Introduce Yourself

I live in the Boston suburbs and finally cut the cord when I moved here from Rochester Hills, Michigan about a year ago. I used to have a fairly basic cable package with a Silicon Dust HD HomeRun Prime CableCARD tuner and Windows Media Center running on an old laptop. It worked, but it was kind of a pain and not nearly as stable as I would have liked. I spent a lot of time playing tech support for my family. I was very happy to dump that for the much more stable and reliable Tablo.

Our setup is as follows:


We have a quad-tuner Tablo and a QNAP TS-853 Pro 8-Bay NAS running Plex Media Server and Logitech Media Server connected to an N900 Router. The router feeds an 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet switch in my main home theater system and a 500 Mbps Power Line Network. Our family room components are connected to a 4-Port Gigabit switch integrated into a Power Line Network module and use use an N300 access point in another module to reach a dead spot on the third floor. We have a Roku TV in the master bedroom and Roku 3 boxes in the living and family rooms. In addition to the Tablo and Plex, we subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, Funimation and Drama Fever. I also have over 750 HDX movies and quite a few seasons of TV on Vudu. Unless we need to play a disc, Roku is the only source we use for everything but music. Logitech Media Server feeds several Squeezebox music players around the house, which can be synchronized into zones. Both the Roku boxes and the Squeezeboxes are connected to our Pandora and Spotify accounts, as well as our local music library.

Had a SAGETV with a pair of Happauge twin-tuner cards for several years. Ā Loved it, worked great, user interface was nearly perfect. Ā But the extenders finally died and they are about $300 used on eBay, so switched to Tablo. Ā Tablo function is great, but the interface and features are really minimal, and the pace of rolling out features is just terribly slow.


My business is patent law in Silicon Valley, about a mile from the Forty-niners new stadium. Ā A single antenna pointed towards Sutro Tower in San Francisco is all I need. Ā The antenna is a simply UHF yagi; years ago an HDTV/OTA group tested all the ā€œHDTVā€ antennas and found that most were crap, and that this $20 Radio Shack UHF was better than all of them. Ā Too bad one cannot buy a UHF antenna any more.

Hi Guys,

Judging from all the posts about "the Wife test,"Ā I guess I'm one of the few women on the forum.Ā  My background is computers and telecom so I'm the techie one in our house.Ā  I had to talk Hubby into Tablo.Ā  We got the 4-tuner as soon as they were available last year & haven't looked back.Ā  I'm in in far north burbs of Chicago, so we get channels from Chicago and Milwaukee.Ā  I think this caused the TabloĀ gang to rethink how many channels real people might actually watch.


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There are lots of duplications between two cities for the network shows, but when stations abandon the network for LOCAL such as KENS in San Antonio does to CBS and KBVO does in Austin for My Network, then it makes sense to have both stations.Ā  I edit out the selling channels, religious stations (except Daystar) and Spanish stations (since I donā€™t understand or speak it).Ā  I also donā€™t have the SBN channel included in my Tablo lineup.Ā  The more channels you have, the longer the guide takes to display.

I live in a suburb of Milwaukee, WI called Brown Deer.Ā  I am a Network Administrator for a local college and learned my trade from my many years in the U.S. Navy.

Earlier this year, I made the decision to drop AT&T U-Verse because I was sick of paying $230 a month.Ā  I sat down and analyzed what programs we were watching and storing in the U-Verse DVR and came to the conclusion we didnā€™t need the high-priced option of U-Verse any more.

Thatā€™s when I began my search for a stand-alone DVR solution that would record OTA programming.Ā  I immediately settled on Tablo and have not regretted it since.

I live in an apartment and do not have a great line of sight to the towers here in Milwaukee.Ā  But the Terk HDTV antenna I acquired seems to hold itā€™s own when I placed it near a rear-facing window.

My network consists of the AT&T U-Verse router for my Internet access, with a Netgear Wireless N router connected to it.Ā  I have three Roku3 units connected to each TV, and each of these connect with the 10* network on the Netgear router.Ā  The 4-Tuner Tablo I purchased is wired directly to the Netgear router and Iā€™m using a Western Digital 2TB drive for data storage.

I am currently saving a tick above $150 a month since dropping U-Verse TV/Local Phone service (relying on my Sprint phone now for all communication).

And I am using that savings for another purposeā€¦getting physically fit.Ā  I have joined Snap Fitness and hired a personal trainer to help me lose 40 lbs.Ā  So far I have lost 12 of those 40.

So I guess you can say, in some casesā€¦cutting the cord and buying a Tablo can be beneficial to your health :slight_smile:

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And I am using that savings for another purpose....getting physically fit.Ā  I have joined Snap Fitness and hired a personal trainer to help me lose 40 lbs.Ā  So far I have lost 12 of those 40.

Congratulations!Ā 

That's a great way to spend cord cutting savings!
Hello, my name is Rodger, and I'm a moviehalic. Ā It's been 8 hours since my last...

Well, I sometimes feel that way. Ā I've been enamored with visual media since before I can remember. Ā All my life I have just loved to get away someplace dark and cool and just drift off into my oblivious alter-reality. In fact, rather then tell you what I am now, here is a tidbit of what I was so very early in my life. Ā I've posted this a couple times at various places on the net, so it's a cut & paste. Ā Still, hope you enjoy it.

What Some Little Boys Do!

The Screaming Skull (1958) was the scariest movie for me. I was 8 years old when this came out and I wanted to see it so bad but my mom said, "you know you will have nightmares if you see this movie, so no you can't go". Well, I put up with this until the second weekend matinee came around. Mom and Dad left early that Saturday morning to do some estimating (Dad was a contractor) and Grandma was watching me for the day. I was such a sneaky kid, I decided I would trick Grandma and tell her I was tired, pretend to go to bed, then sneak out of the house to see this movie.

Well I did. My bedroom was on the 2nd floor so I had to slide down the antenna mast to the ground from my upstairs window. Went down to the corner where the bus stop was, where I got on the first bus. I asked the bus driver if this bus went by the Roxy Theater in downtown Inglewood. He said "ya, but aren't you a little young to be going there by yourself"? Having gone this far I thought for a minute and said "my Grandma is watching me today so I'll be fine". Guess he took it that she would be there (as I had hoped), so off we went. Got there fine, got in fine, even had 15 cents for popcorn and a nickel for the bus ride home so I was all set. Got down to the 3rd row (where every smart kid liked to sit ) and watched the movie.

Now I don't know if it was because I was all alone by myself (first time alone in a picture show), or that I was feeling a bit guilty about sneaking out, or if it was just this scary of a movie, but throughout the movie I become more and more afraid. Still, not wanting to miss anything, it comes to the part of the movie where this lady is doing some gardening with her back to the camera. All you see is her dress and the back of this straw bonnet. As the camera zooms closer to this hat as it very quickly completes the turn and in it is the skull with RED EVIL EYES and a BIG OPEN MOUTH SCREAMING! I tell you what, I got so scared I wet my pants, jumped up (spilling my popcorn everywhere) and ran out of that movie. It just terrified me so much I just kept running until I got to the bus stop.

When the bus pulled up I was so embarrassed with my wet pants fully showing, I just dropped the nickel into the collector and ran and sat down way in the back of the bus. Still shivering from fear (and most likely cold ), I wasn't watching things very well and before too long I was all turned around. Nothing looked familiar to me so after about 15 minutes more, I got up enough courage to go up and ask the bus driver when we would come up to Gay Street (Yeah, I lived on Gay Street in Inglewood, CA ). He said, "this bus is going the opposite direction from Gay Street"! Well, obviously this didn't sound too good to me. I had already given my last nickel into his coin catcher thing and now I'm going the wrong way and no money for another bus. After explaining, and owning up to my mischief, between his grinning, I think he kinda felt sorry for me and said "just go sit down back there and after I drop the last passenger off, I'm off duty and will drive you to the Gay Street bus stop on the way in.

Well, got home after another hour or so. Getting off the bus, I ran up the block to my house and shimmed up the antenna mast. I was so fearful and still scared, I just jumped in my bed (more or less dried out now) and pulled the covers up over my head. I don't remember falling asleep, but must have as I awoke with a start and was shivering cold and shaking. It was pretty dark outside and no lights were on in the room. My covers were pulled halfway down and as I reached down and tried to pull them up, they wouldn't move. Pulling harder, I begin to focus my eyes a bit in the darkened room and then I SEEN IT!!! It was sitting on the foot of my bed, facing away from me, just a dress and the back of a straw hat!!! I open my mouth to scream, but nothing came out, as this hat slowly at first, then quickly turn toward me. At the same moment I seen it, with it's RED EVIL EYES and a BIG OPEN MOUTH SCREAMING!, I was up and running down the stairs with that awful screaming piercing in my ears. I got down stairs and Grandma shouts out to me "Stop that screaming, Boyka". Turns out when I shut my mouth the screaming ended, but not the terror. After some time, I calmed down and as she comforted me, I had to tell Grandma what I did.

She was a loving woman, my Grandma, and didn't spank me. But she did talk to me and explain what I did was very wrong and dangerous, but thought I already received enough punishment from God.

To this day, I think she was more right than she ever new.

-Rodger

Hi all, I'm in the St. Louis area. Ā I'm fascinated with technology and ran across Tablo looking for a Tivo alternative right after the 4-tuner was announced and pre-sales started.Ā  I did A LOT of researching and not sure if I found the Roku or the Tablo first but when I found both that was it.Ā  I had already cut cable in 2011 for $ reasons but found myself missing the content.Ā I already had a roof mounted antenna and had tiny ones on each smaller TV as well which worked great. Ā Read all the specs and requirements for Tablo and settled on a deal I found on Amazon for three Roku 1's and introduced that to the family which they loved.Ā  I wasn't so popular as you can imagine for cutting cable.Ā  But paying Tivo just irked me so that had to go. I started talking to my neighbor about how the money I've saved not having cable which blew his mind but he has three small boys so wasn't sure he'd be able to do the same. Ā I also told him about Tablo and so we both started researching. Ā Right before Black Friday Amazon had a 4-tuner deal and I picked one up along with a HD for what I thought was a steal and the next day my neighbor did the same. Ā It's been fun (and frustrating) figuring it and I sold one Tivo already and with the wife's blessing just put the other one on eBay over the weekend. Ā I love the freedom of the Tablo and it's nice to have my local news when away as well as being able to catch up on shows while having control of the commercials.

I think it's great this forum is here! Ā I really appreciate the help and sanity it's provided.Ā 

Thanks all!

-Mike

Hi - noob here, 4ch refurb ordered. Ā OTA viewing areas include NYC and Southern CA. Ā Good antennae reception and years of experience with ATSC consumption. Ā EyeTV mobile user too - excited about Tablo experience. Ā 


EDIT -Ā Wow, 4ch Tablo refurb ordered Fri 10:30am EST, shipped 1:15pmEST, delivered Mon 1:30pm.Ā  These guys are goodā€¦

Installed near router/modem location using Cat5. Ā I think that's important for best performance. Ā 

Powered up, went my.tablotv.com recognized device, said thereā€™s an update.Ā  Downloading, installing, rebootingā€¦.

Message to update HD must type FORMAT to continue, coolā€¦

Next step channel scan complete and selected all HDTV content.Ā  I went ahead and added a few SD stations I recognized before clicking Add to Guide. Ā 

Downloading program guide seemed to take while but it eventually finished enough to bring up menu and continued for a while in background.Ā  Message states will be ready to use once first day of guide data has been downloaded, blah, blah, blahā€¦Ā  This part is kinda slow but well worth the wait.

Tablo = awesome!Ā  AppleLand here so Airport Express > AppleTV > iPad Mini, iPhone 6+ everything behaving nicely 24hrs in.Ā  Wish it could easily pair my wifeā€™s iPhone while sheā€™s out-of-town. Ā ā€˜would be nice to have a code a person could enter for remote pairing like some Cable TV apps, oh well...

Iā€™m obviously not a good reviewer but my experience so far as been very favorable.Ā  Loving me some Tabloā€¦

My name is Spencer Karter, Iā€™m from Greenwood, SC. Iā€™ve bought the TabloTV 2-Tuner over-the-air DVR at Amazon back in Spring 2015. Weā€™re still DirecTV subscribers, weā€™re thinking about cutting the cord since our bill is $136 a month unfortunately. Iā€™m also thinking about subscribing to NETFLIX (since it will be the new home of the Canadian imported drama Degrassi after its controversial cancellation by TeenNick two months ago) and Iā€™m on SSI, and I donā€™t work.

Hello.
My name is Chris and I live in Kansas City, MO.
I am a huge Plex user, and just ā€œcutā€ AT&T U-Verse because they decided they wanted to raise my TV bill to $130./mo.
I bought my Tablo from Amazon and I am excited to use it.
I have a whole house fully of Chromecasts (6 of them) but I was a little disappointed to see that Tablo does not support them yet. In addition, my Plex wonā€™t stream Tablo content to the Chromecast (even though Plex itself is working OK with the Chromecasts).
I went out and bought a Roku3 to see if I could make it work on at least 1 TVā€“which it does.

Right now my challenges are:

  1. Unable to get Tablo content to work with the Plex Channel remotely (outside of my home network) all other Plex content works 100%.
  2. Unable to use Chromecast with Tablo-- I donā€™t really want to go purchase 6 more Roku3s :frowning:
  3. Locally or remotely, my iOS devices donā€™t work with Tablo and Plex Channel, although the Tablo apps work perfectly.

If anyone has any input or has attempted something similar, please let me know.

Thanks!
Chris

Hi,

My name is Greg Buechler, I live in Bloomington, MN (home of the Mall of America). We bought a four tuner Tablo in February and cut the cord with Comcast. Couldnā€™t be happier. We get internet now through Centurylink, whose DSL service in our area is faster (and a lot cheaper) than the 40 Blast service we were supposedly getting from Comcast.

We signed up for Sling when it first came out, so this fills out the ESPN that I had been missing and the HGTV, Food Network and TNT that my wife had been missing. So we pay $30 month for Internet, plus $20 month for Sling. Beats the hell out of the $160 to $190 a month we had been coughing up for Comcast (the price varied on how long it had been since I last called Comcast to complain about my monthly bill). After six months of savings, I have almost paid for my Tablo, lifetime directory, external hard drive, antenna and a trio of Roku 3 boxes. You couldnā€™t pay me to go back to cable . . .

Tablo is a great product that just keeps on getting better with each new release. Remember how frustrating it was when we didnā€™t have the FF preview? That just seems like a distant memory. Canā€™t wait to load the next update to the software.

To the Tablo folks - keep up the good work!

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@ccitarella - Send us a ticket and weā€™ll be happy to help you out with the CC. Unfortunately we canā€™t help w/ Plex as itā€™s a 3rd party app: http://bit.ly/1w8BrBw

Hi. Iā€™m Rob.

Iā€™m a research scientist with a background in electrical engineering, specializing in optics and lasers. I decided to cut the cord this summer, and set up a giant antenna in my back yard to go with a 4-tuner Tablo. We live about ~45 miles from the Oklahoma City antenna farm, but unfortunate topology means Iā€™m getting 2-edge receptionā€“hence our giant antenna is usually sufficient for good reception of all the major networks, assuming we donā€™t have strong thunderstorms going on.

Iā€™ve kitted out our house with 20 Mb/s internet, ethernet runs to the 4-tuner Tablo and two Roku 3ā€™s, and plenty of wifi bandwidth to a new-model Roku 2, and Roku stick. In addition to Tablo OTA, we also subscribe to Sling TV, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.

So far, things are working very well. It was a bit of a transition, but I canā€™t say we miss DirecTV. Even though we bumped up our internet speed and started subscribing to Sling TV and Hulu Plus, weā€™re still saving more than $50 per month. And we still get to DVR all the major network shows, and get our local news, sports, weather, etc. on the Tablo.

@ snowcat,
From lpk, I just installed my external antenna (one that used to be there several years ago when this home had Dish) on my garage Saturday. My main focus was to be able to watch TV in my garage. Itā€™s been idle for a few months, because I refuse to pay the 6.99 fee from Charter for each tv in the house. I live south of Nashville about 40 miles. I set my antenna in my garage on a box, connected it to a Mediasonic Homeworx H@180STB box I just purchasedā€¦ I wanted to test out
and see how the box works. I received 17 channels. After placing on top of the ridge on my garage, I now have 30 channels to view.
Having said all this, I just now found this forum. I too want to cut the cable. I want this experience to not to be to painful for my wife, but she is all in to save approx. 1200.00/year. Iā€™m leaning towards the Tablo/Ruku3/SlingTV route. The Sling Tv route because my would like to still see her TNT shows. She was sad we wouldnā€™t receive hallmark shows anymore, but she said that she could sacrifice that. Any pointers or comments on a soon to be cut the cabler? Comments welcome. Thank You!
lpk

Most of you guys on here obviously have tech skills & experience far beyond the average cable consumer, and I almost let you scare me off from making the purchase. Butā€¦I was there for the early days of buying a first generation Mac (I think it was $3000+ ?) and I was psyched when I upgraded my first PC to a 20M hard drive. All that reminded me that there WILL be glitches with new technology. 30 years later, and there still are glitches with WIN & iOS. Tablo is, what? About a year into somewhat mass distribution? Iā€™ve had only basic cable for many years & may or may not cut the cord. I wanted Tablo only so I could ditch my VCRs, (pause for you to finish laughingā€¦) and Iā€™m heavy into time-delayed watching of my fave network shows. I supplement cable with Roku, Netflix & access to my sonā€™s Amazon Prime & Comcast subscriptions. I live in a semi-rural area of Tennessee, and get 10-12 channels OTA, with a Mohu interior antenna direct-connected to my Tablo. As I work out the nuances over the next few months, I may get an attic or external antenna installed, then cut cable. If anyone non-tekkie should find this post & is considering a Tablo purchase, my advice is - yes! Be aware that itā€™s a new-ish solution, and there probably will be some growing pains. However, Tablo support is STELLAR, and none of this is as complicated as you might fear, based upon what some of the tech geniuses are doing & saying. Test a few different antennas connected to a tv before you order your Tablo. Garbage in, garbage out. If you canā€™t pull in a good signal to your tv, you wonā€™t get good performance from your Tablo. If not for the ridiculously low output of a new local NBC affiliate, I could have made it fine with a $15 antenna. Tablo installation instructions on their website are quite simple, and it really was that simple to install, get running & ENJOY!

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Hi. Iā€™m Pat, I live in Denver, I loved my Tablo for the last 10 months. Then they broke it with this 2.2.6 firmware update. That is all.

@Pat_Healy - Sorry to hear that :pensive: Have you contacted support so we can give you hand getting back to loving your Tablo?

http://support.tablotv.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Yes, thanks, logged a ticket yesterday. No response yet.