WDLXTV support for Tablo DVR?

[wdlxtvtester]

Hello, I am curious if anyone (WDLXTV developers or users) have looked into supporting the Tablo DVR?

The Tablo is a nice OTA "whole house" DVR unit and seems a nice candidate to be supported by WDLXTV. It distributes Live TV and DVR content via streams over your home network.

This would be a nice marriage of two great platforms, IMHO.

I've got 4 WD TV Live Plus' and 1 four tuner Tablo ... so yeah I am a bit biased . (As well as having enough coding skills to be able to hopefully help).

Relevant links/info:
- Tablo DVR: https://www.tablotv.com
- Tablo support for WDTV Live: https://community.tablotv.com/t/tablo-support-for-wdtv-live/1045
- Tablo App Support: https://www.tablotv.com/tablo-products/#tablo-apps
- Tablo does not currently support DLNA: http://support.tablotv.com/hc/en-us/articles/201693503-Does-Tablo-support-DLNA-receivers-
- Tablo is supported by VLC through a Lua extension, here: https://community.tablotv.com/t/tablo-vlc-a-vlc-media-player-extension-to-play-and-save-tablo-recordings/1192
- Unofficial Tablo API: http://www.superhac.com/tablo/
- Tablo vs SimpleTV: http://missingremote.com/review/simpletv-and-tablo-showdown-free-over-air-tv-dvrs

I would love to hear your feedback.

(And for the record, I am not affiliated with either Tablo or Western Digital, just a WDLXTV user that would like to use them together ... and avoid having to buy a Roku 3/Amazon FireTV/etc)

[mad_ady]

I can only answer one question - the reason it's not currently supported on WDTV is that none of the devs have that piece of hardware. In order to gain support (assuming there are no technical incompatibilities), you'd have to have a critical mass of users that own the WDTV and Tablo DVR and hope to have a few of them skilled enough to invest time into figuring out what needs to be done to support them.

Without DLNA it would be a bit difficult to stream to the WDTV, but it can play http streams (e.g. in ts format), as long as the codecs are supported, so if your DVR can expose the information you want in some way in ts (or avi/mkv/mp4) format over http, you can write a UMSP plugin that would:
a) Use whatever APIs are available to generate a list of the content you can play
b) Request that content for playback.

UMSP uses DLNA internally, but can get the data through whatever means necessary, so it could fit the bill. You just need to make sure the content is playable by the WDTV (e.g. for example some IPTV streams are playable through UMSP).

Refer to the UMSP development guide on the wiki for a how to build a UMSP plugin.

[wdlxtvtester]

@mad_ady , thanks for your reply and the tip.

I will check out the UMSP plugin route. It looks like the Tablo may use ts format.

In the interim, I have been using VLC on Ubuntu with the Lua script and it works great.

[mojomohambo]

I totally support this! There are lots of WDLXTV users out there looking to cut the cable and go Tablo. I would be happy top help with testing.

[mojomohambo]

still hoping for this to happen!

[mad_ady]

Sorry, but there hasn't been any WDLXTV development in at least two years. Some UMSP plugins are still being kept alive by their creators - which is great, but the forum is mostly dead and most users seem to have moved on.
The only way this would happen is to have somebody with both WDLXTV and a Tablo DVR and the time look into it and making something for their use. Great learning opportunity, but it will take time.