Please excuse my ignorance. I tried Tablo on Plex but I didn’t see an advantage to using the roku app or web browser on my mac, or iOS devices. I’m not trying to bash it, I just don’t know what benefits there are. Could someone please enlighten me. thanks.
Well, let’s see:
1. There is no native Fire TV app yet, thus if you have the Tablo channel installed on your Plex Media Server (PMS), then you can access your Tablo via Plex app on the Fire TV.
2. If you have a Plex Pass, you can sync content for offline viewing on devices such as iPhone, iPad, computer, etc. [native Tablo apps do not allow this but it has been requested and acknowledged]
3. Some people like having all their media, that would be movies and Tablo shows, in one spot rather than having to use multiple apps.
4. If you’re using remote devices and the video is being transcoded to a lower video bitrate by PMS to stream say to a 3G/4G smartphone, this does NOT use one of the tuners on the Tablo. If you use a native Tablo app on the iPhone for example, and you set the video quality to anything lower than ‘Full Quality’ for remote viewing (called Tablo Connect) then this uses one of the tuners for transcoding. Thus, you would only be able to record one show at this moment if you had a dual-tuner device.
But you’re right, I prefer the native Tablo apps on the iDevices and Roku. I am looking forward to the Fire TV app as well.
I didn’t think plex transcoded the video to a lower bitrate. We use plex a lot and I recently signed up for 1 month of plex pass to test it out. I wish I would of signed up when it was $75 for lifetime. I’ve been using it for 2.5 years but very lightly so I didn’t realize how cool it was until we dropped cable TV.
Yes, on the device with the Plex app installed, you can set the maximum video bitrate. If for example on your iPhone you set it to 1 Mbps because you know that speed is the max your 3G connection can do or you know that video quality is good enough for a tiny 5" screen then the Plex Media Server will transcode the original video. Read here:
Of course the computer hosting your PMS needs to be powerful enough to transcode the video.
I knew it transcode the videos in my library I didn’t think it also transcoded streaming videos from channels. Pretty neat, I just tested it and I do see my plex server transcoding. I wish I could do the same for individual rokus. We have one in the basements and the wifi signal takes a dip since it’s behind a furnace, water heater, washer and dryer. I just set up my old router as a repeater in my basement. Crossing my fingers hopes that works.
PleXBMC add-on
You can lower the video bitrate for local streaming on the Roku. Go to the Advanced Preferences in the Plex channel. There is a bitrate you can set and should force transcoding if it is set to say 1 Mbps.
@theuser86 I tried that and it didn’t seem to work. I even set it to the lowest setting at 64kbp and it stayed the same plus under activity in didn’t know anything being transcoded in plex.