New to cord cutting

I have had tivo for years but been reading up on tablo. Curious which would be best? Thanks

I would say, if you are used to Tablo you may miss some stuff about the device. I myself came from Tivo and Cable. But I am happy with my Tablo. But it does not do everything Tivo does. Really comes down to your likes and dislikes.

My thing with Tivo is it has to be wired to work on your tv’s. Tablo can be wired or wireless and I would hook up the main tablo to the router wired and then use my roku tv to watch tablo wireless. My thing is the buffering issue if there is one.

Yes, but just remember you have to have an antenna going to the tablo :wink:

I have an antenna going into my tivo premiere. I was luck that my 7 yr old premiere can take cable and antenna. My new bolt vox can take antenna too. The new bolt is $14.99 a month for the program guide too. Thats why I was looking at Tablo its cheaper for program guide. The newest Tablo can use cloud dvr storage too.

When I was researching before cutting the cord the monthly TiVo cost was enough to steer me to Tablo but the nail in the coffin was needing extenders or mini’s to watch in other rooms @ $160+ each. Made the Tablo a no brainer to me. Don’t know if that has changed and at this point, don’t really care.

I have been getting ready for cord cutting for a few months now. I have a Tivo Bolt and some minis. I love them, but seriously limited regrding streaming apps when cordcutting. So, I decided I needed a totally streaming platform. I looked at the Tablo, but elected not to go with it. The complaints on loading times really turned me off. It simply should not take 10 and 20 seconds to load a recording or a live channel.

So, if I decided not to go with Tablo why am I here? Because of the grass may not be greener elsewhere. Each live tv / DVR option has limitations; HDHomerun does not work on Roku. Plex works on most things, but the different platform clients are in differing states of development. Most do not even allow you to set a recording at all. No TV guide grid. Plex is developing feverishly, but still a work in progress.

So, here I am several hundred dollars later wondering if I should have just tolerated the load times…

Hi!

Welcome on the community! I’m new too, I just created my account but I’m reading this forum for the last 2-3 months.

I bought my Tablo 4 tuners + Roku Streamstick in last february and tested it aside my cable setup. Well, surprise, all the family was pleased with the new way of watching TV.

Tonight, I will disconnect my Tivos, package and send all the old hardware to Cogeco and this is it!

Happy cord cutting!

Nicolas

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@SJMaye

Hello

It’s all in what you are used to.

I think many of the Tablo users including myself, watch very little live TV. Switching channels while watching live TV is where the annoying loading time is experienced.

If you are mainly recording and viewing shows later, you’ll be thrilled with the huge monthly savings, and features like fast forwarding through the endless commercials guided by the thumbnails.

Chas

The loading time issue is only for live TV, thus it is only an issue if you channel surf. Since nearly all my TV viewing is now recordings &/or some sort of streaming/on demand content, channel surfing is something I never/rarely do anymore.

Tablo’s advantage over Tivo is the wireless functionality, compatibility with a multitude of devices (i.e. computers, tablets, phones, streaming devices), & the remote access capability.

When I was researching my cord-cutting adventure I looked at Tivo Roamio, Tablo & Channel Master DVR+. Since I wanted a whole home DVR I quickly ruled out the CM DVR+. Ultimately I choose Tablo because the initial cost was going to be cheaper, easier to set up & it’s compatibility with streaming boxes. The streaming box compatibility was a big key for me. This means that I now access all of my viewing content (PSVue, Tablo, Netflix & Amazon Prime) from a single UI - Fire TV. I have since found that I also occasionally take advantage of the remote access feature while traveling in my RV.

Tablo is not the best solution for everyone. You need to determine exactly what you want from your entertainment system & then do the research on what will best fill your needs.

Happy cord-cutting!

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I do not disagree with your comments on Live TV viewing. I mostly watch recorded shows. But, having a device that takes that long to load with likely push me to virtually never watch Live TV.

In my cord cutting adventure I have spent a lot of money to find out the limitations of each platform. And I thought I did enough research before making the purchase.

And if you’re going to live transcode into a more friendly format, there’s going to be a delay required. If you want your recording to not take a ton of room, you’ll need to transcode the original ATSC format.

Remember, you’re not just watching Live TV with the original Tablo designs, you’re watching Live TV potentially from anywhere (your phone, tablet, etc).

With that said, the last update shaved about 7-10 seconds off the switching time, again, a delay felt only with a new transcode on a tuner (that is, if you switch back and forth between channels already tuned, the delay is minimal).

I watch Live TV from my office at the end of my day, because I can with Tablo. Can’t do that with those other “fast” direct connect to TV or high speed wired network required style solutions.

With that said, I, like many others, use an antenna feed directly into our home TV’s for “channel surfing”. So our home Live TV is via the tuners our TVs already have. Not saying you can’t use the Tablo there, but, as you said, there can be a 10-17 second delay if the Tablo doesn’t already have the channel tuned and “recording” already.

Fast Live TV at home, use your TV’s built-in tuner. Live TV anywhere, Tablo is a good solution for that.

Of course, there are other alternatives out there as well. But Tablo is a fairly well designed centralized DVR with the ability to stream Live TV anywhere.

As I said, Tablo is not going to be the best solution for everyone.

If watching OTA channels live & especially if you do much channel surfing than Tablo is going to leave you a little frustrated. Also, since you already own a Tivo Bolt & the mini’s then I’m sure they work rather nicely for you as a whole home DVR.

But, the Tivo Bolt is not going to allow you to view on computers, tablets or phones. It also is not going to give you remote access to your OTA channels & recordings. But if none of this is of any value to you then you aren’t missing anything.

I hardly watch live tv. Once in a great while I will. I record and watch at my leisure. The tivo has to be hard wired and it was a bitty getting both my bolt and premiere to talk. If the tablo takes 10 seconds to load a recording I am ok cause Netflix does the same thing. I just like how I can use tablo on all my roku tv’s. I guess I may bite the bullet and give it a try.

What I like about Tablo is that is isn’t perfect.

What??!!

You see, it was good when I bought it and while not perfect, the Nuvyyo folks have kept on making it better and better. Sure, it’s still got some ways to go even still, but you know the product did what I needed years ago when I bought it and it’s only gotten better. And most all of the improvements make good sense. No Hydra nonsense and such. Real, active and engaged support.

I now own two 2-tuner Tablos. One wired, one using WiFi and they both work great.

With that said, the router/firewall provided by my ISP won’t allow me to make both Tablos available outside of my network, but that’s a limitation of the router.

I came from the Aereo camp. And Tablo IS Aereo effectively, just without its restrictions (but does require a working antenna to the Tablo, probably the primary benefit of Aereo was its remote antenna that was near the broadcast towers).

Why 2 tablos? Just curious one is wired and the other wifi. What is the purpose? Thanks.

If ATSC 3.0 lives up to its mission statement to make OTA reception that much easier (and for mobile devices on the move), then Aereo will have had a short term life anyways. And if that happens, desertion from cable will not be in the hundred of thousands but in the millions… Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of guys :grinning:

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How is the cloud dvr on the new tablo?

I bought the second Tablo when Tablo had a refurb sale because I found that just have 2 tuners in DFW was just a bit too limiting. I already had a distribution amplifier, but no free antenna hook up where the other Tablo resides (where it could be hard wired), so I set it up by our TV in the living room using WiFi.

I think you might be way overselling ATSC 3.0. Just saying. Still years off. Nobody wants to replace all their devices (TVs, etc.) even when it deploys.