In my previous posts I indicated that I had began my cord cutting journey by suspending (not canceling) my DirecTV service. I also indicated that I had researched DVR solutions and my top two were Tablo and Tivo. Well, I have officially canceled my DirecTV service and I have decided on a DVR solution that I have been using for nearly a month.

The DVR I decided to go with is Tablo.

I decided on Tablo for the following primary reasons:

It has a lifetime subscription to guide data for just $150



The lifetime subscription is tied to your account NOT your equipment. So, you can replace or update your equipment without having to worry about paying for another lifetime subscription

I can watch and record up to 4 shows

One device streams to all of my Apple TV’s and mobile devices

When I finally decided to pull the trigger and purchase a Tablo DVR I was disappointed to find it was out of stock on all the online stores I visited including Amazon, Best Buy and Newegg. I thought this would be temporary, however, it was out of stock for somewhere around 2 months. Getting really nervous, I contacted Tablo to ask them what was going on.

Here is my interaction with Tablo:

Sent from Julian Montgomery to Tablo (March 9, 2016)

I have been looking at a 4-tuner Tablo TV DVR for a couple of months now. I’ve been monitoring them at Best Buy and Newegg. The DVR is consistently out of stock on both sites. This is really worrying me. Is a new model coming out? Are you guys having production or manufacturing issues? Why is the Tablo DVR never in stock?

Response from Tablo (March 10, 2016)

Hi Julian, We are currently in the process of manufacturing new Tablos for distribution to our retail partners. Unfortunately we do not have a definite ETA as to when they will be ready. I am confident, however, that they should be available within a few weeks. You can follow Tablo on Facebook and Twitter to receive updates. An announcement will be made there when new units are available. There are no plans at this time to release a new version of Tablo. Demand for Tablo was higher than forecasted. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Eventually the Tablo DVR’s became available and I purchased one from Amazon.

Tablo Setup and Configuration

The Tablo DVR is actually a small device that fits nicely in my entertainment console.

The Tablo DVR connects to your antenna. In my case I have a Mohu Leaf 50 Amplified Indoor Antenna. Connecting it to the DVR was easy.

The Tablo DVR requires that you purchase an external HD. I purchased a Seagate Expansion 5TB Desktop External HD. I will probably never use 5TB of storage but I thought I would go ahead and purchase a lot of storage because I plan to use it to create a library of shows that play OTA but aren’t available to stream by other means without renting or buying the show. An example of this is The King of Queens. This show is not available to stream anywhere (at least legally) and it is a favorite of mine. Now that I have an OTA DVR I can record The King of Queens from one of my local stations and sort of build my own on-demand library.

In addition to the external HD I also downloaded the free Tablo app on my iPhone. For AppleTV users, using the Tablo mobile app is the primary way to use Tablo. Last winter, Tablo announced they would be coming out with an Apple TV app in the Spring. I am waiting on this app with bated breadth. In the meantime the Tablo mobile app is the best option for Apple TV users.

The initial setup of Tablo I found to be a little cumbersome. You have to pay close attention to what is stated in the instructions. The Tablo comes with a network built into it. You must first connect your phone to Tablo DVR’s network. Via the Tablo mobile app, you can then configure the Tablo DVR to connect to your home network. You can then connect your phone back to your home network and then the Tablo mobile app will be able to find the Tablo DVR on your home network. After following these steps I was able interact with the DVR and configure it using my mobile device. This was all a little bit awkward at first but after thinking it through, it actually made a lot of sense.

With the Tablo DVR fully configured it started downloading the guide data. It comes with a 30-day subscription to guide data. Because it downloads two weeks of guide data, the download took awhile to complete. Once per day it updates this data so that it always has two weeks of guide data.

Using Tablo

The mobile app is very intuitive. I can easily watch live TV, search for shows, movies, and sporting events. It is also very intuitive to setup shows to record. My wife watches several shows that air on CBS. Of the major networks I really dislike CBS the most. All of the other major networks make their shows available to Hulu the day after they air, however, CBS doesn’t make any of their shows available to Hulu. Instead, CBS offers a subscription service called “CBS All Access”. In order to watch CBS shows you have to pay them a monthly subscription fee of $5.99. CBS has taken something that is free OTA and commoditized it for themselves to be sold to cord cutters. This completely rubs me the wrong way!

One of the things I initially wanted to do was setup my new Tablo DVR to record the CBS shows my wife watches and make sure recording and viewing worked well. I was easily able to configure shows on CBS to record. There were one or two shows that I was not able to find. I posted on the TabloTV subreddit and Tablo was the first to comment. They provided me with key information. It turns out that you are only able to set to record any shows that are actually airing within the next two weeks. So, if a season for a show is over, you won’t be able to mark it to record until it shows up in the guide two weeks prior to the airing of the first show for the next season. I was not expecting this to be the case. I don’t believe my DirecTV DVR had this limitation. I had to change my thinking to realize that whether watching live shows or recording, it’s all based on the running two week supply of guide data. With that understanding, I was able to set to record all of the available shows I was interested in. Setting shows to record was simple. I was able to configure it to only record new episodes. For live events (NBA Playoffs) that air OTA I was able to configure it to record longer than the slotted time.

Eventually shows started showing up in my list of recorded shows so now came the playback tests. Playback worked without a glitch. I was able to playback on my mobile devices and tablets. I was also able to playback to my mobile device and then airplay it to any of my Apple TV’s. One welcome surprise was when I stream to my Apple TV I am able to use the Apple TV remove to rewind and fast forward. I use Siri all the time to skip ahead a certain amount of time to skip the commercials. It all works great with no problems from the DVR itself. The only problem I have from time to time is the KTLA OTA signal gets interrupted. So, some of the shows I record on my local station I end up having to delete because they are unwatchable. That’s not a problem with the Tablo DVR, it’s an issue with the signal strength and possibly the placement of my antenna.

Summary

All in all, my experience with my Tablo DVR has been superb. I highly recommend a Tablo DVR for the following reasons:

The user interface is very intuitive



It streams to all of my Apple TV’s

I only had to purchase one DVR

It has a lifetime subscription option

Recording shows is simple and easy

Playback of recorded shows works without any flaws

When watching shows on my AppleTV I can use all of the built-in AppleTV features

Shows that I want to retain can be marked as protected

After using Tablo for a couple weeks and being confident in the recording and playback, I discontinued my CBS All Access subscription. My regular monthly expenses for in-home entertainment is now $23.98. I only pay for Netflix (4-stream) and Hulu (no ads). The initial upfront cost to get Tablo up and running including the lifetime subscription was roughly $580. That price included:

Tablo 4-tuner DVR - $299.99



Seagate Expansion 5TB External HD - $129.99

Lifetime Subscription - $150

As I stated earlier, I am really waiting on the Apple TV app to be made available. I can’t wait to just turn on my Apple TV and access an app as opposed to using AirPlay from my phone. However, in the meantime my setup is functioning great and I have zero complaints. I truly feel like I made the right choice in an OTA DVR solution with Tablo!

When Playstation Vue went live all across the United States, they also lowered the price in the Los Angeles area. As a result I decided to give it a try. The trial period lasts for one week. I tried the trial with an open mind. I was really hoping I would like it. However, both my wife and I couldn’t stand it for the following reasons:

It felt too much like cable

The interface was not intuitive

There were playback issues with every show we recorded

It works fine on a PS4 but is basically unusable on a PS3

We couldn’t airplay the content from our iPhones to our AppleTV

In the LA market the price is still just too high for the most minimal package

After 5 days I gave up and just went back to my original cord cutting setup.

My sons really wanted to watch the NBA Playoffs. The majority of the playoffs at least in the first two rounds air on TNT. As a result I signed up for SlingTV as a gift for them. I won’t do this every year but in year one I was ok with it. The Sling TV app is not the most intuitive app but it gets the job done. For the remainder of the NBA playoffs we are able to watch all the games via OTA, SlingTV and the WatchESPN app on our Apple TV (thanks to some close relatives).

TNT

Of all the networks, I pretty much despise TNT. TNT really wants to make life hard for cord cutters. Their mobile app is so bad it literally can’t be used. They don’t offer any kind of Apple TV app. So far the only way to get TNT is through Playstation Vue or Sling TV. Thanks TNT :(