Tablo OTA DVR
The heart of any Cable-Cutting project is a system to view and record local TV stations. The Tablo Quad OTA (Over-The-Air) DVR (Digital-Video-Recorder) is an excellent piece of technology for this task. It can tune-in four broadcast stations simultaneously (record three and watch one live.) Recordings are stored on an internal or connected hard drive of your choosing; I selected an internal 1TB solid-state drive.
The advantages of this system are:
- High-quality recording/playback
- DVR can be physically located anywhere on your network (near the HD OTA antenna). It supports wired and wireless connectivity.
- Commercial skip is available for many programs.
- Playback on several network devices simultaneously (smart TV, Roku, Fire, Android, iOS, computer.)
- Inexpensive channel guide subscription $5/month or $50/year or $150/lifetime
- Flexible recording options, e.g. number of shows to keep (newscasts=1, dramas=all), record all episodes (new, old, no-duplicates)
One thing to note: the picture quality from OTA broadcasts is FAR superior to any quality available on cable or satellite, so you're in for a treat as far as picture quality goes.