Tablo Suggestions, Fix 480 Resolution, Specify # of Series Episodes

Feature Requests
1

I’ve been using a 4-tuner fourth generation Tablo TV for about a week now. Generally, I’m happy with the experience so far. I previously listed two areas where there is room for improvement. However it turns out that I was able to solve BOTH problems.

First, the aspect ratio problem I reported only happens with a very specific set of circumstances: The Tablo app must be loaded as an app on my Roku TV. On the other hand, if I load the app on my Roku Express, or if I open the app on my phone, the aspect ratio for the 480 stations is perfectly fine. In addition, on my Roku TV, if I open Roku’s own Live TV rather than the Tablo app, the 480 stations also look perfectly fine, in 16:9! So the Roku TV sees the 480 stations correctly, and Tablo sees the 480 stations correctly on a Roku Express or an Android phone. The ONLY circumstance where there is a problem is if I’m using the Tablo app on the Roku TV; very odd! Now is it possible that there’s something that Tablo can fix regarding its interface with a Roku TV that isn’t causing a problem when loaded on a Roku Express or an Android phone? Perhaps; maybe Tablo could look into that.

The other area where I encountered a problem was the number of series episode recordings to keep. I could not find a place to specify that. Fortunately, thanks to Scandy and KGBnut, I was able to locate the menu where that can be determined.

Thank you for your attention. I think I’m all set, and I’m now going to be able to save over $1100 a year! Interesting discovery. I had been limping along with a Channel Master antenna DVR, and my reception was so awful I was forced to subscribe to a live TV service. After getting a new TV last week, I discovered my reception was much better than I’d previously thought based on the Channel Master DVR. So, after years spent without, I switched to Tablo and suddenly I can now receive and record all of my major local broadcast channels!!

Before anyone concludes this is a Hate Channel Master message, the fact is that I’m getting this very good reception with the Channel Master Smartenna, an ingenious device, the full utility of which I was never able to appreciate until I got the Tablo, because of the Channel Master’s DVR wretched signal processing. I just wish I’d discovered the Tablo years ago!

2

The Tablo already has the ability to keep a certain number of episodes. In the Recording Options, there is an option called ‘Keep’, which does what you ask. (That is how it works on my Fire Stick 4K Max, not sure about Roku).

3

Yes, that feature exists on the Roku app as well.

4

Yep, found it! Thank you, Scandy and KGBnut! I was able to go through all my programming and change it to a limited number of episodes, helping to guarantee that I won’t have any space problems on my external 1 terabyte hard drive for quite a while!

Speaking of which, the internal 128 gb Tablo drive can only keep up to 50 hours of programming. Extrapolating from that figure, that would mean that the 1 terabyte drive can accommodate up to 390 hours, if I have done my math correctly; impressive!

5

gen 4 stores OTA on external drives as MPEG2.

https://support.tablotv.com/hc/en-us/articles/18011322187412-How-Does-the-Recording-Archiving-Feature-Work-On-the-4th-Generation-Tablo

6

Oops! Important point; didn’t notice that. So, roughly, with a 1 terabyte drive 245 hours, a 2 tb drive 490 hours, and so on. I’m wondering if I should go all out and get a 24 tb drive for $300, which would give me about 6000 hours. Probably overkill!

7

Maybe since the gen 4 only supports a max 8 TB. Maybe if planning on hoarding pick a different solution.

8

Overkill for one but in case you didn’t know the Tablo 4th generation only support up to 8TB drives :grin:

9

That 50 hours estimate is generous. I think that it is based low-resolution programs that don’t take up that much space. Higher resolution programs, certainly anything HD, like most of the major broadcasters use that space much more quickly.

It is nice that you have that little “fuel gauge” on the library page.

10

So that would be 3000 hours. Somewhat less pricey obviously; Best Buy has a Western Digital in stock for $165 and a Seagate bundled with Data Recovery services for $170. Maybe that’s overkill also.