I’ve recently purchased the Tablo Dual Lite and added a 1 TB USB hard drive to it. Originally I was just going to skip buying into the guide data subscription, and just use the “manual” recording feature, but I liked the guide data experience so much that I bought a year’s worth. It’s not really a DVR experience without it. You can do a manual recording without the guide data, but that’s like stepping back in time to the VCR days. I agree that for live TV watching, it’s not ideal. The lag when changing channels is due to the fact that it converts the data from the OTA MPEG-4 to some other format (I forget which) for streaming. I bought extra antennas for my two main TVs so I could channel surf, plus I don’t want to sacrifice that sweet MPEG-2 quality when I watch something in real time. I would advise anyone who is considering the Tablo to factor in the cost of extra antennas. These are one-time start-up costs though. I’m very happy with the DVR playback. Once a show is done recording, it will process the file and create thumbnails for forwarding though commercials, and works great. If you are just time shifting and not going to wait until the recording is done, you won’t get the thumbnails and you’ll have to guess on when to stop your forwarding. I have no issues with the video or audio quality. The audio is stereo and not 5.1 so if you have a home theater set up, you might be unhappy about that. For me, simple stereo is perfectly adequate. I am liking the remote viewing feature also. I was able to watch my recordings on my laptop while spending the weekend at my in-laws. Worked great. The only caveats with the remote viewing are that 1) you need to subscribe to the guide data and 2) you need to set up some port forwarding on your router, which may be beyond the skills of non-technologically inclined people. Once it is set up, it is super easy to use. All-in-all, I couldn’t be happier with my Tablo. Reply
Thank you for your insightful mini-review, Michael! Glad to hear that your experience with the Tablo Dual Lite has been such a positive one. Reply
Just FYI, Iit doesn’t work with all USB hard drives. I have an old Toshiba 500gb which (might be a USB 1.0 interface) and it doesn’t work with that. It only works with USB 2.0 and up that are backward compatible with USB 2.0. Reply
Rather than multiple antennas, couldn’t you use an amplified distributor on one antenna? That would seem to be cheaper and require less space. Haven’t tried myself yet. Reply
That’s a good point — yes, I think you could! A splitter would be enough, provided your signal’s strong enough (an amplifier would help there, as you say). Reply