New Hardware Announced

Nexus has the newest AndroidTV still, newer than Mi Box. Anything similar planned for AppleTV 4th Gen? I really love my AppleTV and that is from an Android enthusiast!!!

So what is the benefit of the Tablo Cloud over having a regular Tablo system at home? It seems that having 4 tuners is better than one, and you donā€™t have to worry about data caps when streaming.

I see only two potential benefits.

  1. You might be able to watch recordings on any device in the world via a simple username/password combo.
  2. Your recordings should be safe, while data on the home Tablo can be wiped out for various reasons (bad drive, factory reset, etc).

If that also has the ability to store locally for a closed network solution ( no cloud available ) then Iā€™d probably have a work related use for that.

@TabloTV, how does the Tablo TUNER differ from the Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD USB tuner stick? Is yours better or cheaper or are they just different distribution channels for the same thing? Also, will the Tablo Droid software work with an ethernet-connected tuner like the HDHomerun? I believe the new DVR famework in Nougat supports this.

I have a feeling the difference is the pretty branding logo.

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I think thatā€™s a pretty fair guess, hereā€™s the side-by-side:

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Hah, awesome, except one of them has the text upside downā€¦

My guess is no, since my guess is it would be limited to the local storage of the Apple TV and also the Apple TV wont accept a USB tunerā€¦ A network tuner might work

There are a lot of gotchas and workarounds there for the Apple TV to be a viable stand alone solution

Well @cjcox was correct. We are white-labeling their tuner for this purpose.

That being said, theirs is sold with a bunch of stuff that we wonā€™t need (a mini antenna, a remote control etc.) so weā€™re hoping to be able to pass along some savings once weā€™ve got the final pricing nailed down.

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@TabloTV Can the recording location for Tablo DROID be configured or does it pick for you? Ie, if I get the Shield Pro AND want all my recordings on an external USB drive to keep the internal 500G drive free for other stuff, can I do that?

You sure can.

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I assume the normal Shield limitations with having the drive seen as either external storage or an extension of internal storage are true, though. No write permissions if used as external storage ā€“ and encrypted and locked to the box if write permission is needed and added as internal storage.

Not sure about that oneā€¦ Will have to check with the engineering team. Stay tuned.

So no more delays when switching live channels with the DROID? :scream:
Would it play nice with an existing Tablo DVR? We could use a splitter and dedicate one end to live TV viewing (like itā€™s done already, but via Tablo).

Iā€™m assuming the Tablo DROID DVR app in the Google Play store will be separate from the current Tablo app (aka not replace it), so you likely can use the DROID app with the Tablo TUNER, and use the current Tablo app with the OG Tablo DVR.

I do have one big question about the Tablo Live. Does it still have the same limitations as the Tablo when changing channels (ie, a 15 second delay or more)?

Yes - it has to transcode the signal to send it over the network just like the Tablo DVR does.

How many dual tuner USB dongles will Droid support?

Can recordings made on a Shield with Droid be watched on other devices such as other Shields in a different rooms?

  1. The answer was on one dongle so thatā€™s only 2 tuners.
  2. No. Only can watch the recordings on that Shield. The recording format is the native MPEG2 video and AC3 audio, which is a very high bitrate. Too high for most mid level consumer WiFi speeds.

The Droid app is very similar to the TiVo solution, and brings many of the advantages TiVo had to Tablo. It would be nice if Tablo could create TiVo mini type devices to transmit this signal to other TVā€™s, I would definitely consider purchasing one.