Looks slick but almost $300 just for local channels? Most of the good shows are on HBO, Paramount +, Hulu, Netflix etc…KODI or Stremio plus a good cheap IPTV service that gives all your locals.
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yes it’s expensive but let me give you one example of how I was able to have tv during 2 weeks of no internet and power and multiple days of no cell service…this was due to the effects of Helene.
Helene sent us back to the stone age. The first night we were using battery powered radio to get news and reports of damage. Now keep in mind we were cut off for days with no way out.
By the second day we got the gas powered ginny out, it dawned on me that I could run the tv and zapperbox. You would not believe what a relief it was to actually get some tv back in the house! For nearly two weeks that was all we had besides radio to get news and information.
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Yeah, since February, series recording no longer work on the Recast. It’s all over the web and amazon is aware of it but I doubt they’re going to fix it (now that they’ve broken it). Sadly the Recast is on its way out and the only potential replacement for it’s functionality is the equally flawed Tablo 4g. (note I said with it’s functionality - I don’t believe any of the other DVRs or tuners have the same functionality).
I am not sure why you said equally flawed Tablo.
I have a gen 6 Tablo 4 tuner. It works well, the app could be better but they fixed the biggest complaint I had about the app, the favorites would go away, that is fixed now.
I also had a Recast, at the time I really liked it but I used mostly Firesticks then, my big complaint was that I could only use it with the Firestick. A few months ago it started having a lot of issues, I had to power it down and back up almost daily. It was a two tuner.
Additionally I had a AirTV I got from Sling as part of a subscription offer, I dropped Sling as soon as I could but with AirTV I could use Sling Free for my OTA on any device. As it turned out the AirTV just stopped working.
That’s when I bought the Tablo, it was about 140 USD (on sale from the mfg) and 4 tuner, it may be obsoleted by NextGen but that’s really up in the air right now but that won’t be until sometime after 2027 and maybe longer than that.
The fast forward to skip commercials is actually a lot better than AirTV which was bad for that, actually I like the Tablo skip ahead better than Amazon’s. The app isn’t great but play back and management of videos works fine although the app is awkward to use.
I currently have my antenna connected to the Tablo and to one of my TVs, in the unlikely case that I lose Internet access as the Tablo does require it, the television will work Internet or not.
So for the cost, the Tablo has been great.
Oh, for you that have an old Recast, the hard disk is specialized for video and is an excellent hard disk, if nothing else, remove that before you toss it. Or message me, I’ll take it and pay the shipping. 
I think it’s doorstop functionality when your internet goes down is a pretty darn big one! Can’t view recorded shows remotely, etc, etc.
I still think it has a lot of potential and maybe the only alternative to the Recast.
yep I also have a tablo, it was worthless in the aftermath of Helene.
@sktn77a and @teehar, sure I don’t like that it requires a working Internet either but I have my antenna connected to a Tablo and to one of my televisions, I seldom use tuner on the television I use the Tablo on it as well but if worse come to worse, I can still use the antenna if my Internet fails.
AirTV didn’t work without Internet either so that’s never been a deal breaker for me. But I understand, still for the money and not needing to pay for a guide or money for a server or NAS, it works for me.
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I have the new generation 2 tuner Tablo and, like timwort, I have the signal split into our main TV and into the Tablo.
I tend to use the TV’s tuner when watching locals because selecting and changing channels is much quicker on the TV.
Our main reason for the Tablo is so our other two TVs have locals without having to have extra coax runs.
Well, I spent the weekend with my new (used) Tablo 4th Gen 2 tuner DVR. Setup was pretty much the same as the Recast. Tuner sensitivity seems a bit better on weak stations (I saw the default setting for the antenna amplifier was “On” so left it there). I’m feeding it with a ChannelMaster Extrema 80 8-bay bowtie reflector antenna in the attic and it’s pulling in all the channels I received with the Recast (about 40 miles away) and a couple I couldn’t. So far very pleased with the Tablo. Plug in a 1TB USB HDD and the only real disadvantage compared to the Recast is the requirement for 24/7 internet connection.
I’ve reconnected the Recast and will continue to use it until it dies (or Amazon kills it) with the knowledge that the Tablo should be an acceptable solution if/when this happens.
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I have used the Recast as my OTA DVR for six years now and I’ve been pretty happy with it overall. I was pleased to see that the recent issues with recurring series no longer recording reliably were fixed sometime in the last few days. I still get two full weeks of guide data which is updated every week. I have three Fire TV 4K and 4K Max devices on my TVs, so I’m comfortable staying in the Fire ecosystem for the immediate future. The only minor complaint I have is that the channel numbers no longer are displayed in the channel guide like they used to be. I get two of almost every network and three PBS stations in my area, so it’s annoying that they took that away from the live channel guide a while ago.
I used to have one but now my IPTV service provides all of my locals so no need and recording in TiviMate works good.
That’s great news! Sure took them long enough, though! Yeah, annoying that they chose to remove the channel numbers from the guide - two steps forward, one step back.
Oddly enough I just noticed that the 32" Insignia TV that I purchased from Best Buy about a year ago running Fire OS 7.6.8.5 actually does show the channel numbers next to the network or channel name in the live guide, unlike when I switch to the HDMI 1 input where I have a Fire TV 4K Max device also connected to the same Recast which only shows he network logo and name, but not the channel numbers. I normally switch to the external device when I turn the TV on because it’s more responsive and snappier than the Fire OS built into the TV. Not sure why one shows the channel numbers and one does not.
Weird issue going on lately. My Fire TV Recast loses connection intermittently, pulses blue and then recovers. When I’m streaming to any of my Fire TV 4K or 4K Max devices it works well for several minutes with the green light activated on the Recast as I’m watching tv, then inexplicably loses connection intermittently, pulses blue and then somehow recovers after a minute or so and then continues streaming again. Happens endlessly all day long. I even connected my Recast via ethernet to my Wi-Fi Gateway (the only device ATT gives Fiber customers) and it still lost connection intermittently. The most interesting thing is that I realized that it loses connection every five minutes almost exactly to the second, then takes a minute or so to recover, and then it lasts another exactly five minutes and loses connection again. You can see the Recast go from green to pulsing blue and then back to green again each time. There has to be some kind of explanation for that peculiar behavior. They gave me the old contact us link on the Amazon forum, but I don’t have much hope of that being any use. Figured I’d post here in case anyone had any ideas.
My experience over the last 7 years is that most Recast issues, barring an obviously defective unit, are network related - local or internet. The most likely cause is noise. What band are you using - 2.4GHz or 5GHz? 5Ghz is usually much better. Check your signal to noise ratio on your FireTV device (Settings>Network>Advanced).
My Recast and three TVs are all in the same living room, not normally all on at the same time. I have two Fire TV 4K Max devices and one Fire TV 4K device and each one is connected to one of three different televisions. Same behavior for all three. Works for five minutes almost to the second and then drops the local connection while watching a show.
From the Advanced settings on the Fire TV 4K (not Max) device on one of the older dumb TVs
Network type: wifi
Network name: name of network
Channel: 48
Frequency: 5240 MHz
Security type: WPA2 PSK
Mac address: long address
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.80
Gateway address: 192.168.1.254
DNS address: 192.168.1.254
Captive portal: No
Metered: No
Signal Strength: High (-31dBm)
Noise: Low (-90 dBm)
Signal to noise ratio: High (50)
Data monitoring: Disabled
Looks fine (actually really fine). I have 4 4k max (gen 1 and 2) sticks and one older 4k stick connected to my 4 tuner Recast (not all running at once of course). Generally don’t have any problems and when I have, it always been my ISP having difficultues. Channel 48 should be OK but have you tried channel 153?
After doing a speed test late last night under the Advanced tab for each of my Fire TV 4K Max or the one Fire TV 4K device I have on three different TVs, all of them are now miraculously streaming live TV over my local network through the Recast without losing connection all day today. I can’t help but think it’s not a coincidence since I didn’t change any settings or anything as weird as that sounds. I hope this miracle fix lasts. Now if only this new current problem with series recordings not working was fixed. It’s maddening that we are dealing with this for the second time this year.
I just resurrected my Recast when my Tablo started acting up and finally lost all functionality and visibility on my network, even via ethernet. I was surprised my Fire stick actually recognized the Recast and synced up without issues. Now it’s plugging along fine, at least for now, with all its quirks and bugginess.
Tablo honored their 1-year warranty (even though it was a refurbished unit I had purchased) when it was set to expire in two weeks, and sent me a replacement unit so kudos to them for that! Funny thing was, I connected my USB external drive to the new Tablo and it would not give me the format option whatsoever, even after rebooting the unit and reconnecting the drive several times. On a whim, I connected it to the Recast and it recognized it, and formatted it no problem. Then I plugged it back into the Tablo and the format option was there, so I formatted it for the Tablo. Crazy.
Now I’m running both the Tablo and Recast in tandem, so no shortage of tuners. I guess I’ll run them both until they quit.