Okay, that is really neat! Personally, I love my Tablo DUAL LITE and my grandparents need a new ATSC to NTSC converter box. Yes, they are still using the old CRT TV’s which are still running well. Could this new Tablo somehow be connected via RCA plugs (red, white and yellow)? I’m not too sure if there is an HDMI adapter for that.
https://www.amazon.com/Converter-Composite-Adapter-Supports-Blu-Ray/dp/B0814Z34XG
Available lots of other places too.
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I would really try and convince them to look at a new tv. UNless the TV is really big and expensive to replace by time you figure out the electricity it uses (bigger less efficient bulb) you might come out cheaper buying a new tv. Walmart has them on cheap for BF right now.
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Quick update… Our CEO just tested Tablo Ripper and it worked as expected. As long as your playback device can decode MPEG2, it should be A-OK. (CC @cycleJ)
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Super sweet! Thanks @TabloCEO Hall! So I presume there’s nothing dramatically different and most others following the API and/or usual methodologies will continue.
As Black Friday sales kick in… Tablo Quad still doesn’t seem to be making the list (why should it, they’ve finally got supply caught up with demand). I’ll be strongly considering this - it’s more practical for my situation.
Thanks!
This device is a surprise to me. I hope you are not walking away from the whole house DVR (as Channel Master abandoned the DVR+ for the Stream+).
If you loved us, you would spend your energies providing PSIP support, ATSC 3.0 support, and streaming services support for your whole house DVR.
PSIP is already important in markets where there is no high speed internet (like my sister’s camp). It will become more important when people abandon PCs for smart phones. There is no competition in this area now that the DVR+ is gone.
I think it would be cool if a future Tablo TV device collected and streamed ATSC 3.0 to Rokus and Fire TVs. It would be even cooler if it provided PSIP guide services to Tablo TV DVRs.
I assume the reason the Tablo TV DVR does not integrate OTT services is that it is a linux box. So is the Roku. License their tech to add apps to the Tablo TV EPG.
Amazon’s Recast is a seriously flawed device, but I love that Philo, Pluto, and HBO all show up in the EPG.
I do not think this is a product that will win many fans and I don’t think it’s a product you want to invest a lot of resources in when there are so many other opportunities to make your ecosystem better.
@TabloTV - I didn’t see an answer to this post by @theuser86. Can the Dual HDMI unit be run headless? Get it setup, but never use the HDMI - just access via a streaming device like a Roku? I assume all subsequent scheduling, etc. could be handled via the Roku?
You could… You’d still get upgrade notifications etc. But then why not just go with a network-connected Tablo?
The native MPEG2 video quality is hands down better than even the 10 Mbps 1080p h.264 compressed video.
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But as mentioned, not well suited for streaming. Hence why these type of devices are direct connect HDMI mainly. I mean, it’s not merely mpeg2, it’s very inefficient mpeg2. YMMV of course.
I totally agree with this statement. However, with mesh WiFi network and wireless AC and wireless AX, you should be able to stream MPEG2 video with no problem via WiFi. Many individuals are now streaming 4K over WiFi, the bitrate there is also quite high.
I agree as well and I have some relevant anecdotal comparisons. I have been playing around with PLEX DVR for the last several months. Tablo is and will likely remain my primary DVR for several reasons. I am currently recording all my PLEX DVR’d shows in MPEG2 and I typically do not have trouble streaming those over ethernet or WIFI. I thought I would vastly prefer the MPEG2 quality over my Tablo 720p and even though I can tell a quality difference if I look I really don’t notice the difference that much when I watch the show. Even when watching the same show recorded on both devices the quality difference is mostly irrelevant to the experience and does not make up for the additional storage and bandwidth required for MPEG2.
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Plex DVR is sort of the best of all worlds, in that you can control transcoding as needed to the end device.
The majority of my Tablo use is remote streaming so the h.264 video is a must, so I am willing to accept the lower video quality. But I always notice how nice watching OTA directly on the HDTV through its tuner looks.
If exported through ffmpeg (or maybe gstreamer or vlc) wouldn’t I end up with a higher quality .mp4 ?
Vs the mpeg2? I mean, you always have the ultimate control when you’re doing your own transcoding. You’d use Plex when you need to server multiple devices and network quality is variable (and you don’t want to mess with all of the variables), things like that.
I think it has already been asked for, but it would be interesting if an uncompressed (mpeg2) option could be added to the current Tablo devices. Then you could have the best quality picture while sacrificing some functionality (user choice).
That defeats the whole purpose of the Tablo. The #1 feature of the original Tablo is that live and recorded TV can be played back on almost any device, and that is thanks to transcoding.
If you want the uncompressed data on just your TV and a couple of other TVs, and that’s it, then the new Tablo is a better option.
True enough, just thinking about ways to add functionality/options to equipment I already have.
I have 720p channels that are OTA tranferring MPEG2 at 15.3 Mbps. If you have an OG model playing 6 of these over ethernet is over the 100 Mbps port.
And I doubt the CPU and ethernet chip can pump that much data.
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