I am moving closer to a nice solution for cutting the cable, but am missing a critical piece for my solution.
I have a Windows 10 laptop and the Tablo app works (albeit I only have 5 channels in the Hawkesbury ON area), and I can also watch TV with the iPad app. But I can’t figure out how to cast from my PC or Laptop to a Chromecast.
Can someone tell me how to do that?
I am not sure how to cast to the Chromecast as I don’t have one. But for viewing on a TV I recommend a standalone box like a Roku or Fire TV or Apple TV connected to your HDTV.
See link below. “Chromecast is not a streaming set-top-box. It is a screen mirroring device that connects to your TV.
Chromecast allows you to begin video playback on Android mobile devices or PCs with the Chrome extension and ‘cast’ that content to your big screen TV.”
The Chrome browser on your Windows 10 computer needs to have the proper extension to cast to your Chromecast.
First of all, I agree with @theuser86 - you are much better off with a streaming box attached to your TV than casting.
To cast: While watching a program using Chrome, click on the menu (three dots in the upper right hand corner). ‘Cast’ is a menu choice in that drop down menu. Click on ‘Cast’ and follow the instructions.
Of course, Chrome needs to be able to find your Chromecast device for this to work.
If your PC/laptop has an HDMI output you could connect it directly to the TV. But with out a decent setup it may not be the most convenient.
To cast from a pc/laptop to Chromecast you need the Google Chrome Browser. After you have the photo/video/screen that you want to cast to the TV, select the Cast… option from the menu at the far right of the window. It will search for available Chromecast and you select the one to cast to and Voila! Casting to chromecast…
Didn’t try this myself, but is there a webpage/URL I can go to in Chrome to see my Tablo output so I could then cast it to my Chromecast? I try to stick with native software on my PC when it does the job, ie Edge VS Firefox or Chrome or Safari etc.
I have tried the PC+HDMI solution with the Tablo app on Windows10 which works, but is a bit cumbersome insofar as dedicating a PC beside the TV just for that.
i just received an Apple TV box, and currently, I am pretty happy mirroring my iPhone to the AppleTV, with the Tablo app running on my phone.
Many have a dedicated “Media Center PC”, “Home Theater PC”, or just Media PC. Yes, it’s but more than just a PC sitting beside the TV.
But a decent setup for a dedicated PC offers a lot of flexibility - but, yes, it’s specialized and doesn’t fit everyone’s needs.
I personally am set up like that, because the PC acts as a NAS at the same time and i can watch all my local videos on my bog-screen TV that way. I go way back to the days of Microsoft media Center and its similar functionality, including (free) TV guide back then, albeit with an analog TV tuner. The good old days!
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thanks, remember seeing that somewhere before. But the gotcha is that my Tablo is remote, so the web page doesn’t find it when I go to the web page you mention. 8-(
The link (http://my.tablotv.com/) will work remotely if you pair your PC with the Tablo locally (same network) first.
Thanks bbaorbb, good to know. My PC is a big tower here at home, and my tablo is at my friend’s about 8km away, so I guess I would have to go get the Tablo next time I visit, bring it to my place again temporarily and connect my PC, all my tablets, phones, etc so they will work if I decide to watch anywhere. Then reinstall it at my friend’s I suppose… Material here for an enhancement requiest, ie be able to provide a list of MAC addresses that are allowed to connect to my Tablo or something like that, maybe the public address of my home network so all devices coming from my place can connect?
I’m not familiar with the intricacies of remote connect, but I think it works the other way around… you have to pair things on on the local network tablo is, or will be, running. Since you have to configure ports and such on the local network and/or router… then move it to a different network on a different router, just seems flubbed up. Hope I’m mistaken.
It’s been my experience that once the Tablo is pared to a client, then you can move it elsewhere, set it up for remote access, then the devices previously paired to it will still work.
Specifically, my friend has a great antenna setup. I had my Tablo at my house, connected to my poor antenna, and connected to it with multiple devices (smartphones, tablets, PCs). When I drove over to my friend’s house with the Tablo, hooked it up on his network with his antenna, went into settings and told it I wanted to be able to access it remotely, PnP configured my friend’s router such that necessary ports were opened. Then when I went home, I could watch TV OTA on my home devices connected to my own network. Magic!
But tonight, sorrow set in as for no apparent reason, I am now getting a message that is labelled Tablo - “Connection failure: remote access is disabled”. No remote devices can connect anymore.
I have a netbook set up also at my friend’s house, I can teamviewer remote into that Windows 10 PC, fire up the Tablo app, and I can watch TV on it.
Newsflash
I just went into Tablo settings with my remote PC and was hit with a message saying my Subscription trial had expired. That could have something to do with my problem. I will try the offered link to see if I can get a subscription and regain access.
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Eureka! I paid to set up a subscription for the 1st time and now I can remotely watch TV again. I will drink a few beers to make me forget the total $$$ outlay I put out so far.
Hum… Maybe I can look into a VPN between my friend’s place and mine so the Tablo can pair with my remote devices just the same as if they were local. Once paired, I won’t need the tunnel anymore.
Or the subscription fee?
Still need the subscription fee for the TV guide, although I realized yesterday that without it, remote access stops working too. Just placed a call to support to find out how best to pair an additional device without having to put them on the same physical network, as it would be a fair bit of trouble to bring my PC tower there, or disconnect the table from there and bring it here since nobody could access it while it was offline.