Tablo recordings file format

I’m a longtime EyeTV user looking at Tablo because EyeTV software does not work well on the current MacOS Big Sur.

EyeTV recordings are MPEG2s and can be edited with EyeTV’s software. I typically edit the EyeTV recordings and then compress them with HandBrake to MPEG4. I know this is rather old-school, but I would like to have a similar workflow with Tablo files.

What is the recorded format from Tablo (MPEG2?), and are the files accessible for editing by third-party software (e.g. LosslessCut)?

The network connected DVRs convert the MPEG2 video to h.264.

The HDMI connected DVRs record as native MPEG2 format.

Depends somewhat on which connected type tablo you’re using.

On the network machine the disk is Linux format and the video is split into 10-second segments. All the pieces of a video are in the same directory and numbered sequentially so it is possible to use ffmpeg or other tools to paste them together. Movie players seem to pause a bit at each 10 seconds unless they are processed into a single file.
Figuring out which show is in each directory is a problem. The names of the directories are just numbers, I think it increases one each time a new recording is made.

Arrghh! It is beginning to sound more and more like not something I don’t want to do. The HLS format is new to me (I’ve wondered how streaming was facilitated), and piecing together 10-sec segments to make an MPEG2 is not on my to-do list. A one-step conversion of many segments into a single MPEG2 file might be OK (I’ve seen some comments that VLC can do that).
Poster “theuser86” says that HDMI-connected Tablos record to MPEG2 - any concurrence that that might do what I want? If I can get a single MPEG file per recording out of a Tablo, I think I would be good.

There are tools available that can extract those multiple segments and combine them into one MP4 file.

I’m using Tablo Ripper but there are other tools. You should be able to find them if you search the forums.

there’s a playlist.m3u8 in the XXXX/pl directory media player can use to stream the segments

One step in to stream the playlist via ffmpeg, vlc does work - easiest way is #tablo-apps:third-party-apps-plex selection of apps already available. You don’t have to make it complicated :slight_smile:

Still, depends which “type” of tablo you’re working with. There’s only one reference exporting from an HDMI tablo and that’s from Nuvyyo’s CEO. No one actually said you can get a single MPEG per recording… yet.

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