In light of the Revolv issue going down next month, I’d like to see a feature added to the Tablo device that allowed us to connect a browser directly to the device instead of having to use my.tablo.tv.
Not saying that Tablo will be going anywhere any time soon, but if someone shows up with a boat load of cash and buys the company we could see something similar happen. Especially if a competitor is the one doing the buying. I’ve personally been down this path a couple of times, I’m looking at you Boxee, and would like to avoid any more.
The only reason it connects to my.tablotv.com now is to download the web application. I don’t see any reason why the current version that can’t be stored on the Tablo itself. Discovering the IP address of the Tablo is a little trickier, but certainly possible. Zero-Conf helps there a lot.
Going to tablotv.com servers to load beta versions seems reasonable, because having multiple versions on the Tablo would be more complicated.
“I don’t see any reason why the current version that can’t be stored on the Tablo itself.”
Depends on what kind of code it is. If it’s interpreted such as Javascript, does Tablo want to store that code and logic (and any accompanying libraries or proprietary functions) on an unsecure local device?
Absolutely. ReplayTV found itself in a similar situation at one point. People are still using them, but in a diminished capacity that doesn’t have to be.
It gets loaded into your browser to execute, so there’s no way to secure it anyway. Anything needed to run can be extracted from either the local Tablo or the remote server.
Another vote for this feature. We regularly lose power, which kills the neighborhood ISP. However, I have a household generator and would love to be able to watch the DVR with the kids on those long weekends without power.
Maybe what has been historically called the tablo web app is no long a WEB app but a cloud app. Maybe there are tablo apps that don’t require a WAN connection. I’ve heard that the roku tablo app doesn’t require WAN access.
This is in the back of my mind as well. I figured there would at least be some basic local web UI that could be accessed directly from the IP in case the cloud/tablo servers were down.
My Roku does not have all the capabilities of the website or the iPad app. I still end up using the website quite often to review new items and schedules. Would be nice if the site was local on the Tablo itself.