I just finished trying to use the Tablo Ripper to get content onto an iPad for an upcoming trip.
It comes up short in a number of ways; the content, at high data rate suitable for my big TV, is just too big for a portable device. I’d love to use a lower bit rate version on my iPad, which works nicely when removed from my home, but it requires Internet access for streaming.
I’m going to want to play those back while disconnected from the network, on a road trip or flying.
If the Tablo app simply let me download at a selected bit rate the content I’d like to watch off line, that would be great!
That’s not the problem, the size of the recordings is too large to put on an external card, and it just doesn’t make sense for a full 1080p video file to be stored and accessed on a portable device.
I’ve only used Tablo Ripper a little but, but I believe that there’s a setings.xml file in the (hidden) Program Data \ TabloRipper folder, and in that file is an FFMpegOptions element. Is it feasible to put in some options there to have Tablo Ripper / FFMpeg transcode the file down to something smaller that would be suitable for transferring to the mobile device?
(but I agree, an official way to download to a device would be awesome!!)
I thought the problem was that for years the apple ecosystem was closed and made it hard to impossible to access external media. Not that it didn’t make any sense.
I guess you could write a script that passed all the files through ffmpeg and output at a different bit rate.
Yes Tablo Ripper appears to have similar possibility to influence FFMpeg behaviour. Original poster’s idea isn’t at all crazy though - Tablo currently can transcode on the fly down to lower bitrates to support tablo connect features. If they allowed that same transcoding to feed downloads to devices, it could be quite convenient and fast, and light on the device! When my app does the transcoding, it’s kind of painful slow – would be great if it happened on the Tablo.
Yes, my sarcasm was aimed more towards at the implementation… all the “wouldn’t it be nice” request. Some are almost there, just not likely part of their plan.
It certainly is possible to use FFmpeg options (there are dozens of them) to build a smaller file, and then download that file to an external drive, and then use the files app to play them, but the hassle of assembling all of that compared to the Netflix app, which offers to either stream or download seamlessly is significant. To me, it’s a natural evolution of the tablet based app; offer remote streaming, or local storage based viewing by using the streaming settings and hardware engine of the Tablo to do it.
