Amazon Fire TV Recast looks awesome and seems to compete directly with Tablo’s awesomeness.
Does Tablo plan any sort of Alexa integration/skill ?
I hope not! Just my personal preference, I don’t want to speak to any computer.
“Computer. Computer.” Scotty picks up the mouse and tries again.
“Hello Computer.” Looking bewildered why it’s not responding.
The manager says, “Just use the keyboard.”
Scotty, now a little frustrated, “The keyboard!!! HOW QUAINT!!”
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To each his own. There is a time and a place to use a keyboard, but adjusting DVR or changing TV channels needn’t require any keyboard or remote. Personally I have a bunch of use-cases that could benefit from Alexa-Recast-Fire-TV. I’ve ordered a 4K firestick (same price as HD firestick for prime). Also I’m preordering the Recast 4-tuner- it looks too awesome to resist. I am hoping that Tablo remains happy after I split its input signal since I hope to run the recast and Tablo simultaneously.
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If the number of characters in the voice command is more then the number of simplistic contacts with a key pad, it probably isn’t very efficient.
But if the function requested is messy - Alexa please use the soft TP.
I’ve already ordered my Recast. Supposed to arrive on Nov14th…
I really like the Tablo OTA Streaming DVR Model. It won’t be the only product which does this for long. However, the Tablo product has been regularly unreliable (disconnects) and the interface is a bit bland and clunky. Additionally, battled almost a year to get issues resolved with 4K FireTV stuttering. Bet none of those issues will be associated with the Recast…
I’ll likely keep my Tablo on the newtork (costs me nothing, why not?) but I’m really looking forward to what hopefully is a well implemented and integrated (FireTV) product.
Tablo is about to get their lunch eaten…
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Just keep in mind the Fire 4K issue was likely just as much on Amazon to resolve and in hindsight given this announcement it’s not much of a stretch to see why they dragged their feet on it, they knew they had a competing product coming and it would target those exact same Fire 4K owners.
Having said that, I’m interested to see what the reviews say about it. Another thread here mentions it doesn’t output 1080P, which would be a no go for me…
"But this is key, from recent reviews no 1080p:
“Amazon says it streams video at 1440 x 720 at 60 fps.”.
I really DON’T CARE whose “fault” the stuttering issue was… We can debate that for a long time. (No other streaming services seemed to have this problem with FireTV - only Tablo). The point is we suffered with it for almost a year and Tablo obviously had the power to fix it.
Doesn’t matter… I’m REALLY looking to forward to see how this competitor performs. If I had a really good experience with the Tablo product I wouldn’t be so EAGER to try the Recast (maybe only curious).
Could it be that tablo followed the proper support channels and there might have been some “shining someone on” for 5 months.
https://forums.developer.amazon.com/questions/103394/hls-video-stuttering-on-gen-3-fire-tv.html
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I’m not a Fire TV owner so I may be wrong but I could swear in all the threads somewhere there was a post that it WASN’T just the Tablo app, that was the cause of my reference to Amazon likely being responsible as well. If my memory is incorrect I stand corrected.
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I think you found exactly what I was talking about @zippy. In that post you linked it even appears that Amazon said it was fixed in their next OS update back in February, so that would seem to directly point toward at least PART of the issue being on their side and as the saying goes “it takes two to tango”.
I’ve never seen a stuttering issue with any other streaming apps on any of my FireTV’s (4K or otherwise)…
It was a long and painful process (to wait for the fix) and Tablo obviously had the ability to do it. They were just more busy pointing fingers than fixing software.
All that matters is the customer (my) experience. If the Recast provides a better customer experience (not a particularly high bar) I will be very happy.
Do you use the 1080p recording quality on the Tablo?
The Fire Tab Recast is 720p only (per the reviews).
You would think people would be concerned not only that the product appears to only support a total 2 or 4 streams but also that Amazon readily admits they are going to scrape your data.
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I see 2/4 tuners but only can stream to 2 devices at one time?
The stuttering was a problem regardless of which resolution you used.
Amazon can scrape my viewing data all they want. They are already doing that with FireTV.
All I need/want is to stream to 2 devices simultaneously. Plus, given how often the Tablo disconnects, I’ld rather (hopefully) have 2 reliable connections then 4 flaky ones…
I don’t have any problem simultaneously recording and viewing multiple recordings on multiple streams.
But I guess I bettor understand where some of your problems lie.
Your data belongs to you.If you wish to give it away have at it. But Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. are monetizing user’s data. If my data is making them money where is my share?
I think what @theuser86 was trying to point out regardless of your feelings about Tablo is that the Recast doesn’t output 1080P and for some people that’s an important limitation to be aware of.
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My wife hates the Tablo because of continual stability/disconnect issues. I expect she won’t care about the resolution and will be more focused on the customer experience. I’ll have access to both on my network. We’ll see which one ends up being used more… 
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I hate internal drives. Years ago, both my Tivo & DirectTV DVRs internal drives died. Not an easy replacement.
Dislike: recordings locked down - cannot be moved offline. Wonder if this is a purely technical issue or a corporate consideration for a streaming company with Hollywood deals that does not want to have offline copies done…
Or like the IBM of the 50’s & 60’s enclose everything within their own environment & ecosystem without any gateways to the outside (like Plex). Hence the strategy of non-removable drives…
The ultimate question for any DVR - what is its tuner’s performance?
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Tablo is open enough to allow a plethora of 3rd party tools that make getting recordings off the Tablo (for offline viewing) very easy though. I wrote SurLaTablo so I could move recordings off my Tablo(s) and onto my Plex server.
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