For me, storage space isn’t the problem - autodelete could manage that. The problem with having 50+ saved episodes of “Today” show, for example, is that I have to scroll all the way to the bottom, through all the old episodes, just to get the most current episode. If the interface put the most current episode at the top, I’d have no need to set episode limits.
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If I remember correctly the original product use to list the recordings based not on the episode number but the date of the recording with the newest recordings listed first.
Then it seems that there was a group of users claiming that based on their expertise the mature DVR strategy was to list all recordings in ascending episode number regardless of type of show.
So now all contrarians suffer.
Just got a refurbished 4 tuner, I know I can’t return it, but lack of this feature and the slowness of implementation on the web interface even though this had been in the “firmware” for quite some time gives me pause. I will likely not be buying a subscription as I doubt the future of this product.
There’s a firmware in beta that, according to Tablo, will have some new features. This is a feature that Tablo reps have stated they are looking into. Perhaps you should wait to see what new features will be in the firmware before giving up on it. In the year and a half I’ve had my Tablo, there have been a number of new features that have made the Tablo better and better.
Where is this in the roadmap? I would LOVE the Tablo with it but will probably return it before my 30 days are up if this basic functionality is not going to at least be on the web app soon.
The user doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the end of a 30-day return window. The feature wasn’t there when the tablo unit was purchased. Yet insists that this feature appear or they will return the unit.
Oh, well.
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If you would like to get an advanced view on anything new you could sign up for the firmware and client betas. Any new features are released in those first. Of course anyone in those betas is not allowed to talk about them.
There are no public road maps that I know of.
So here we are in January 2019. Tablo has announced a very nice enhancement to its DVR–commercial skip. As a ReplayTV user long ago, I am very interested. I have this feature running well on my Windows Media Center, but I’m always looking for what’s next.
So pray tell, can anyone tell me if Tablo has yet solved the conundrum of allowing users to set, PER SERIES, a fixed limit of recordings to keep before it deletes the oldest to record the newest? You know, just like Windows Media Center has been doing seemingly forever.
Did they fix this up in the last year before going to town on commercial skip? Or is it still “in the firmware, but we’re not going to release it until we put it into every interface we offer”?
Zippy seemed to want to die on this hill, defending the lack of this feature. One thing that continued to come up was that users wanted the feature to be in the UI in at least the web UI, declaring that to be a big bang for the buck. Zippy and Tablo kept coming back with “it doesn’t make sense to implement it until it can exist in every UI across every device Tablo supports”.
When I kept reading that, all I could imagine was how this is the very definition of how “perfect is the enemy of good”.
So if I buy a Tablo today, can I limit on a per series basis the number of shows it records–even if it’s web browser only access to this feature?
There was also a discussion elsewhere about how a series was presented. Originally it was by recording date, or by original air date; then it changed to being sorted by show number in the series. That combined with Tablo recording every show in the series with no user-defined limit, made users scroll through the interface all the way to the bottom of the series list to find the latest show–a very strange requirement.
Has that changed?
And again, I feel it necessary to mention that Windows Media Center has always given you the CHOICE of how to view a series–either by original air date, OR by recorded date. Choice–what a concept (apparently something that escaped Zippy when he made his snide comments on the matter).
Some people don’t realize features may already exist. Or they want a feature exactly as they dream it.
Regardless of the R&D cost, the lack of return on investment or needing a new feature that the competition has or just announced.
Superb. Thanks, Lysander. That’s not mentioned anywhere in their online documentation for their DVR system.
Here’s a feature request: up to date and complete documentation, that helps potential buyers to make a decision. Maybe some people are happy with the “buy it and we’ll show you, you have 30 days to try it” concept–but many others aren’t.
yes, zippy, Tablo wanted a feature exactly as THEY dreamed it–they were not going to give users ANY access to controlling series recordings like that until they got it perfect in THEIR minds.
Never mind how may people were asking for them to expose the feature in one simple place, where virtually everyone could access it if they wanted.
Perfect was the enemy of good.
And what do you say now that they have implemented this feature? Are you still insistent that no one needs it?
https://www.tablotv.com/blog/advanced-recording-features-tablo-ota-dvrs/
But you are right. The online documentation hasn’t kept up completely with all the new features that have been added. I do suggest that any potential buyers read the online guides as well as all blogs about the Tablo.
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So if a feature is implemented exactly as you dream and the cost of implementation in the base tablo and all apps is $20,000 just how many new units would be sold to recover the initial investment of $20,000.
And of course the idea is to make more then the initial investment. Not break even.
Tablo has announced a new commercial skip feature. Once turned on it applies to recordings made on all channels. Someone ask about having the feature per channel because PBS already has few if any commercials. Doesn’t the competition already allow per channel commercial removal? Did Tivo also announce a number of new features? Does Tablo need to keep up with the competition?
Ask Tablo if they think they need to keep up with the competition.
Better yet, tell Tablo “no, you don’t need to keep up with the competition–just do whatever comes to mind, don’t worry, I’ll buy it” and see what they say.
And what competition do they have for commercial skip? Oh, none. Not even ReplayTV anymore. Yes, there are homebrew setups that use Comskip or similar and which may allow one to set up custom commercial skip parameters on a per-channel basis (I’m running something like that now inside WMC). No one is suggesting that they need to compete with homebrew solutions.
If the rest of the world has a feature set that has come to be accepted as what’s basic, then a developer like Tablo has to accept that and work within that world, yes. If they can’t figure out how to do it and make money, that’s not the rest of the world’s problem. It’s not up to me to buy whatever they sell just because they sell it. “Hey, all the other choices have features A, B, and C; do you? No? Then I won’t buy yours.” End of story.
That’s the real world any developer has to live in.
Doesn’t TiVo do commercial skip?
Doesn’t Plex have commercial skip. And Isn’t it per show?
"Automatic removal of commercials can also be enabled for selected recordings of your choosing. "
https://support.plex.tv/articles/115003944134-removing-commercials/
Oh well.
The Tivo does do some limited commercial skip. The commercial markers are made by humans, by hand, and are made available to the Tivo world the next day.
As such, the commercial markers are made only for prime time major network shows.
That’s way different than using machine automation to look at any and every show I record, and determine the markers, and make them available to me at playback time. My WMC machine does it today using ShowAnalyzer; many others use Comskip.
More important to me, my setup today not only finds the commercial markers, but uses them automatically during playback. No need to press a button to skip.
Based on what I know of the ReplayTV situation with commercial skip, my guess is that Tablo will find and mark the commercials–but they probably won’t go so far as to automatically skip over them.
Yes, Plex offers a setup that integrates a couple of third party bits to create a no-commercial environment. But the bits don’t come from Plex. It’s a big science experiment.
And regarding the Plex implementation:
“Commercial detection is not always perfect.
Removal is a “destructive” process. That is to say, whatever is detected as a commercial will be removed forever from the recording and if an incorrect detection is made, it is not possible to restore the deleted sections.”
they’re using Comskip PLUS MCEBuddy to create a brand new file without commercials. That’s different than simply marking the commercials and having a playback engine that recognizes the markers.
There’s no way I’d use a destructive process like that. My system today lets me turn the skip feature off for the duration of the program playback, should I so desire. And sometimes I do; Hollywood LOVES dark scenes, and dark scenes look like transition to commercial quite often. As a result, a dark show doesn’t play back well with commercial skip today.
(Here’s to hoping Tablo has improved algorithms over ShowAnalyzer or Comskip.)
No, commercial skip should be NON-destructive. From what I read of Tablo’s implementation, that’s how they do it. Comskip plus MCEBuddy to a new file while deleting the old one–that’s a recipe for failure.
Actually, Tablo’s implementation DOES automatically skip over them, at least in it’s current iteration.