Does anyone have any experience w/ any other over the air DVRs besides Tablo. I am seriously gonna switch if I can get some direction.
Thanks
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I bought the Tablo Gen 4 when it first came out but gave up on it about 3 months ago.
I am using Channels Dvr and couldn’t be happier. It takes a little more to set up, but it works very well. It costs 80/year or 6.67/month, which I think is worth it.
It isn’t a stand alone device so you will need an old pc, mini pc, network storage device to install the software on and get the tuner like the HD Homerun.
While up front, can be expensive, it’s cheap if “used”, like for more than merely a DVR.
… and that’s Plex DVR. IMHO, it’s the most feature complete DVR today.
Is Plex and over the air HD service like Tablo
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhbQDzxNzRE
Edit: Adding (thought this data is dated, the number of channels on Plex still far outnumbers what is on Tablo 4th gen, but note, as a broadcaster, that is Scripps, the owner of Tablo now, they can record some streaming content). 4th Gen Streaming Channels vs. Plex Streaming Channels
Anyone had experience with Zapperboxes?
I like that they follow through on improvements as they promise. IIRC it now supports wifi networking, a must for me. Also has NTSC 3.0.
I like less that it costs a lot more than Tablo, and the free guide is only for 24 hours.I like that there are no recurring charges in the Tablo scheme. Don’t like the max 2 tuners of ZB.
IIRC they are coming out with 2 budget models with degraded spcs.
I see where Plex claims to offer 600 channels? Count me indifferent, b/c I don’t have need or interest in that many, besides which IME many of those channels will have overlapping programming anyway.
With this Roku hiccup. Before I got the Onn Boxes. I considered borrowing an HDHR from a friend again.
I was in limbo with using Plex and or Channel DVR. I did like the lifetime price of Plex versus the yearly fee of Channel DVR.
But I liked Channel DVR’s feature set more. hosting a server aint no thang to me, I got 2 racks in my home office. I got Esxi Hosts, tons of space, and all the time in the world. BUT this all leads to how easy will it be for the wifey LOL. The user end experience.
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So true!
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How about a used Tivo oTA w/ lifetime?
Tivo is out of my price range. Good hardware, but expensive. I had Tivo for years. Just got tired of forking over $$.
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Good used ones with lifetime can be had for the price or less than a Gen 4 tablo
I actually love Tablo4. Wish the Apple TV app supported chase-play (watch recording from beginning while it’s recording). The Android apps work well. But Roku OS 14 on the Roku 4K sticks won’t play video for some reason as noted here. My fallback plan is an AirTV Anywhere that I bought on Amazon. It cost me $150 or so up front, but it has 4 tuners and a built-in 1 TB HDD. The guide also merges their Sling cable channels if you have that service. You can access outside the home, and from a web browser so it works from a PC. It works, but in my experience it’s not as polished as Tablo4. At the moment, only Android Onn boxes, NVIDIA Shield, (and maybe Fire TV stick?) work as expected with all DVR features including chase-play.
If You Cannot rewind live tv either on 4th gen
Hard to love if it doesn’t do the most basic function.
Side note Tablo tech support is very weak imo.
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Sorry for the long post, Ive been going through the gauntlet of the top options this year to see what we like best. Spent more than I would have liked but in the long run it will even out.
My Primary use case is to record/time shift my favorite sports teams live games. My wife and I also record Jeopardy to watch in the evenings after dinner. My wife likes to record/watch local news while she cooks.
We have now tried out 3 different options this year and each has its strengths and weaknesses and none of them have truly stood out as the clear winner for me.
- Tablo 4th Gen (2 tuner)
- Plex Media Server + HD Homerun Flex 4k (4 Tuner)
- Channels DVR + HD Homerun Flex 4k (4 Tuner)
DVR Functionality
-
Channels DVR + HDHR
I am able to record my favorite team as a series and then also record the rest of the leagues games that air as a separate series, excluding my teams games from that series. Very advanced conditional filters available to record exactly what you want or dont want. This allows me to set custom recording options for my teams games which I care more about. For example, I set additional end recording time buffers for my team for any Overtime possibility and to never delete recordings. While the rest of the league has no additional time buffer and sets to delete after watch.- Can set individual upcoming recordings to skip in a series.
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Plex + HDHR
- DVR Features are better than Tablo. I can record my favorite team as a series
When trying to set up a separate series for the rest of the leagues games, the league series automatically takes precedence and ignores my team series because my teams games are part of the league series already. There is no way to have separate series for the same sport like I can with Channels.
- Zero issues recording programs or live events as long as reception is good.
- Plex only works off of a priority list for conflicts. It doesn’t care if you just dont feel like recording any specific game. Cancelling a recording cancels the whole series.
- DVR Schedule UI on the smart tv apps is clunky and not useful. The desktop apps are nice though.
- No separate screen to see all in progress recordings. You have to browse the live TV guide view for the program and jump into watching from there.
-
Tablo
- Lacks features of the other two. I cant record just my favorite sports team as a series, have to record all league games and manually cancel games I dont care about or manually set my team to record every week. negating the advantage to auto series recordings.
- Easy to use DVR interface
- Able to skip recordings in a series easily unlike Plex.
- Has a nice Scheduled and in progress recordings screen to jump right into a program.
Hardware
This is a difficult one to grade given the large difference in implementation, but im giving it to Tablo simply due to its all-in-one easy to use nature. It was very nice just being able to plug it in and be ready to go. The Plex/Channels route has been time consuming and expensive endeavor despite the fact that I had a spare PC and hard drives to use already. I had no way to get ethernet to the server PC where we were storing it so I had to get some MoCa ethernet/coax adapters and switches only to find that the coax in the storage room wasnt connected to the coax where the router was or wasnt MoCa compatible. So I tried powerline adapters and the speed was terrible, so I ended up just getting a WifI PCIE card. It was like an extra ~$300+ at the end of the day on top of the HD Home Run + plex pass and channels DVR subscriptions.
-
Tablo
- All in one solution. Tablo provides an antenna and a device which is a tuner, Hard Drive and media server all in one small sleek package.
- While its a nice package, the hardware seems buggy. It will lose connection often and needs rebooting constantly for the apps to work. When it worked well, its fine, It just refused to work well for any length of time.
Included HDD isnt very big so its recommended to get an external HD to plug into the USB. Limited in overall expansion of storage.- Works over WiFi or Ethernet. Nice when you dont have Ethernet runs throughout your house or near your antenna.
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HD Home Run w/ Plex or Channels DVR
- Given that Plex and channels use the same tuner & server hardware, its a tie.
- The HD Homerun is a better all around tuner than the Tablo’s Tuner. It seems to lock onto channels that the tablo did not.
- Antenna Not included.
- No Wifi. Only works over ethernet.
- The downside is that you need to setup the rest of the hardware/software chain yourself with either a Media Center PC or Network Attached Storage (NAS) box. Pretty easy to setup if you have a spare computer laying around, but not everyone will have this option. A NAS is a great option, but you need some technical chops to configure.
- The positive to this is that you can choose your own specs for best performance. Compared to tablo where you dont have a choice.
Software
- Plex
- Apps are available for every platform under the sun.
- Apps are nicely designed
- Apps run a bit slow and laggy on lower powered smart tv devices like chromecast and roku. Have had a number of app crashes.
- Accessible on Desktop & Web via native app and browser
- Navigating the smart tv apps is sometimes annoying to get too the highlighted menu you want.
- Playback continues while browsing guide.
- Sync playback progress across devices does not work well or at all.
- Offers Multiple User profiles in a Home
- Can access outside of home
- Vast collection of Ad supported IPTV channels included
- Channels DVR
- Apps available on a lot platforms, but not quite as many as Plex. Seems similar to Tablo.
- Very barebones UI on the smart TV apps. Missing many advanced features available through web browser. Has best performance of the 3.
- Accessible via Browser. Though the UI is just a custom themed bootstrap css ui library. Doesnt look very professional like Tablo or Plex, but has plenty of features and has good performance.
- Can access outside of home
- No Native Desktop Apps.
- No Ad supported IPTV channels included
- Tablo
- Ok app platform availability
- Nicely designed. Good organization of sections so its easy to find shows/recordings and pickup where you left off. Sync across devices works well.
- Slow and very buggy. App gets stuck in weird states when performing various actions causing the need for a force quit.
- Apple TV/iOS app cannot watch from start while recording.
- Cant access from a browser
- Cant access outside of home.
- Needs to phone home to Tablo servers to work requiring Internet Connection.
- Some Ad supported IPTV channels included
Media Library
- Plex
- Plex is the clear winner as a Media Library. It can figure out what all your media is and provides a rich UI for browsing and viewing.
- Isnt picky about file naming and gets rich media and meta about all shows and movies.
- Channels DVR
- Has Media Library functionality, but feels far less polished or as deeply featured as Plex.
- Is picky about file naming and doesnt pick up as rich of meta data as plex
- Has a few unique Media Library features like virtual channels and Custom IPTV Channels
- Tablo
- No Media Library Functionality.
Costs
- Tablo (4th gen)
- One time cost
- Very Fair Price for what you get
- $99 (2 tuner no antenna)
- $119 (2 tuner w/ antenna)
- $139 (4 tuner no antenna)
- $160 (4 tuner w/ antenna)
- You are the product and your data is sold to offset these lower prices.
- Plex Media Server + HDHR
- Plex Pass | Option to pay monthly $5.99, yearly $59.99 or one time lifetime pass $239 (looks like these prices have gone up recently) for DVR functionality and guide data. Whatever best fits your needs.
- can use plex apps free without plex pass for media library and watching live only
- Tuner is more expensive than Tablo ($199) and isnt an all in one device meaning you might have more hardware costs before you get up and running.
- Channels DVR + HDHR
- Channels DVR - Only monthly $8 or yearly $80 subscription.
- If you dont need to record, they do have a free app option for watching live only.
- Tuner is more expensive than Tablo ($199) and isnt an all in one device meaning you might have more hardware costs before you get up and running.
Summary
If I could get an all in one device and one time payment like tablo with at least 2TB storage, DVR scheduling & playback functionality and app speed of channels dvr with the UI and media library management of plex, it would be a perfect solution.
Currently I think Plex + HDHR wins out overall on its own for me, but its not by much.
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On board with you there with the wifey factor. I would like to switch to ONN with all the Roku headaches, but noooooooooo. Can’t even think about a Plex/HD homerun setup.
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“DVR Schedule” shows what is scheduled in addition to what is currently recording on Plex DVR.
Also, Plex Status shows what is recording currently as well.
I don’t think I’ve seen a Plex UI crash on my Rokus. But like you said, the UI is available from just about anywhere. You can engage with Plex on your phone and cast to your TV/device, etc.
Priority recording can be better than conflict based as you “get something”. Many might prefer that over forced conflict resolution. Schedules do change, and you might not be watching it 24/7 (talking changes to schedule).
“DVR Schedule” shows what is scheduled in addition to what is currently recording on Plex DVR.
Except that page is completely useless on the smart TV and mobile apps. You cant click on anything to jump into the program or watch previously recorded programs still showing in the list. Its just a list. Nothing happens when you click on them. I want something that I can use to jump into programs or recordings.
Plex Status shows what is recording currently as well.
Thats only on the web & desktop app interface, i dont see this anywhere on mobile or smart tv apps.
Priority recording can be better than conflict based
I dont disagree with you and I wasnt intending to infer either are superior. I was mostly talking about the inability to skip recordings that Im just not interested in within a series. I record all NFL games, and if theres 1 that I just dont care about recording, id like to just tell it to skip. I have NFL at the top of the priority list, maybe there is something else at the same time i might want to record instead, I have to bump that thing up to the top of the priority list, sort of defeating the purpose of having the NFL be top priority. If i could just skip recording one game then its not a problem.
Anyway, it’s good info. Go to the live guide on Plex, jump into what is recording. IMHO, what the heck is wrong with that? IMHO.
its inefficient and cumbersome depending on how many channels i have visible. Its a screen full of information where I only care about one small bit. Thats not the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. I do it because I have to, but it annoys me every time I want to get watching quickly…
My point is that you’re splitting hairs. Functional vs non-functional, sure, I get that. In a world of “not working” or “not working well at all”, I think spending too much time on the thousands of permutations of “ways someone might look at things”, is not a big deal.
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