Make Tablo like the new AirTV DVR and Integrate the Guide with others (old thread)

[ben1]

This analogy is flawed on several fronts:

1. Sling does not “integrate” with any entity whatsoever. The Air TV Player didn’t go out and find someone to “partner” with. The Air TV Player is made by Dish / Sling. Subscribers to Sling service can view their (own) OTA channels in the same guide as the Sling channels if they are subscribers. They may also choose to view only OTA, whether they are Sling subscribers or not.

AIRTV Player has some Great Improvements

The AirTV Player from Sling is a nice little android box, geared strongly toward Sling subscribers. Though I’d never have thought of buying one, I Saw it on sale at Best Buy for just $77 WITH a $50.00 Sling TV credit in the box! Essentially, it’s a $27 box to me, so SCORE. I redeemed my coupon, booted up the box and began exploring … I’m having a gas with this! First of all, you can pull your OTA channels in from your Antenna and incorporate them right into the guide … your Sling channels and …

2. Air TV Player is not a “new competitor” it’s been around for over almost two years. And though it does have a DVR function, it is more like TIVO than Tablo … it is hard-wired to a specific TV, meaning One-Box-One-TV, whereas Tablo connects to an Antenna (any antenna, anywhere) and streams to any TV / all TVs in your home (and elsewhere).

3. Tablo is a maker of a (Hardware) box, which uses an ingenious approach to viewing OTA signals in places other than the location of the nearest antenna feed. Sling / Dish on the other hand, is a streaming service. They made a box (based on the Android TV platform) and incorporated their own streaming service into it.

4. Sling / Air TV does not “unify” or have a “unified DVR” or guide. The DVR is limited to use of ONE antenna feed (which must be close to the antenna lead and TV to which it is tethered), and only for OTA channels. It can not be used for, nor record from any other source, unless you are a paying subscriber to their service - and even then, you must pay an additional $5.00 per month on top of your subscription cost.

5. There is another OTA / DVR product that does “unifiy” an OTA feed with live channels on the internet, (but not to any streaming service) and it’s not the Air TV. It is the Channel Master Stream +. The live channel stream is limited specifically to aggregated, ad-supported content, which (at the moment) is Pluto TV. If you really want to go out and unify, you can add short clips from Haystack news and movie trailers from Google Play.

Stream + from Channel Master

My Stream + arrived yesterday and it is Fantastic! I’ve never been crazy about the Android TV platform, but I love this streaming appliance, nonetheless. The Channel Guide is great. As an ancillary benefit to the OTA guide / grid, you can configure it to include Live online content, all on the same grid. I set this up with Pluto TV, for example, and it’s great! Once you’ve added all your desired sources, you can then go in and trim it down to the specific channels you wish to appear in the guid…

To summarize: The Air TV player is a One-Tuner DVR, for One TV, fed from One Antenna. If you spring for the new upgrade, you can make that a Two-Tuner DVR (for one TV / one antenna). That new tuner is $29.99, ships fast, arrives quickly.

Air TV is not a partner of Sling / Dish, it was promulgated by them, to further subscription base. It incorporates a rudimentary DVR which strictly limits it’s use to the box owners OTA channels and / or Sling channels if the box owner is willing to subscribe - and pay an extra $5.00 per month, on top of the subscription cost.

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