e.g. when reading from a file). Should not be used with actual grab devices or live input streams (where it can cause packet loss). By default ffmpeg attempts to read the input(s) as fast as possible. This option will slow down the reading of the input(s) to the native frame rate of the input(s). It is useful for real-time output (e.g. live streaming).

Not to tell you guys what to do or anything… but the play back piece in this problem space has been solved many times over. No matter what you do, I’ll have plex for playback of recorded TV… They’ve conquered the remote access, multi users, etc… What I don’t have, is something to simply record TV shows and put them somewhere that plex can see them. I don’t think anyone has that… which is where maybe you guys should focus more near term. If you make this cool box something I can either pull from with a script, or have it push files to a network location ( like a NAS ) either for use as primary or backup, I will throw more money at you. And I’ll probably have to stand in line to do it. You’d be the thing referenced in countless cord cutting forums where folks just want to get the TV shows to whatever they already have as their entertainment media hub.

Please make this thing worth the money and get us some kind of file access to the recordings. For the $5 a month here, and the pain of the slow UI at the moment, I get tempted to go back to MediaPortal recording on my main plex server and a once a year schedule direct payment. Only tempted, because that is still a PITA to maintain. But once it was done recording, I could see it in plex… and I, and more importantly, my wife, were happy.

I switched out to this because my parents flirted with cord cutting but couldn’t give up the habit. I bought the box from them and figured I’d give it a try… and we have watched maybe 4 shows that we’ve recorded because the app on either plex or on our fire tv ( the new one even ) is slow as sin. Honestly, even if it was fast, we’d still not want to have to mess with going out and finding the Tablo app rather than just another library in plex.

Thanks

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If you have a PC, you can do all of this automatically since Tablo Ripper came out awhile back. I was an early adopter and I have a fully automated setup that works just fine. Take a look at the Tablo Ripper thread here:

Pretty sure you will have some questions, so I would direct you to post in that thread instead of this one.

-Rodger

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THere are many, Tablo Ripper, Tablo Exporter, SurlaTablo…

Search the forums

That’s great and all, but I’d like something official from Tablo… something that’s not going to break the next time they update the underlying software that runs on the box. If it’s not officially supported, like a nice link on the home page rather than searching forums, then it is still going to be someone making use of some bit of the API (documented or otherwise) that may change in the future.

I’m not trying to whine or discredit what has been produced, that’s all cool. I was mentally writing the script to do something with the info in these posts when all that long winded stuff came to me… it occurred to me that trying to do it myself is not what I’m looking for, or the point I was trying to make with the post. I think they, Tablo, are missing a major differentiating feature here… The fact that there are so many other privately developed things shows the demand. So why not just make it a first party feature and have a whole community of happy users singing praises, rather than sharing software drops out of dropbox. I had something that worked pretty good before, I’ve traded one pain for another. The audience I’m trying to reach is TabloTV, which is why I replied to that specific post mentioning that “if they do it, it would work”, rather than the parent or any of the others.

I will be checking out all this stuff in the mean time though.
Thanks for the link and other stuff to go search for.

I am sure they are going to add it, but if you look through the forums there are a lot higher on the list “issues”

Until they put something into their product :wink:

I must be dense… I don’t see a link for the download.

Well you were just asking for something they would “endorse”… The link is here:

I would suggest go to this post for the info:

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Didn’t catch that. Thanks!

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