Winding down with Dish

I'd bet that's not an AirTV issue. Your local station probably doesn't have their aspect ratio set correctly. I have one of those left here. I contacted station engineers and had them fix some sub channels, but at one station (who must be incompetent) they couldn't fix it.
Yeah I had a PID issue with one of our local channels a few years back. One of the station engineers had their car into our shop for work and I cornered him and try to get the right PIDs. He's telling me I need to go to work for them cause I know more than a lot of the guys they pay to know. LOL. I didn't get the PIDs but I finally trial and error my way into it.
 
AirTV unit arrived today. Extremely simple to set up; I was watching TV in less than 5 minutes. It recognized my 2 TB (formerly Wally) EHD, reformatted it, and now it's working as well. The guide has data for almost all the channels including subnets. Overall, I'm impressed so far, and even more impressed that its FREE!

View attachment 137729 View attachment 137730
So If DISH can make an ota tuner that gets all guide information for Air tv , then why can’t they do the same for DISH satellite tv?
 
  • Like
Reactions: dishdude
They can, and did in the past. They just decided to stop doing it.
Short sighted as they are handing out antennas for subs who want to drop satellite delivered locals. They want to compete with the competition they would of done both. Looks like a simple software change with the proper Air tv tuner. But what do I know?
 
  • Like
Reactions: charlesrshell
The only problem I have with OTA is that there are times when I watch the news while my wife is recording soap operas and game shows. There are not enough OTA tuners to make all of this possible.
 
I would assume so. They need to enable the harvesting of PSIP data via the OTA signal, then map it to the correct channel. Not sure why they can't (or won't) do this.

There is no way that AirTV is getting a 7 day Guide from PSIP data. The Guide data is downloading from the internet. The question is who is providing the Guide data since they are not charging for the Guide. Of course Amazon is providing a free Guide on their Recast box. Tablo provides a lifetime Guide subscription for $150.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
The only problem I have with OTA is that there are times when I watch the news while my wife is recording soap operas and game shows. There are not enough OTA tuners to make all of this possible.
With Tablo ota Dvr you can get a 4tuner unit and record up to 4 shows at a time. That’s what I have and the ota recordings are smooth without any problems like DISH has with its ota tuner. I have had this same model since last summer and it works great with full guide information for all channels and sun channels.
 
With Tablo ota Dvr you can get a 4tuner unit and record up to 4 shows at a time. That’s what I have and the ota recordings are smooth without any problems like DISH has with its ota tuner. I have had this same model since last summer and it works great with full guide information for all channels and sun channels.

Does it have a search function? Can you set it to record only "new" shows?" How is the PQ (assuming there is no HDMI output?)
 
With Tablo ota Dvr you can get a 4tuner unit and record up to 4 shows at a time. That’s what I have and the ota recordings are smooth without any problems like DISH has with its ota tuner. I have had this same model since last summer and it works great with full guide information for all channels and sun channels.

Mike,

Are you having any problems with excessive heat when all 4 tuners are being used? Also, please give us a report of how the commercial skip is working once Tablo releases the beta software. I am thinking of buying a Tablo with a lifetime subscription for my son but I am waiting to hear how the commercial skip is working plus I have read several reports concerning heat problems. I don’t want to add a cooling fan like several owners have done.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
Does it have a search function? Can you set it to record only "new" shows?" How is the PQ (assuming there is no HDMI output?)
The picture quality for livetv and recordings can be set anywhere from 480p to 720p or 1080i. When you look for shows you can do so by channel and then select the show and yes it can be set for ALL or NEW episodes. You can use the Tablo app over either a Roku or Amazon fire tv stick to view your Tablo and its live tv channels and the recordings. So the hdmi will come from the Roku or Firetv stick. This means you can set your Tablo up near the router as long as you have access to an ota antenna. You can set up your shows by tv shows, movies or sports and your recordings will show up under those categories. There is also a 24hr grid guide that you can use to view live tv or set up show timers from the guide. I think the pq looks superior to anything on the Dish receiver because my Roku does it in 4k .
 
The picture quality for livetv and recordings can be set anywhere from 480p to 720p or 1080i. When you look for shows you can do so by channel and then select the show and yes it can be set for ALL or NEW episodes. You can use the Tablo app over either a Roku or Amazon fire tv stick to view your Tablo and its live tv channels and the recordings. So the hdmi will come from the Roku or Firetv stick. This means you can set your Tablo up near the router as long as you have access to an ota antenna. You can set up your shows by tv shows, movies or sports and your recordings will show up under those categories. There is also a 24hr grid guide that you can use to view live tv or set up show timers from the guide. I think the pq looks superior to anything on the Dish receiver because my Roku does it in 4k .

So the transcoding doesn't seem to affect the PQ as far as you can tell?
 
Mike,

Are you having any problems with excessive heat when all 4 tuners are being used? Also, please give us a report of how the commercial skip is working once Tablo releases the beta software. I am thinking of buying a Tablo with a lifetime subscription for my son but I am waiting to hear how the commercial skip is working plus I have read several reports concerning heat problems. I don’t want to add a cooling fan like several owners have done.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
Commercial skip has been delayed in to April so I can’t comment on it yet. I’m not having any excessive heat issues while using all 4tuners. Which I do a lot during prime time. My Tablo sits in the tv cabinet and is right up against my external hard drive for my hopper . I have had it since last summer. I recommend the newest 4 tuner quad Dvr they were supposed to come out for sale this month. It is supposed to have WiFi built in and you don’t need to use Ethernet cable straight from it to your router, like I do with the older 4 tuner model I have.
 
Last edited:
So the transcoding doesn't seem to affect the PQ as far as you can tell?
I haven’t noticed any pq problems and the picture quality can be set as high as 1080 at 10mpbs. I use the recommended 720p at 5mpbs. If you use the higher 10 mpbs rate it will limit the amount of tuners you can use at a time. I think the 4K output of the Roku makes the pq look very sharp and better than just ota hd.

HERE are the settings you can set your Dvr to, on both live tv and on recordings.

720p 3mbps
720p 5mbps
1080 8mpbs
1080 10mbps,720 @60fps

www.tablotv.com
 
There is no way that AirTV is getting a 7 day Guide from PSIP data.
They don't need anymore than an hour or two even for DVR functions as long as the system knows what shows to look for and it queries the available programming guide data often enough to flag it in time to record it. The more days available, the less frequently the DVR tool has to "look" for episodes to flag for recording, but it's not a make or break situation.