Guys, you need to implement remote login. I travel often to Mexico where I have a few devices and they often “lose sync” it would be great if you guys had a feature like P_L_E_X to enable a device by putting a user and a password. I setup plex so I could do this but to be honest I like Tablo better.
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Search is a wonderful function…
Well, I would say this is long overdue 
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The problem remains that what you are trying to do, place shift, is a violation of the agreements made between broadcasters and content providers; technically, you don’t have the “right” to watch a network feed outside of the Dedicated Market Area that the signal has been licensed to by the broadcaster from the content creator.
Note, this isn’t a law, it’s a contract, between content owners, typically the networks, and broadcasters. A violation of it is a copyright violation, and a company that enables you to do so could be held responsible, so Tablo has to walk a fine line in what they enable you to do.
Tablo has apparently decided to follow the rule that your player client must have periodic logical local access to the equipment collecting the signal in the DMA in order to allow you to watch recordings (copies) of that signal outside the DMA.
This is in alignment with the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Sony” decision, which gives the public the right to make copies of copyrighted material for personal use, and conveniently only works reliably if you have access on a regular basis to a device in the DMA. It’s a great compromise for people who want to watch a program from home while outside the home on a temporary basis.
Obviously, a simple user/password would allow anyone, anywhere, access to copyrighted material, without any claim to have the right to watch or copy such material, or be able to defend watching it as “personal use”.
We’ve been asking for this feature from the beginning… some devices such as PCs, phones, tablets, and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick are able to pair and retain their pairing, mostly, until pairing is broken for whatever reason, while the Roku has never been able to natively work remotely unless you VPN into your home system. VPN is a universal solution for devices that have lost pairing as well. But having a userid/password would solve all these problems. The Nuvyyo folks know how to access our Tablo remotely, so it shouldn’t be that hard to give us the userid/password option, but so far, no dice.
I don’t think it’s a technical limitation. More probably a CYA legal one.
Perhaps, but realize that with Plex Live TV and DVR, it works with just password and allow viewing from anywhere.
Yeah, but Plex is not a hardware product. I think there are some significant differences with Tablo being much closer to the Aero and Locast HW products.
I think many may be missing the point… we already have the capability now to view outside the home, much like the SlingBox allowed us to do in the early days. When I traveled out of the country on business, or anywhere in the USA, I was able to view recorded and live TV from my Tablo. That is, until I lost pairing and couldn’t. Giving us the ability to reconnect remotely adds no new abilities as far as remote operation is concerned, just the ability to reconnect. And don’t forget, many of the more technically inclined users can already do that with a VPN.
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Reconnecting requires that the Tablo be logically in the vicinity of the player device, which in most cases is within the DMA defined for what the Tablo receives; problem averted.
Be careful what you wish for; it might be more legally appealing for them to require reconnection every N days in order to offer remote access with a better expectation that it is being used on balance in accordance with copyright law.
A VPN has always been an option, but it’s one where the unauthorized distribution of the signal is carried out by the end user. That user has both the Sony decision’s doctrine of “fair use”, as well as being too small a fish for the rights holders to go after. Or at least you might hope so.
You may recall Dish Network was sued several times by the networks over many different aspects of their DVR operation. It’s hard to imagine a company the size of Tablo wanting to raise the ire of the major content owners, particularly since the Aeron verdict.
I was reading other posts here and regardless if it’s a legal matter or just cya users would benefit from being able to link devices remotely. This could be handled by logging into your tablo account and requesting a key, the tablo depending on it’s model allows handing out a max of 1-4 of them. If as the OP mentions being away in mexico linking with a tablo managed key from time to time would an easy fix. It would also block access to a user / password leak because the unit / tablo allow a max number of access accounts and and block access to the tablo account if it becomes compromised.
I wonder if we work together and just publishing a poor mans vpn (like ppp over ssh) that is free and easy for everyone on regardless of their platform would be useful. If the software is free and the instructions are very straight forward it could open the door for a lot of folks. It’s not like that type of connection would be needed for anything but the initial tablo connection. Then regular remote access would work.
It should be pretty straightforward. My router (Netgear R7960P) supports VPN, so it should just be a matter of enabling it… VPN clients are readily available for Windows (it’s built in), android, etc. So though I haven’t had the opportunity to try it, it should just be a matter of connecting your client VPN to your router and you should be able to simply connect to your Tablo, as you’re at that point effectively on your home network.
I have a Tablo at a second home, and I setup a VPN on the router (I have remote access to the router). I was able to use it to enable Tablo Connect for my Android phone and a Windows PC using the built-in VPN clients.
I wasn’t successful with an IPhone because Apple doesn’t allow PPTP VPN’S due to security issues, and that’s the only type available on my router.
I’d like to do this on my Android TV, but I can’t find a VPN client that’s not associated with a service and requires a subscription. Are there any Android TV VPN clients for a private VPN?
Have you looked at openvpn?
Yes, and no luck. It’s got lots of options and maybe I haven’t got them right. I even created an account with them but that doesn’t help to connect to a private VPN.
Android and Windows were so easy with their built in clients, just enter an ip address, username, and password and I was in.
It appears the problem is that PPTP is not secure and considered obsolete, so it’s not supported by external VPN apps.