The largest number of tuners I’ve seen is 6 and it was on a TiVo.
It could be made pretty close to seamless if someone was to make an app for that purpose. It seems unlikely anyone will do it though and it would be a pain to maintain on multiple platforms.
TL;DR version of OP…
I have another feature request about making it easier to release a used tuner so that a live show can be watched, but takes a different approach to the problem:
Allow the Tablo to be configured so that it will NEVER use more than three tuners for scheduled recordings! If a consumer can configure their 4-tuner Tablo to use only 3 tuners max, then there is ALWAYS a tuner free, and my wife will NEVER see the dreaded “No Tuner Available” message ever again.
Although that last statement is technically incorrect, as you’d still have the issue if you tried to use more than one device concurrently to watch live TV and/or stream remotely.
This is exactly how my Comcast DVR did it…if I was watching TV and suddenly all of the tuners were about to be used for recording, or if I tried to start watching a channel while all tuners were busy, it would inform me of that fact and prompt me for which recording I wanted to cancel so I could watch live tv…I agree that it should be simpler than it currently is.
So if you and at least one other person are both watching live TV on the same channel who gets the message and who gets to make the choice?
The one who pays the electric bill.
My wife’s Mom doesn’t even live with us.
You need to be little more specific.
Are these people watching on the same device, such as a Roku TV, computer or tablet? Or are they on separate devices?
Most likely, you mean the latter case. So for now, I will assume this.
Frankly, there are many different policies that might be used to govern this situation, but given that we are talking a consumer-facing product, the policy needs to be kept simple and consistent, even if the policy is not perfect. No single policy will be. But getting consumers to pick from multiple policies is probably demanding too much of them. At the very least, there needs to be a default policy and any different policy would be in some kind of “advanced settings” area of the Tablo configuration.
The policy I would suggest is that, in general, a person live streaming a show puts a “lock” on that stream, and it cannot be cancelled by anyone, including even a scheduled recording. That is, a live stream has precedence.
So if two Joe is watching channel X on device A, and Jane is watching channel X at the same time on device B, and if Joe decides to switch to channel Z and there are no free tuners, his request to do so will be stopped, but he will be will be told that he cannot switch because no tuner is available, with a list of the tuners in use and which ones are recording and which ones are live streamed.
The only real issue I see with this policy is privacy. That is, users sharing a tablo device may learn that someone else is watching a channel and, in some cases, this could be a privacy concern.
I think would be rare. Frankly, I think the incidents where a person screams as her murder mystery is cut short just when the murderer is about to revealed are much more important here.
In short, I think a Tablo is shared device with implied lack of privacy from its participants.
It is not like a Tablo is some kind of mini multi-tenanted software solution (for those of you who work in the cloud or on large-scale enterprise software systems). Nor can it be because tuners are shared.
But I also think I didn’t fully respond to your question because you explicitly asked who gets the message and who gets the choice?
Arghh… that’s a really good specific question!
But I think a consistent response, per my rule that a live stream has precedence of any recording, that both users would have to agree to let a recording proceed in order for the recording to grab a tuner.
That is, suppose there are no tuners left, and a recording is scheduled. Any number of users are live streaming on N channels where the channels may or may not be the same.
In this way, at least one tuner must be freed up for the scheduled recording to proceed.
So the best thing is look for the channel with the least number of users. Then a message is sent some user watching that channel. If that user agrees to give up watching the show, then if a tuner is freed up, then the recording will take place.
But what if there are no channel watched by a single user? Then agreement must be obtained from each of the users to stop watching the show. If all agree, the live streaming of that channel is stopped and a tuner becomes available…
If a request to stop watching a show involves multiple users, the message might be: "A recording of the Amazing Race is scheduled for 9M in 15 minutes. This recording will be cancelled unless you and anyone else watching Blood and Treasure agree to stop watching. There are now two separate devices watching Blood and Treasure. "
Then a popup would ask if they agree to stop watching or not.
If both parties watching on the separate devices agree, the tuner is freed up. If not, a message goes out that “Please continue to watch Blood and Treasure”.
Thank you for your question. It is a really important use case, and show how nuanced things become when independent devices are putting demands on shared resources, and where the devices are both independent and perhaps geographically distributed.
Today, recordings just knock people off of live streams, and that is really, really bad.
So I really think that the software engineers at Tablo need to directly wrestle with the problems of resource management here, though I can see why they might prefer to avoid the issue.
I just don’t think there is any avoiding it. There is simply nothing like a live stream being stopped without warning when a scheduled recording grabs the tuner.
Imagine watching name-your-favorite-sports-event on a Tablo, when a recording of a Big Bang Theory rerun grabs the tuner. Definitely not good for reliable live streaming.
“But I think a consistent response, per my rule that a live stream has precedence of any recording, that both users would have to agree to let a recording proceed in order for the recording to grab a tuner.”
When I go to the tablotv WEB site all of their products have DVR in the product name. There are any number of other products that provide better Live TV then tablo. I actually have a hdhomerun that provides excellent Live TV.
Hi all,
I think finally I have a simple solution for this problem. I certainly suggested more complex solutions previously. Unfortunately, one often has to explore more complex solutions before a simple solution reveals itself.
Here is a simple solution.
When a user requests a live stream, Tablo checks to see if there any scheduled recordings that would interfere with this show. If there are and live streams have priority, the user is informed of the conflict and asked if they want to proceed. If they proceed, and if the live stream is still on when the scheduled recording is about to happen, the scheduled recording is cancelled.
Conversely, if a live stream is active, and live streams have priority over scheduled recordings, any attempt to schedule a recording that would interfere with alive stream is not allowed. Of course, the user is informed why: that is the conflict is explained to the user. This is consistent with Tablo’s conflict resolution today, but it now incorporates live streams.
Now suppose scheduled recordings have priority over live streams. If a user requests to watch a show, and that show will be interrupted by a scheduled recording, the user is informed of this and is told when the interruption will occur. That is, if a user wants to watch a 1-hour show, and a scheduled recording will displace that show in 30 minutes, the user is informed that they can watch the show but it will be interrupted by a scheduled recording in 30 minutes. The user then has a choice of watching the show with full knowledge that her live stream will be interrupted in 30 minutes.
The important thing is that the user is now informed and will NOT be surprised by the interrupted. So if she wants to watch a murder mystery, and not see the last 30 minutes of the show, she will be informed in advance. That is, there are no late surprises.
Now consider the case where scheduled recordings have priority over live streams, and someone wants to record a show that will interfere with a current live stream. In this case, the person wanting to schedule the recording is informed that this scheduled recording will interfere with a live stream, and they will be told the name of the show. If the user decides to do so, they can still make the scheduled recording, but they will now do so with the knowledge that they will be disrupting a live stream.
Now we have a simple approach that provides information to users when they either watch shows or schedule recordings. The priority rule is simple: either recordings have priority or live streams have priority.
Importantly, users now can work out problems themselves. That is, if a husband records a show that will interrupt his wife’s live stream, it will be absolutely clear that he did so knowing that this scheduled recording would disrupt his wife’s show. We will leave up to the husband and wife to negotiate between themselves how they will conduct themselves, but there are no surprises here.
Similarly, when a user starts watching a show, they will know beforehand exactly what is going to happen. If they choose to watch a live stream that will be interrupted by a scheduled recording, they will known in advance. If they choose to watch a live stream that will cancel a recording, they will know in advance.
There are not surprises, and the resource management here is a consistent extension of the resource management that Tablo already does for scheduling recordings.
That’s my proposal.
“When a user requests a live stream, Tablo checks to see if there any scheduled recordings that would interfere with this show. If there are and live streams have priority, the user is informed of the conflict and asked if they want to proceed.”
How does this work? Most people watch live TV by clicking on the channel number. Thus there is no end to Live TV and thus no check for future recordings can be made.
If I watch the 10AM live stream of the Price is Right and fall asleep in my La-Z-boy and don’t wake up until 12:30PM, my wife’s 11AM scheduled recording of the View is blown away. And since I fell asleep there isn’t a user to respond to any message.
When she comes home and doesn’t find her recording of the View I could die.
Tablo is a DVR for cord cutters.
source: https://www.tablotv.com/
We’ve got everything you need to know about how to cut the cord from your cable or satellite provider and keep the TV you love with Tablo, the DVR for cord cutters.
source: https://www.tablotv.com/how-it-works/
The device is marketed for recording …so why would live streams have a priority?
You are taking all the fun out of the 5 year old argument about whether tablo is a DVR or a Live TV product.
Have a look at his summery page! Five years, never started a topic, never click 
… start a poll 
Even though he may stir things up whether or not it’s necessary - he is a source of information and is often very helpful to those in need.
If that is the case @djk44883 then you can create the poll. It’s probably up to you or me in the polling biz… Others should come join in the fun
ooops, I thought, maybe, they were cross-posting why we can’t prioritize recordings…
but recording shouldn’t be a necessarily be a priority?
for a DVR?
too much silliness for me
The new real question you pose in your post, is tablo, whether used as a DVR or for Live TV a device or product?
If you try to rearchitect conflict resolution you probably have to decide how complex to make it, how much human interaction you have, how a headless device interacts, if your product is primarily a DVR versus a Live TV device. Of course it helps if the solution will function properly in 100% of the situations.
“Rearchitect conflict resolution”!? Isn’t it just - hey, here’s a conflict. First in unless otherwise resolved. Many, including myself, don’t really see that as any real architecture to resolving conflict.
I understand your view, I believe, tablo being a multi-user - interactively. To allow a random user, watching live TV, override a recording priority… of a DVR - really?
This has a different level of impact for different households. As with lack of user/pass security.
How am I re-architecting conflict resolution? I am, to put it more formally, subsuming the current rules for conflict resolution within a more extended set of rules.
But informally, what is important here is the transparency of the solution.
Any owner can decide what to prioritize, and after that there are no surprises.
If you want recordings to rule, select the recordings priority (the DVR option).
If you want live streaming to rule, select the live streaming priority instead.
It is your choice.
In this formula before you can have extended rules - you need current rules. What are the current rules? Please help here.
Beyond " The conflicted program will be identified with the conflict flag." I haven’t found any info… and just flagging something for you to manually fix isn’t truly conflict resolution [resolution].
What about other users in a household? multiple users - one owner?
So if you actually get recording priorities, can I have some recording take top precedence while others yield to live streaming as they might to other recordings? How is using a tuner, live or recording technically different? (ok, how it associates program data varies). Can’t live get a priority associated with it along the same principle as a recording?
And if by chance, if I’m watching live streaming on an actual TV couldn’t I press the TV button and use the television’s tuner? (I understand you can watch tablo content on various devices) This could be considered resolving one’s conflict as well.
Oh yea… and I bought a tablo DVR, which has the function to watch live TV or various devices - but so does my TV… but my TV doesn’t record that’s why I spent lots of money on a DVR.
