I recently switched to Tablo after 13 years with TiVo.
I’m fairly happy about it, a few things are even better than TiVo. I love the streaming to any device, including mobile and outside of the intranet.
But there are two things that are killing me and make Tablo unusable for my wife, almost unusable for me.
With TiVo I used to look at the recordings and immediately know what was recorded today or yesterday.
With Tablo I need to search for the icon of each show. The icons are ordered on a weird alphabetical order, for example Sunday morning appears at the C as in CBS Sunday morning even if the icon only says Sunday morning.
Then I need to click on the icon, click to go down, see the list of shows, read the dates, know what day is today, and finally figure out what’s new and what’s not.
That’s way too much work for me to do on behalf of a computer. My wife already gave up and only goes to Hulu or Netflix and waits for my patience to watch shows on Tablo.
On TiVo you can use the colored buttons to group/ungroup the recordings by show and to sort them alphabetically/chronologically.
This allows you to figure out if there is anything interesting at a glance.
The second thing that is killing me is the back button that goes back 30 seconds.
I am used to TiVo (goes 30 second forwards and 7 seconds backward) and beyond pod on android (30 and 5, configurable), and whenever I don’t understand one word, or the baby coughs, or the wife talks, I press the back button. On TiVo/beyond pod I re-listen to what I just missed, on Tablo I go back way to much and get frustrated listening to 25 useless seconds when I only need 5.
On my tablo Roku app I can go into my Recordings menu and sort by recent.
But I don’t think Roku is going to allow the tablo app to control the colored buttons on the remote. And the Fire TV Stick doesn’t have any colored buttons on it’s remote.
You didn’t mention which media player you’re using, but on the Roku, you can rewind:
6 second increments by pressing the left arrow button in a recording.
2 - 10 second increments by pressing the left arror button in Live TV.
Each recording preview frame is about 6 seconds in length rewind.
Each Live TV left arror click is about 2 - 10 seconds in length rewind, depending on how long the Live TV channel has been tuned in.
The longer it’s tuned in, the longer the rewind segments.
Go back as near, or far as you want in those increments, and press the OK, or Play button to continue viewing from there.
Not as slick as pressing just 1 button to rewind exactly how far you want to go, but you do have control for each 6 second segment.
And @adam1991 is gonna let you know you should have stuck with TiVo.
Tablo seems to be chock full of such things that, in a computer, simply should not be.
gee, Windows Media Center does that to.
Oh–and so did ReplayTV.
So you’re thinking, “hmmmm, why didn’t they do what the rest of the DVR world has already shown to be a rational way of doing THAT feature?” You’ll continue to ask yourself that for awhile.
I’m intrigued by the commercial skip that’s coming–but knowing how long it took to get a couple of what I call basic features implemented, and knowing what other basic features are not yet implemented (as you’re seeing), I would say don’t hold your breath on this being a real Tivo replacement for awhile.
Expect to catch a RAFT of crap here for daring to think that what you have come to expect in a DVR over many years on a mature product has any value in the world whatsoever.
I didn’t realize how much difference there is between the devices.
The recent recording in Roku is very nice. If I had seen that first I would not have created this post.
Unfortunately my main tv is an LG, and it’s the one with the worst Tablo experience. No conflict resolution, no subtitles, back and forth 30 seconds, screens that freeze…
Do you think I can wait for the app to be fixed or should I just get a Roku?
Keep in mind that TiVo only needs to support TiVo. TiVo isn’t concerned about whether or not they need to be operational on Roku, Fire, LG, Samsung, and a bunch more. Yes, there’s a TiVo app for iOS and Android.
13 years is a long time doing things a certain way. And while I agree that adjustments to Tablo’s app function might be in order, I’m guessing that in their development environment, they release a feature change in a select group of what they’ve found to be their most used clients. Is is possible that because you’re using more than one client, you’re further complicating your own learning curve? And yes, if the LG Tablo app isn’t working out for you, but the Roku experience is better, then I would put a Roku on the LG.
And… full disclosure…I’m still using TiVo and haven’t made the switch yet. I’m reading the heck out of these posts and searching the web for more reviews, and trying to figure out if whatever differences Tablo may have in operation would still be manageable given that i’ll be saving almost $330 a year in TiVo service fees. So far, I’m not seeing anything insurmountable.
TiVo’s not perfect either. But you do get used to doing things a certain way and you expect things to continue to work the same way even when you’ve made a wholesale change. I’m not sure those expectations are totally realistic.
In preparation for making this change we got a Roku. We found a streaming service that gives us the handful of cable channels we actually watch. My wife learned how to watch, record, etc. Then we cut off cable tv and went on antenna. Now we’re looking at getting out from under the TiVo fees. Lots of changes. You’re making changes too. And finding things you’d like to see changed and voicing those things may help spur improvements that others would find useful.
I’ve used Sage, WMC, TiVo, Plex and others. My Tivo is in the dead electronics room and Nvidia Shield(plex) is turned off and under a dust cover.
I got tired of too many features and options and went with network based tablo. I decided I didn’t need or want 25 possible options to do something simple.
If all cars have a steering wheel and a brake pedal and an accelerator pedal, how well do you think a car without those things would sell?
You’d see the same fanboi web site as you have here, with those who bought one defending their choice to the death by calling you silly for thinking that a car should have a steering wheel, a brake pedal, and an accelerator pedal.
Your Tivo does things the way it does because those things work and have been proven over a very long time and very wide audience to be a good and reasonable and rational way to do those things.
Your expectations are entirely realistic. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Now you’re just being mean.
I think you’re confusing fanbois with people who disagree with your opinion.
You can disagree with an opinion, but you can’t disagree with a fact.
And if you’ve ever driven a truck with 4 wheel drive in the winter, then you would think all vehicles should be bigger and have 4 wheel drive. Because it’s proven. And it works. I drive one. So I guess that makes my wife in her Jetta must be some kind of fanboi
I think you’re confusing “disagreement” with “personal attacks”.
And THAT’S the behavior that you generally see when people have bought all in to something, be it Tablo or Tesla, and feel the need to defend their choice even in the presence of, shall we say, alternate information that perhaps they never considered.
And once they’ve made their choice, they will never consider any such alternate information as having any value. To the contrary, many will see it as having negative value, and will associate that with anyone who brings up same said inconvenient information.
This process would happen if Elon Musk brought out a car as I described. Shoot, even the Tesla crowd who want badly to be at the forefront of the fashion started out defending to the death the hour long charge process every couple of hundred miles. You’d see silly statements like, “Well, you’re going to stop anyway for lunch, so it’s no big deal.” Every 200 miles?
My opinion stands that such things as being able to set-and-forget recording priorities and having the “quick back” feature be 7 seconds and NOT 30 seconds have become de facto standards in the DVR world.
I’m not actually.
I see you personally attacking people on this forum, like calling them fanbois, for example, unless you meant fanbois in a positive way.
Please correct me, if I took it the wrong way.
Also, is someone attacking you, or just disagreeing with your opinion?
