ESiegler. I’m not sure what a frame-slice is, but anything Tablo can do to improve commercial skipping would be a welcome addition. Coming from Dish Network DVRs the lack of some sort of thumbnail or in the case of my Dish DVR the whole picture moving forward/backward, it’s disappointing that you can only use the Tablo timer to guess where commercials end. And I agree with the OP that those coming from satellite or cable will expect it. Not sure why some many posters seemed to resent him for asking Tablo to add that common feature.
Do you want preview thumbnails for Currently In Progress Recordings (aka recordings that are not yet finished)? Or Completed Recordings?
Completed Recordings do have preview thumbnails for fast forwarding.
Think they don’t resent him for asking is the way he was demanding it. By the way commercial skip is coming in March.
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It already does thumbnails for completed recordings, so the same thing (or similar) for Live TV and for Currently in Progress recordings. Just a visual way to tell you where you are when FF or RW. The Tablo thumbnails on already completed recordings work pretty well, but if the engineers can’t do that something else could work.
Sam I understand that is coming to the new Quad, is it also as a firmware update to the Tablo 4?
It will be on all Tablo platform
Thanks Sam, good to know.
I’m no expert but I surmise this is a limitation of the h.264 video and of the playback devices such as the Roku to display the next frame.
For example the Roku video player can display thumbnails, but this must be generated first. Hence only for completed recordings.
If it was a simple feature already embedded in the video player that was a simple on or off, I’m sure it’d be available already.
I just paused my TiVo Bolt while watching live TV. No thumbnails. I’m pretty sure the only time we see them is on recorded content but I’ll check later tonight. We’ll have a program being recorded and we’ll start watching it 5 or 10 minutes after it starts. I’ll confirm one way or another, but I don’t think they’re there unless we watch a show that’s completed recording.
I could be wrong. But now I’m curious. I never really use those to gauge how far to go forward or back. Hockey… commercial… use 30 skip ahead. I always watch hockey on delay so I can power through the intermissions. Oh! Intermission… 30 skip, 30 times Hahahah.
Anyways. Now I’m curious so I’ll have a look.
-edit- oh…and the Bolt is recording whatever we’re watching live, otherwise I wouldn”t be able to “skip back” or rewind, which we can do. Just… no thumbnails.
-edit #2 - nope… no thumbnails while recording live tv. Next will wait until show is over and recording stops and then will start the recording.
Nope… no thumbnails when recording ended and I just play it and try pause, skip back, nothing.
Checked a recording made 2 days ago. No thumbnails.
So I guess that’s why we don’t use them. Bolt doesn’t seem to do them at all
I just set up my 4-tuner (first Tablo device) last night and watched our first (in progress) recorded broadcast this morning. Part of the fun is getting my wife used to a new platform. Well, when she attempted to fast forward, she immediately noticed that she can’t see what she’s fast forwarding (fasting forward?) through. She had an “oh well” attitude about it because she hates DirecTV that much, but I did foresee this being a nagging issue. I’m pleased to learn from the forums that this feature is available on completely recorded shows, which comprise the bulk of what we watch on broadcast TV. And I’m thrilled to be getting a commercial skip feature. Nevertheless, I do support the addition of being able to see what your ffd’ing or rwd’ing through, but I don’t think it needs to be a thumbnail - just show it on the screen, which is how DTV (mostly) and U-Verse (I think; it’s been awhile) work. Agree that this is probably should rather than a must feature.