Probably actually cheaper to do it that way, if you don't care about the customer experience.
The Tablo with commercial skip looks great, but...
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Probably actually cheaper to do it that way, if you don't care about the customer experience.
Clearly they don't. The agent seemed surprised that they had a search function at all.
Sometimes I use the guide and sometimes I just type in the number and dash keys. That being said, I looked at a photo of the Harmony Companion, and it looks like the button on the bottom-left has a dot and a dash on it next to each other, so I’ll assume that’s a dot/dash key. I’ll probably get one if I ever get a Tablo.
There are several QWERTY keyboards that will run an AndroidTV box for a fraction of the cost of a Harmony remote. I have a Harmony Companion in my bedroom system but I use an Rii keyboard w/trackpad with my Android (not AndroidTV) box.
I haven't rigorously checked the support for AndroidTV boxes on the Logitech website but I suggest you do so before deciding that's your dream path. IIRC, the nVIDIA Shield remote on the Harmony phone app doesn't have a keypad.
If your primary criteria in selecting a streaming device is to be able to directly enter complex TV channel numbers, I think you may be disappointed. It appears that a guide and voice control methodologies are the recommended methods of choosing channels.
I haven't rigorously checked the support for AndroidTV boxes on the Logitech website but I suggest you do so before deciding that's your dream path. IIRC, the nVIDIA Shield remote on the Harmony phone app doesn't have a keypad.
If your primary criteria in selecting a streaming device is to be able to directly enter complex TV channel numbers, I think you may be disappointed. It appears that a guide and voice control methodologies are the recommended methods of choosing channels.
That’s great, except for the fact that I don’t have an Android TV. Did you say something about an Android box, though? I’ll have to look into one sometime.
That's the reason I haven't tried the Fire Replay. My environment is all Roku's.
I need to make sure that you understand that you need a streaming device of some sort to use a Tablo. It has no video (or audio) outputs and presents its content only through proprietary software running on a streaming device.
Don't confuse Android TV with a TV that uses the Android operating system or an Android streaming box. Android TV is an extension to Android that gives it additional tools (like conditional access) useful in accessing OTA, cable television and streaming services in a unified interface controlled by a very simple remote.
I’m still a little confused. Do I need an Android phone to use this (as I use an iPhone X) or is this a separate device?
There are different apps for each of the different types of Apple devices (iPhone, iPad and AppleTV).
This page speaks to the supported platforms:
Tablo Apps & Compatible Devices | Over The Air (OTA) DVR | Tablo
I don't know if the Tablo app supports casting to an AppleTV (required to display stuff from an iPhone on a TV) but if you've got iOS 9 or better, you should be good to go for viewing on your phone.
Further down the page there is a video showing how the interface works on an iPad (presumably a whole lot like an iPhone but much more on the screen). It appears that channels must be selected from a scrolling list. For live TV that starts at about 52 seconds and for setting a manual recording, that appears at time code 6:27.
The browser app seems to be pretty much point and click (outside of naming manual recordings) as well.
Based on what I've seen, there doesn't appear to be support for entering in channels directly. This seems logical given the state of the streaming box remote controls.
From the Tablo website:
"Smart TVs leveraging the Android TV operating system offer excellent flexibility.
Benefits
- Access to all Tablo screens and filters including settings
- Supports setting manual recordings
- Access to a wide range of popular apps and games from the Google Play store
- Manufacturers include Sony, Philips and Sharp
- Available in the US and Canada
Drawbackshttps://www2.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/android-tv/
- Older models may not have the processing power or memory required to run the Tablo app
We Recommend
We have not tested all makes/models of Android-based Smart TVs, but Sony generally offers good quality televisions. However, the in-app navigation speed is generally slower than Android TV set-top-boxes."
I purchased a used 4 tuner about 6 months ago and I love it. Added a 4 TB external hard drive for essentially unlimited storage. We live about 45 miles from the Atlanta TV transmitters and use an external Wingard antenna to receive all the Atlanta channels and subchannels perfectly and have recorded programs from most of the channels without a glitz. It is very easy to set recordings up and to watch them. We have our Tablo in our basement next to our router that sends a strong signal to all of our TCL Roku TVs. Really looking forward to the auto skip feature that is supposed to be released this month. We get most of the normal Cable channels through a cheap add on to our Comcast internet, but no DVR function is available without greatly increasing the cost so we watch recorded programs from our Tablo and also from a $20 Philo subscription. Our Tablo TV Guide subscription costs $50 per year, so our total cost is about $45 a month (Comcast + Philo + Tablo TV guide )instead of about $100/month with discounted Satellite service.
Was able to use the new "commercial skip" version of Tablo last night. Love it!!
It works well when it works. Sometimes I get failure to record due to weak signal. I get 100% on all my networks on DISH meter and on the Tablo I get all the green dots filled on all my channels ,so I think that is a blanket excuse they post when the commercial skip fails to deploy. The good thing is even when it will skip sometimes the ending of shows I can hit skip back and still catch it.
It's worked well for me so far with one exception. I got that same error message, but the commercial skip worked fine on another channel recording at the same time, and something on the same channel in the next time slot worked fine. Overall not a big deal, more of a curiosity to me.
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