New ex-SimpleTV user - where do I start?

STV is ending service Aug 5th, so after many years of acceptable service I have switched to Tablo. So far, I’m glad to have made the switch.

Firstly, I must say that the setup was smooth and better than I expected.

I’m still discovering things, but wanted to know from others that made this path before me. What can I expect, both good and bad? What features should I make sure I set up correctly? Any other guidance?

Being an existing OTA DVR user, the basics are pretty much the same:

  1. Since tuners can be different between various products make sure you have more then enough antenna and amplifier(if needed).

  2. Don’t over estimate the power of your WiFi. Many users at the minimum hard wire the tablo into the router and use 5G if they are using WiFi.

  3. Remote connect has the static IP and port mapping game.

  4. Original style models (non dual) have a heatsink on the bottom and at a minimum need to be raised off of the underlying surface to reduce the heat.

  5. Live TV is fine but don’t expect to channel surf. Tablo uses a HLS file system mechanism. And I’ve never had any buffering issues with the enable fast live tv startup.

  6. Tablo use to get it’s time from a connecting client so if it’s wrong …

  7. I always enable extend live recording. I’m not a digital hoarder so I enable auto-delete recording when the disk is full. Plus I enable don’t record duplicates.

Great summary zippy!

I’d also add if you happen to run Plex or want to archive/transfer your recordings to a NAS for example there are several third-party utilities that will automate this for you and work really well.

I happen to use Tablo Ripper and can vouch for it’s ease of use as well as reliability.

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Thanks zippy and nilex.

I played with my new tablo last night and this morning, and I have some questions.

As I’m familiar with STV and Tivo, I’m interested on how Tablo can do the following:

  • Any way to limit the number of recordings per show? For example, I only want 2 recordings of a certain show.
  • Any way to see where recording conflicts exist, and some type of priority to the recordings?
  • Can I copy recordings from other systems (eg STV) TO the hard drive so I can watch on Tablo?
  • How can I set the recordings to start XX minutes early or XX minutes after the end?
  • How does it handle shows that run long (like football games)?

And some issues:

  • Apparently the internal 64G can’t be used to watch shows, as I recorded 3 shows last night and I couldn’t watch them. Kept getting “No hard drive” error. When I connected one, they were available to watch.
  • I wasn’t able to watch a live show that I was recording at the same time. It just seemed
    to time out and return to the previous watch screen
  • Not at this time. That’s a common request.
  • Conflicts are noted in the Scheduled section of the apps. They are noted with a red icon as well as you can go to the Conflicts filter to see just the conflicts. As far as priority, I believe the only priority right now is recordings are prioritized over live TV. A scheduled recording will cause live TV playback to be stopped if the tuner is needed for a recording. It’s first come first serve as far as recording priority last I knew.
  • Not to my knowledge. Some people pull stuff off their Tablo and watch via Plex (I’m one of them) but I don’t believe there is a process for sending stuff TO the Tablo.
  • Only available via manual recordings. Scheduled records automatically record an extra non-changeable 5 minutes.
  • Live shows like sporting events are generally automatically padded by 50% of their length (i.e. a 3 hour football game would be padded to 4.5 hours).

As far as your issues:

  • With your 64G reference I assume the Tablo you have is the Tablo DUAL? I’ll let @TabloSupport chime in on this one as I didn’t think the DUAL had a limitation with the usage of the internal 64G for playback. The whole point is if you don’t record/keep a lot you may not even need an external drive to begin with.
  • What device are using for playback? Amazon Fire device by chance? If so, the latest Tablo app for the Fire devices resolved an issue similar to that. I can’t provide much more information then that as I use Android, Android TV and Roku devices.
  1. "* Apparently the internal 64G can’t be used to watch shows, as I
    recorded 3 shows last night and I couldn’t watch them. Kept getting “No
    hard drive” error. When I connected one, they were available to watch.
  • I wasn’t able to watch a live show that I was recording at the same time. It just seemed to time out and return to the previous watch screen"

– Are you sure you purchased a dual and not the original. I have a dual and have no problem recording and watching,etc. just using the 64 gig.

  1. How does it handle shows that run long (like football games)? – the extend live recording feature automatically extends shows marked as live something like 15-20 minutes per hour of original show length. Don’t trust it use manual recording feature

  2. How can I set the recordings to start XX minutes early or XX minutes after the end? - use manual recording option.

  3. Can I copy recordings from other systems (eg STV) TO the hard drive so I can watch on Tablo? - - you can’t. if you want a centralized media server use plex

  4. Any way to see where recording conflicts exist, and some type of priority to the recordings? – When you try to schedule a conflict a warning pops up to allow you to resolve the conflict. Which I always do. The manual may outline what happens if you don’t.

  5. Any way to limit the number of recordings per show? For example, I only want 2 recordings of a certain show. – If they are not duplicates I don’t think so. You have options: record all, record new, AND just go into the show and pick the episodes you want to record.

Thanks for the responses.

I’m using a Roku3 for playback.

As for hard drive, I am planning on pulling the drive from my STV at some point (after I pull the recordings off), so wanted to just use the internal 64G of my DUAL. I ended up putting another temp drive in just so I could watch my recordings until then.

Another question that I just had: is there a way to flip back and forth between two Live channels quickly? I’m impressed at how quickly it tunes into a live channel (faster than STV was).

Not really. If you have both channels being actively tuned, it will only take a second to get the other channel going, but you still have to go though the process of going back to the live tv guide and selecting the other channel.

You should have been using something other then the Roku to perform the initial setup of the tablo - or at least since my original units are approximately 3 years old at that time the Roke couldn’t perform setup… The Roku doesn’t have an expanded settings menu.

In the WEB browser app the top of the settings page should have a picture of either a dual unit or the original unit and the amount of available space. After setup of a dual unit that is using flash memory the available space should be 58.77 GB.

Yes, I used the web browser for initial set up and it didn’t complain about only having the internal 64g drive.