NEW - Amazon Fire TV, Android TV & Android Mobile Update (v. 1.1.8)

Happy Wednesday Tablo fans!

We’ve just published some updates for our Fire TV app and Android-based apps which address issues experienced by some users.

Your devices should receive an update notification (unless you have auto update selected) for version 1.1.8 in the coming hours.

This release includes the following changes:
• Fix to allow manual recordings set less than 1 hour in the future
• Fix to restore ‘Play Now’ button when an airing is selected
• Fix for ‘No Tablo found’ device discovery issue seen by some users
• Fix for issue seen on 1st generation Fire TV sticks where the Live TV grid did not always render correctly

If you have any feedback or questions about this release, please post them below.

If you need some help from our support gurus, place a ticket and we’ll be in touch shortly.

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Is this update for the Tablo or for the Fire TV app?

This is an update to the FireTV / Android App…

I was able to update my Android tablet to 1.1.8, but not the Fire TV. Deleted and re-downloaded, but it still sits at 1.1.7, as of 7 PM PST Wednesday.

Tablo support sent me an email saying the 1.1.8 update for Fire TV should be available by 9:00 am today 1/19/17.

It can take a bit of time for the update to filter through to all of Amazon’s servers.

The update became available around 8:30 PM PST Wednesday.
Works great. Thanks.

2 Likes

This update was pushed to the iPhone app as well?

Yes - although the code base was mostly unchanged there.

I have (4) Fire TV devices that I use to access my Tablo with, and apparently I was one of the lucky ones for I was not experiencing any issues with them not being able to detect my Tablo on my network until just this past Tuesday 1/17/17 while others had issues since before the end of the year. Thus the fix of the problem came quickly for me compared to many others.

But this is a major concern for users period, but especially for people like me who use Tablo not for viewing on mobile devices like phones, tablets & computers but rather as their home entertainment system to multiple TV’s that the entire family count on for TV viewing. I guess this simply comes with the territory of using a product that relies on a wifi network for use. This brings me to what would be my biggest feature request - a Tablo with the ability to be wired to a TV directly by HDMI. I realize this is not a software request & would require the purchase of a different piece of equipment. I also realize that it would not solve the issue with a multiple TV system, but it would at least give a user the ability to access their Tablo from one TV in the instances when software &/or network issues arise.

I believe I asked about this when I first purchased my Tablo & if memory serves I was told my application of the Tablo was not what the company had in mind when it was developed & marketed. But after being a Tablo user & on this forum for almost 1/2 year, it seems to me that many (if not most) customers use Tablo as a home entertainment system for TV’s. How hard could it be to simply add the ability to connect the Tablo directly to a TV by HDMI?

If you want to go that route, then you might want to look at the new Tablo Droid software. You connect a two-tuner USB stick to a NVIDIA Shield, and that device connects directly to a single TV set via HDMI. It doesn’t transcode, so it acts like a standard DVR. However, it doesn’t connect to any other set or device in your home.

The standard Tablo will never have HDMI. It is a whole home DVR server.

Has the sorting issue under the recording tab been fixed so far? I’m on v1.1.8 and still having the issue. Just wanted to confirm if I’m missing something or it’s still an outstanding issue.

On my Fire 2 box last night I could not connect to my Tablo. Not sure if it had updated to this new release or not. So I uninstalled and then downloaded this latest 1.1.8 version. Still cannot connect. So, I’m dead in the water.

I have a Fire 1 box that does connect to my Tablo.

Ideas?

You’re missing the point of what I want. I am not interested at all in a DVR that is dedicated to use with only one TV, especially not one that requires the use of a 3rd party device.

I want a whole home DVR that simply can also be connected directly to a TV via HDMI. It obviously can be done because all the cable & satellite companies have them as well as Tivo. I realize that Tablo operates differently than those but it can’t be that hard to simply add the hardware required to the existing tablo to enable it to be directly connect to a TV via HDMI.

The Tablo is designed to work with every streaming device out there, and those devices have the HDMI ports to connect to televisions. That is something cable, satellite, and Tivo DVRs cannot do.

Adding and HDMI port to the Tablo changes it completely. You would need a remote control. And since the Tablo still transcodes the show as soon as it captures it, you have all the same limitations as the Roku, AppleTv, and all the other streaming boxes.

What it sounds like is you want a DVR that doesn’t transcode, like the Tivo. Tivo makes great DVRs, but you do have proprietary boxes throughout your home if you go that route.

I understand how Tablo is different from Tivo & other whole home DVR systems. And I realize that what I want changes Tablo, but I’m not asking for them to change what it does currently, just add the additional feature of connecting it directly to one TV while keeping the current ability of using wifi to transmit to the rest of the home.

This way when issues arise such as experienced by so many Fire TV users recently where the Tablo becomes undetectable on the your wifi network, there is still a way to access it on one TV.

I also understand that it is very unlikely that Tablo will ever do this. Their most recent new product releases demonstrate this.

You can do this with the Plex DVR on a NVIDIA Shield using the HDHomeRun tuners.

The Plex DVR on the Shield does all the recording like the Tablo, but it will also playback the recordings directly on your Shield which is connected to your TV directly via HDMI. Then the Plex Media Server installed on your Shield shares the recordings with all your devices on your network that have the Plex app installed (Roku, Fire TV, iPad, iPhone, etc.)

How many tuners can you have & how many simultaneous live feeds &/or live recordings can be going at once?

From what I’ve read you can install multiple HDHomeRun units so you can have 2, 4 or even 6 tuners. As for simultaneous recordings, you’d be able to do 6 at a time if you had 6 tuners.

Plex DVR records the native MPEG2 video like the Tablo DROID software DVR engine does.

As for simultaneous playback streams, if the playback device can playback MPEG2 video I assume it would be as many as your network can handle.

Roku devices cannot playback MPEG2 so the Plex Media Server will transcode on the fly the MPEG2 video to h.264 video for it. So the max number of streams will be dictated by how powerful the NVIDIA Shield is and how many streams it can convert at once.

I assume this would be at least 4 based on current networking and processing power.

Where does it store recorded content. Does it use an external HD?

Also, How do you connect multiple HDHomeRun tuners?