I purchased a Tablo Quad DVR a week or so ago and have a few questions for everyone willing to read them.
In the settings menu, I have noticed that there are some “global” parameters as well as some that are specific to the device that you are viewing/changing them on. A good example of a global parameter (I believe) would be the “Recording quality” and “Live TV quality” settings… Just above that the startup section seems to be a good example of a device-specific parameter. If I am on device A, I would like it to start with Live TV vs recordings… Is this documented anywhere? If anyone from product management is seeing this, it would make sense to separate these two categories in some way.
The term “Android TV” is a bit vague. A year or so ago I replaced a couple of Boxee Boxes (remember those?) with Android T9 devices… These were cheap ($30) items on Amazon and they work really well. They are running Android 9 and seem to be stuck there but, again, they do work. The funny thing is that they “think” they are phones. They want to have a camera; they want to have a calulator; they seem to want to have a lot of things that I simply have no interest in giving them. I do want them to be able to play stored video that runs on a QNAP server. I like that I can play Youtube videos on them. You get the idea. So… I tried to add the Tablo app (through Google Play). That didn’t work. I have a site that I can go to download APK files from and got the most recent Tablo app there. Moved it to the QNAP and installed it over the network. Net result, as soon as it started to play either live TV or recorded video, the app crashed. I did however get it to play with the included Chrome app. The remote control doesn’t work real well but I have a keyboard/mouse combination attached to the T9 via USB and that does work so, problem solved. What is my point for telling this tale? There are a lot of browser apps and even more apps of other kinds. Has anyone else had any luck with the T9 (or T95) Android TVBOX with Tablo??
I would like to add that since the Tablo is sitting less than 12 inches from my router, it has had an ethernet port from day-one. I have also done some serious antenna work but have found that atmospheric conditions play a bigger role than I ever thought in reception. I know the (Tablo) devices we buy today will not be forward-compatible when ATSC 3 comes out (or will they have some upgrade-ability)? I ask because from what I have found online, it sounds like many reception problems experienced with ATSC 1 will be addressed.
I appreciate the detailed distinction. When I went looking for a Boxee Box replacement, I had a specific set of requirements that I was looking for.
When I clicked the link that you provided, it was crystal clear that what I have is merely a device that runs Android and connects to a TV. As I mentioned in the original post, it thinks its a phone - When I go into Google Play, it pulls up the account associated with my email and literally shows me all the applications that are “missing” or not installed on the TV box. Silly but. I am including the Amazon link below. What you will see is “Android TV Box” or “Android 9.0 TV Box” depending where you look on the page. There are a ton of these devices out there. I get that vague is a subjective term but I’ll let you judge that for yourself.
I’m not upset with the situation. I’m still hopeful that there is a browser or player app that will work better with the Tablo. The original player that came with this was Kodi. I used that for a while and then went back to what I knew better from before - VLC.
This is a setting only available on the web and mobile apps at the moment. These are being totally redesigned to work more like our TV-based apps which automatically launch into the screen that you used last.
Just because your Android device has an HDMI port, does not mean it runs Android TV. It seems to be running the MOBILE version of the Android operating system, not the ‘leanback’ or TV-based version.
This is why you’re seeing the weird behavior and incompatibility.
You’ll have a much better experience with a quality device that runs Android TV (not Android mobile):
If you want to stick with Android, I would highly suggest a Chromecast with Google TV. It supports Android TV apps so when you access the Play Store on it the Tablo app you see is the Tablo Android TV app.
