Havent seen anything official from Tablo, but boy do I hope this is true. Would be a major improvement to the current situation. But knowing companies these days, they will give us the bare minimum functionality.
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I certainly hope this is true.
I hope it also allows you to view your previously recorded content. There is really no good reason that you shouldn’t be able to do so.
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The power of the press. Thanks, TheDesk, for embarrassing Scripps into action.
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From hurricane prone Florida, good move that should have happened a long time ago and should still happen for us Legacy users. Won’t consider the 4th gen until it works on a PC and out of home (legit work reasons for needing/wanting both).
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@Seth_Whitaker, you are not wrong.
Here’s our official forum response: Tablo Server Outage - September 8, 2024 - Follow Up
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Cheers. thank you!
Would you guys be able to provide any more details?
Will this be the default mode or will it be used only as a fallback when internet or tablo servers are not available? Ideally this should just be the default mode and then if internet is available, you guys just add on internet connected data.
Will recordings be available when offline?
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@Seth_Whitaker - I think it’ll be only a fallback when the servers are down or too slow to respond. Since Tablo doesn’t charge a subscription fee and the DVR cost is low, I’m assuming there’s data collection going on. They need that Internet connection to collect data. I bought my Tablo with my eyes open to that probability. If Scripps can make money on the fact that I watch my local news, MeTV Toons, and historical documentaries, more power to them. 
I’m hoping the recordings would be available during an outage since the recordings are locally stored. Obviously, I wouldn’t expect the FAST channels to be available during a server outage.
Since the servers have had problems on multiple occasions, I’m glad to see Tablo commit to an updated version (hopefully, for all supported platforms) that will allow access to OTA content when the servers are down. You may not be able to set up recordings since that may require an Internet connection (depending on how it’s designed), but if live channels and your recordings worked even when the servers are down or overwhelmed, I think that would probably satisfy most people. I’m also hoping it’ll be a quick timeout so you can get into the app even when the servers are slow.
Once I’m in, if the data tendrils arrive later, I’m ok with that. As I said, I know you don’t get something for nothing. For my network channel use, Tablo was the right price. As long as the tradeoffs don’t include inability to access OTA channels, I can live with them.
Bob C
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yea im not concerned or complaining about the need to phone home to make money or whatever they do. Its more about the order of operations. There should never need to be a prerequisite of an internet connection to go through the user flow of turning on the app and loading a station. I just want the process of loading up to be entirely local because the slow speeds of loading things up right now might be due to the server speeds and issues.
Its quite painful sometimes just to get it live on a channel. 3-6 seconds on the apps logo loading animation. then 5-30 seconds of fetching data from the servers. then navigating to the guide or library and choosing your program, then another 3-8 seconds for the channel or recording to load. it just takes forever sometimes and i assume a lot of that is due to this requirement of having to go off the LAN.
Comparatively, with just a tv and antenna it takes 5 seconds to turn the TV on and im instantly on a channel and can rapidly flip through channels.
Once im on the station or watching a recording, if they want to send data of my viewing back to their servers, so be it. Its just that doing the primary functions locally by default “should” hopefully speed things up across the board.
I could also be completely wrong about all of this and the speed might just be due to slow hardware more than anything else. Shrug.
I dont have super high hopes but this is at least a positive step.
I completely agree about the order of operations. It should be much faster to get to the Home Screen. My Tablo is set up using WiFi (Ethernet jack in the room has a problem and is too far from where the antenna needs to be).
Because of using even the local network, changing channels is always going to be slower than directly connecting the coax cable to the TV.
I just tested starting a channel and it took 9 seconds. The flexibility that Tablo gives me is worth the slow channel change to me. I understand other people may have a different opinion.
Bob C
I was able to access the stuff recorded during the outage.
Of course it was football games that I had planned on watching basically during the period that was the outage. By the time the outage was done, the early NFL+ was already dropping condensed games, so I just watched them there.
My primary objection is that I paid for lifetime listings with the first Tablo TV ( Oct. 2015 ) , and this current ad supported FAST platform seems counter to the primary task of being an OTA DVR. Most people buy this thing to skip commercials and time shift.
That is really interesting. This was on on a 4th Gen? I was not viewing at the time, so I did not experience the outage. The impression I got from what I read was that during the outage the Tablo app wouldn’t launch at all, so I assumed you couldn’t access recordings.
You are correct in that you couldn’t launch the app, but if the app was already open it was accessible. I didn’t want to watch on the tablet I had it open on ( I was watching pre-game in my office before the early game ), but I couldn’t open the Tablo app on anything after about 1pm ( CDT ).
I have pointed Wireshark at it when streaming, and I am pretty sure that if I assemble the correct URL, I could play the video using VLC. I need to mess around with that some more, but it seems silly that there isn’t a web app, they already have a web server running on it.
The 4th gen Tablo (also the OG HDMI Tablo) doesn’t support a web based app because it streams the raw broadcast video, which is mpeg-2. Browsers do not support playback of this video format.
I agree that the benefit still outweighs the downsides. We have 5 TVs in the house, only able to run a direct antenna line to 2 of them, which i’m leaving as backup. Its nice to be able to watch in any room and sitting outside on the patio on an ipad or iphone.
I am pretty patient with tech in general since I work in tech, so im willing to put up with more than most are, but Its just brutally slow at times. In my younger years I probably would have built out a local plex server setup, but ive gotten to a point where i just appreciate plug and play. Tablo is just so close to being a great system, i want to see it get there.
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That is correct, John. The Roku app and app on my phone would not connect to the Tablo making the device more suitable for hockey.
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