Will Tablo Tools support the Tablo 4th gen unit?
TabloTV already answered that question in this thread:
Saving time (TL;DR)… the answer is “no”.
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It sounds like, since it can record streaming services, they decided to block any video access other than through their official apps. I don’t see why they couldn’t design it so ATSC 1.0 and unencrypted 3.0 recordings could still be accessed with 3rd party tools.
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Sounds like that should be technically possible w/rules or flags for antenna recordings vs. streaming. The bigger problem for now is poor tuner sensitivity. The app, home screen design, and guide are all great however.
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Question is… will the older units still be allowing the 3rd party apps if using the updated firmware.
There is no PC/browser access, this is largely the same process 3rd apps use.
Fundamentally they all stream an HLS playlist through fmpeg and same as mp4. If you can generate an http steam it’s good to go, other wise it something completely different.
This support article still says it’s on their roadmap.
amazed they still have this stuff around.
Which hasn’t been updated in 8 years. I’d say that since the Scripps acquisition, it’s no longer on the road map.
Well, it’s good to know that there won’t be a way to export recordings from the 4th Gen, so I’ll never buy one.
4th gen is to prior gen, as tomato is to field hockey.
Just the way it is. You need to look at the 4th gen for what it is, on its own.
With that said, I guess it’s selling well.
Don’t bother buying one it has way to many bugs that needs to be worked out and then it might be a decent device but right now it is not. I took the one I bought back
The new Tablo uses different encoding that is also why it takes a little longer when changing channels with it. The new white Tablo is the best one ever I think and I have used 3 other older models before. Even the performance and snappiness is a huge improvement over the Quad.
I’m planning at some point to write some shell scripts for my own purposes that will work with the files on the hard drive, but so far I haven’t even looked at it.
The idea I have is to use a docking external drive enclosure (which I have) and every now and then, power the Tablo off, swap drives, power it back on again, and then use FFmpeg to get the files from the drive into a more usable format (I believe each recording is several short pieces)
The fun part will be things like figuring out chapter break points for the eventual mkv files. Football games, I’ll probably do each drive as a chapter. Carol Burnett will obviously be done by skit. That’s probably all manual work so only the most important recordings (I actually have quite few Carol Burnett DVDs - I love her sense of humor).
I’ll put a github up if there isn’t something else by the time I get to it, but it’ll mostly be bash scripts. Maybe some python that is more portable.
There is PC/Browser access with the Tablo 4th Generation but only when using an external hard drive. You just enter the URL with your tablo ip address as follows:
Tablo_IP_address:18080/pvr
in my case it is 192.168.0.105:18080/pvr this will list the recording id’s. If click on one of them this will list directories two are /pl with playlists and /segs with the recordings .ts files. You can then download all the .ts files and then use a video editor to merge all the files together. I think the over the air recordngs have about 15 .ts files for a hour recording but the streaming channels have about a hundred .ts files you would need to download and merge. The easier method is to right click on the playlist.m3u8 and copying the link and then using ffmeg with copied link to convert to a .mp4 file. No merging required. You can also copy the link to VLC for playback or conversion under the open network stream. You can’t see the meta data that shows what the recording id is for but you can use the time and date information to narrow down to the recording you want. On the legacy tablo you could use the browser to see the meta data by entering the URL Tablo_ip_address:8885/recording/airings then with the information navigate to the actual metadata. If you try this on the tablo 4th generation it returns a unauthorized / Authentication failure
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This is very similar to the previous tablo’s. fmpeg works great.
It’s unfortunate you have no idea which show is what until you see it. Not reallg practical but then again its something.
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That’s awesome. Thanks for the tip. PITA that we don’t know what they are, but getting the playlist name as described, lets me paste it into VLC and I can watch from my desktop.
Just wish it was more elegant than that.
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Great tip!
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Actually you do have some idea which video it is by the last modified date and time information such as:
| Name | Last Modified | Size | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent Directory/ | - | Directory | |
| 187025/ | 2023-Dec-02 05:10:41 | - | Directory |
| 481794/ | 2024-Feb-22 20:05:54 | - | Directory |
| 481795/ | 2024-Feb-22 20:05:57 | - | Directory |
| The time code isn’t the local time, for me I have to add 6 hours to the information of the video that is shown in the Tablo app to help narrow down which video it is in the browsers information above. Also the time is the time of the end of the recording. |
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The time stamp also seems to be affected by how soon a tuner was available to “complete” the recording so that all the information is ready.
Another trick is to look at the “snapshot.jpg” file that’s in the main dir and compare it to what you’re looking for. Some apps crop the image a bit, but you can easily discern if it’s the correct recording or not with that simple click.
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You can also look at the .jpg files under the snap_grid directory which I believe are the images(tumb nails) that show up when you fast forward and rewind in the tablo app to let you know where you are in the video playback.
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True, there’s the hunt 'n peck method. But, still similar to my =comment… you don’t know what you have until you look at it. If you have dozens - I understand you gotta do what you gotta do.
It’s possible, just doesn’t seem practical.