SimpleTV was my first OTA dvr … (I did have a crappy little mediasonic type box but lets just not count that as an actual DVR) … and Simple TV was so abhorrently awful … they couldnt even tune in my local ABC affiliate for some bizarre reason. I had so much blocked them out of my memory I nearly forgot about it till I saw this poll…
My “Other” was Channels DVR. Really nice software. Great development crew.
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But VCRs negates the digital of DVRs. But idoits people still refer to any video as “are you tapeing this”? As though there were cider tape in a cell phone 
I had a DVD recorder as my first stand alone OTA Digital Video Recorder.
Was that VCR+? With the ‘codes’ in the TV Guide?
I didn’t own one but I believe it was. I forgot about TV guide codes. Boy this brings back memories. I saw that infomercial a lot!
Windows MCE
I loved it for years than got google fiber TV, 5 years later and tired of the high cost I wanted it back I still have the tuner cards but its no longer supported.
Its too bad it was the best software windows has ever made!
I am hoping to find this to be as good as if not better.
Seems pretty good so far but Tablo needs a {priority setting} for recordings to prevent it from not recording my favorite show because it was recording something that did not matter.
Mentioning MCE refreshed my memory. I have another besides my stand alone HDD DVR. I don’t remember the year but a desktop computer I purchased had a Hauppauge TV tuner card and Windows Vista MCE. I could never get the tuner card to work. I tried and tried with no success. Then years down the road I found the right message board advice and uninstalled then installed the board and all the necessary (newer) drivers and software and to my shock, it worked. I was so happy, and it worked so well. But by then I had my HDD DVR and it wasn’t long after that when OTA went digital. The tuner card was analog only and the computer was getting old so not worth upgrading.
I would like that feature as well or a six tuner version of the Tablo. It is however rare I have a conflict with my 4 tuner model.
You have to remember one thing - the more splits you have in the signal, the greater the chance of station(s) falling off the digital cliff. That is why most DVRs limit to 4 tuners (with a few exceptions).
I have two Tablo DVRs, so in theory, I can schedule up to 8 recordings at one time. The only issue is having to switch between DVRs to watch different recordings.
I have 2 x 2 OG 2-tuner Tablo, my Plex (Pass) Media Server has a 2 tuner Hauppauge and my test Plex Media Server (and homegrown DVR lab) has 2 x 4-tuner Hauppauge in it. All work just fine.
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You have a 8 tuner Plex DVR? Sweet.
Splitting cable does slightly drop signal – if you have a good signal, it’s likely negotiable! There seems to be a generalized few of splitting cable (oh NO… I might loose 3db). True, it may be an issue for some, but likely not many.
As others, my antenna drops 25’ to an amp splitter (distribution). One to a 2-way splitter to a Tablo Quad (splits another 4) and other to a second 2-way (not proper set-up) to 2 TVs - split - split -split,split,split,split -split -split,split Extremely rare (seasonally) a weak signal error, TVs get 100% signal quality. (signal strength varies)
Second split from amp runs 50’ length of house to a 2-way splitter, one to a TV the other to a Tablo Dual Lite (2 tuner - split,split) again, all the splitting and RG6, I watch live TV (via TV) and record with tablo and signal degradation is not an issue.
I don’t live close to transmission towers, the maps some 45mi line of sight. I life in a rural area on the edge of the woods while my old style -non-HD- antenna is only 25’ while the trees are much taller.
Each situation is unique, but just splitting cable isn’t an automatic bad thing.
Truthfully I doubt the splitter decreases the signal as much as people think. It’s going to multiple tuners but it’s only one splitter. The loss of signal per tuner is going to be less for a 5th and 6th then it was for a 1 to 2 split
The biggest loss is probably going to be due to an impedence mismatch that will cause the RF to reflect but there is a very simple fix for that loss. An RF amplifier. I used one to extend 1 antenna all over our home to multiple TVs very far from the antenna. We also use LNAs(low noise amplifiers) in Amateur radio all the time to make up for signal loss.
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I receive 42 channels in the Austin, TX area. Almost all of them sit at 90-100% signal strength. An extra split won’t affect any of those stations. There are 5 stations (all from one tower) that sit at 69%. A split can lower that to 60-65% (less than a 10% decline), and cause intermittent drop out, and on bad weather days, “no signal” being reported.
I’m not sure how you ran your test but a simple amplifier before the splitter is all it takes to overcome the issue. In addition an RF filter can also help because of “tuner desensitization” or poor tuner “signal rejection”. Always make sure the amplifier is as close to the antenna as possible.
There are some really nice amplifiers out there that have filters built in too. You can split your signal as many times as you want as long as you keep the power in balance. You don’t want to amplify the signal too much or let it get too weak.
In the old days of analog TV signal, when you had a “weak signal”, the picture appeared snowy. When you had multiple stations on the same frequency, you had “ghosting”. When there was reflections of the signal that were out of phase (perhaps trees, hills, mountains, buildings, etc), you would also have ghosting.
In today’s digital TV signals, you either have an acceptable signal (it comes in perfectly), or you have a “weak signal” that pixelates or reports “no signal” (even though you may have signal coming in, it is too weak to decipher.
The “digital cliff” is that area of signal that goes from “no signal” to “perfect signal”, and 1% can cause it to “fall off the cliff”. Every splitter will have some loss (amplifiers can compensate, but if you amplify too much, it causes problems, but not enough and it causes problems).
Signals that come in strong will usually never have an issue on the Tablo or TV tuners (unless they are over amplified - and then they can cause problems with both), but each tuner has a sensitivity that will be different. I have 7 TVs, 2 Tablo DVRs, and an HDHomeRun tuner all being fed signal from the antenna. All of them perform similar in reception - the only difference is the Tablo “crashes” when signal is deemed to low to decipher, and the station has to be “retuned” (i.e. switch the channel and return), where the TVs and the HDHomerun automatically try to retune the station.
The biggest problems I have is with competing stations (the stations from Houston (180 miles away) and San Antonio (120 miles away) that use the same RF frequencies will cause problems with a few of the stations here in Austin. Supposedly, with ATSC 3.0, that problem will be eliminated - but time will tell.
I’m old enough to have had to turn the knob on the TV so analog is no mystery. 
I’m also an extra class Amateur radio operator so I still use a LOT of analog equipment.
Heres a little tidbit. With the Tablo when you get a “weak signal” error it’s not always related to the signal at all. It took me a while to figure out the weak signal error was really a hard drive issue first time it happened.
Another time the Tablo started throwing that error after my internet went out. It took my internet coming back and a hard reset to fix that one. I knew it wasn’t a signal issue because every station got the weak signal error and the signal of many channels was 5 out of 5 for my other devices attached to the same antenna. I even swapped the cables to make sure one wasn’t damaged.
I went through Electronic Engineering as my college major (programming was on a Commodore 64 - LOL), and worked for a few years at Radio Shack as an “expert” that visited many of their stores around Ohio.
The digital transition changed the landscape of TV. It isn’t the days of 3-5 channels of over the air TV…and you don’t have to deal with snowy pictures. It has improved greatly over the old standard. ATSC 3.0 will be another transformation, as it will allow better signal reception, more channels and more…
Tablo’s errors are frustrating, and troubleshooting signal issues with the Tablo are difficult. I finally solved quite a few issues by bringing out my old TiVo unit and looking at things with that. I like my HDHomerun for troubleshooting as well - gives an accurate picture of what is going on. The “five green dots” are almost meaningless on the Tablo channel select setup - they are not close to accurate. And it doesn’t tell you that you are over amplifying the channels either…(which the error is “no signal” LOL).
But for about $200 for a DVR, it is a great deal. TiVo runs $350+ for their “new” DVRs, plus $200 for each “connected” device (the TiVo mini). The TiVo is technically better, but at the price point, it is a better buy for 99% of the market to get a Tablo DVR.
I recommend the Tablo to about 80% of the people I help cut the cord - mainly because it works with almost any streaming device, and I can look at their signals with my HDHomerun and solve the issues for them.
I think my first program was on a C64 as well. I ran out of memory so fast! For troubleshooting I usually use our Roku TV when I need more accurate readings. It can report dbm. I wrote a script to grab the data. Here is example output.
Channel: 11.1
WTOL
air-digital
User Hidden: false
User Favorite: false
Physical Channel: 11
Physical Frequency: 201000
Signal State: none
Resolution: 480i
Signal Quality: n/a
Signal Strength: n/a
Signal Stalled Count: n/a
Rating: Unrated
Program Blocked: false
Analog Audio: none
Digital Audio: none
Audio Language: n/a
Program Audio Format: n/a
Closed Captioning: false
Channel: 11.2
Me TV
air-digital
User Hidden: false
User Favorite: false
Physical Channel: 11
Physical Frequency: 201000
Signal State: valid
Resolution: 1080i
Signal Quality: 90
Signal Strength: -45
Signal Stalled Count: 0
Program Title: The Facts of Life
Description: A devoted housemother at a prestigious boarding school for girls, becomes involved in the lives of her various charges and offers them the care, comfort, wisdom and guidance that they will need in order to become well-rounded young women.
Rating: Unrated
Program Blocked: false
Analog Audio: none
Digital Audio: surround
Language: eng, spa
Audio Formats: AC3, AC3
Audio Language: n/a
Program Audio Format: n/a
Closed Captioning: true
Channel: 11.3
Grit
air-digital
User Hidden: false
User Favorite: false
Physical Channel: 11
Physical Frequency: 201000
Signal State: valid
Resolution: 480i
Signal Quality: 90
Signal Strength: -45
Signal Stalled Count: 0
Program Title: Zane Grey Theater
Description: A man decides to resign his commission in the confederate army so he may spend time with his family instead; everywhere he goes he is met with disgrace.
Rating: TV-PG
Program Blocked: false
Analog Audio: none
Digital Audio: stereo
Language: eng, spa
Audio Formats: AC3, AC3
Audio Language: n/a
Program Audio Format: n/a
Closed Captioning: true