Needing more tuners - way forward?

General Discussion
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So, with football season, my wife wanting to block record Sundays, and my daughter discovering some new series on the CW channel, I now have to resolve conflicts. So, I need more tuners - my FIOS DVR that we replaced could do, IIRC at least 6 shows and I’d think if I had more, then that would resolve issues.

But now I run into other issues planning this out.

  1. I have to manage recordings over 2 devices - very cumbersome, No solution.

  2. I need another hardware setup, including 2 more power points, another antenna, (or a splitter and the concomitant issues of bedding it down), and a HDD. That’s expensive for the marginal value.

  3. My recordings are now in different places - that’s really not good. I see there are lots of apps that’ll grab the Tablo recordings and move them to Plex, and I can run Plex (is it not Kodi nowadays?) on my Synology NAS.

While that is a good solution and plays into my longer-term goal of also migrating my DVDs and Blu-ray disks to the NAS, that wasn’t the job I wanted to do next.

So, any suggestions that I may have overlooked? I fully realize we watch only a fraction of what we record, but that’s another discussion I’m not willing to have. :slight_smile: I don’t care that in a short while we’ve accumulated 30+ episodes of Seinfeld, NYPD Blues and Law&Order CI. And I’ve already started mass-deleting news shows that record en masse.

2

  1. have your daughter use the OTT CW app. Most CW episodes are there.

  2. Buy a refurbished 2 turner for $99 and give it to your daughter

or even better

  1. send your wife to the in-laws for the football season. Build a man cave and enjoy life.
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Edit- I now see from Bardel’s profile that he already has a 4-tuner, so disregard my suggestion below.

  1. Buy a 4-tuner Tablo and give the 2-tuner to a friend/relative, or sell it to recover part of the cost of the 4 tuner.
    My son is happily using my original 2-tuner at his house, and I no longer have to deal with resolving conflicts on my new 4-tuner.
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The problem with limiting your self to 4 tuners is that, where I live, just next Saturdays NCAA football schedule is 9 games spread across 5 channels. And while I’m sure I’ll live if I miss some I do have 6-tuners to fill in any gaps.

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Do you have a dual tuner or quad tuner?

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I have 3 2-tuners. Two that are 3 years old and a newer dual.

While I’m old I am still able to manage to press a button to record. I have redundancy plus I stayed away from the early heat issues with 4-tuners.

But I did buy some early 4-tuners for relatives and I think they are still cranking away.

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Kodi is the new name for XBMC. Plex is different.

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My bad, I got confused a tad there. Plex is ofc. also a spin-off from XBMC/Kodi.

For clarity’s sake, my previous, withdrawn post inadvertently responded to someone other than FlyingDriver who was the intended addressee.

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Since your profile indicates that you are using YouTubeTV in addition to OTA, and that you are going Plex for “keeper content”, I would recommend the following:

  1. Use Tablo for your “watch then delete” content.
  2. Get the new 4-tuner HDHomeRun for capturing content you intend to keep (Probably the Spousal content), since a Plex Pass will allow you to record direct to Plex from that. Also, that platform will allow you to expand your tuner count as needed. (Note that their version of the guide is non-traditional- some cannot stand it, others love it.)
  3. Let the daughter just use the YoutubeTV DVR to record her shows there- since I would guess that platform is more in line with her demographic…

This gives you a total of 8 tuners (4 in Tablo, 4 direct to Plex) for different content, and you can migrate your saved “keeper” content from the Tablo to Plex.

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Or you could get two 4 tuner HDHomeRun units and have 8 tuners in Plex DVR.

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Great advice and a plan for moving forward. Love it, thanks.

Yea, I’d have thought so, but she seems quite negative on YouTubeTV (go figure) and besides that particular series isn’t offered on the YTTV selections as far as I can see.

Based on your advice, getting the Tablo seems to be a detour on the road? I’d have been better off with Plex and HDHomerun tuners? I looked at those initially, but couldn’t figure out the “whole house” TV bit. Maybe the Tablo is a good waystation but the ultimate is the HDHomerun path.

I think the thing that’s going to kill Tablo for me is the tuner limit and the continued need for “pressing buttons” if I have multiple Tablos set up and am unable to consolidate their content.

13

I don’t think I would spend a ton of money rebuilding an OTA network until I saw how ATSC 3.0 evolves. It’s already available in Korean TV models. Sinclair Broadcasting is in a hurry to starting using it. PBS has a working group to address how it’s going use ATSC 3.0.

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Why would you need youtube tv DVR strictly for the CW? I thought the OTT CW app has all the episodes and I thought it allowed for pause and resume.

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re: Tablo as a detour- Not really; different strengths and weaknesses. And if you got in earlier like I did, Plex did not yet have a DVR functionality (and it is still not fully matured IMHO)

And there are many 3rd party apps to export your tablo recordings to plex- surlatablo, tabloripper, etc… that you can find in these forums, so the “multiple pressing buttons” can be evaded.

re: zippy’s comment on the CW app- if the commercial breaks are not too intrusive that is a fully supported solution for one channels worth of stuff, but of course that has to meet your daughter’s approval, and I think there is also a plugin for Plex to that app’s content… :slight_smile:

16

YouTubeTV isn’t only for CW. It came about when I cut the cord and was looking for a replacement for cable.

I an get a LOT of sport on it, as well as a majority of the cable networks. Price is reasonable at $35/month and it allows for unlimited recording. It doesn’t get the full spectrum of the local channels though and some (like ABC in my area) have almost nothing.

The major drawbacks of YouTube TV is that each of us family members have their own sign-in, and is controlled from our phones and cast to the TV. Sports can, for instance only be watched if cast to a TV, it won’t play on the phone. Also negative is the fact that if’we’re watching a series, then if I use my smartphone (account) to watch an episode with my wife, then if next time we want to continue and her account is casting to the TV, that episode will still show as unwatched. And if we don’t sync what we record, then there is a difference in inventories between what I have and she has. That has good and bad - I don’t have Grey’s Anatomy, she doesn’t have Law&Order CI, for instance. But we both have to have Sinner or 10 Days in the Valley, for instance.

Also, I can’t skip as many ads on YouTubeTV broadcasts as I can skip on my own OTR recordings.

17

I guess one of your opening statements (and my daughter discovering some new series on the CW channel) concerning a condition causing the need of additional tuners might have been a little misleading.

18

Another vote for the CW app your daughter. New episodes are available the next day. You might also want to see if there is CW plugin for your Plex server.

19

there is, in fact, a “Plex Channel” for the CW app.

1 Like
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But despite the fact that I can get theCW over the air, I can’t use the CW app because I’m in Canada.

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