tablo-proxy

A web-based proxy for Tablo TV (4th generation) that lets you watch live TV and recordings in a browser. The Tablo outputs MPEG-2 which browsers can't play natively — this proxy transcodes to H.264/HLS on the fly using FFmpeg.

Features

• Live TV — watch any OTA channel via your Tablo
• Recordings — play back recorded shows with full seek support
• Local archive — finished recordings are automatically transcoded once (hardware) to H.264 MP4 on local disk, in a Plex/Jellyfin-compatible layout; archived copies play as static files with instant native seek and no per-viewer transcode
• Recordings views — flat by date, rolled up by show, or alphabetical
• TV Guide (EPG) — browse what's on now and upcoming
• Channel favorites — filter the channel list to only the channels you care about
• Seek bar — server-side seek for recordings (FFmpeg restarts at the new offset)
• Live + Recording hybrid — if a live channel is being recorded, you get full DVR controls (seek back to the start)
• Fullscreen & theater mode — f for fullscreen, t for theater mode
• Volume control — mute (m) and volume slider
• Keyboard shortcuts — space/k (play/pause), j/l or arrows (±10s), and more
• VLC/mpv support — MPEG-TS stream endpoints for external players

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• FFmpeg installed and on your PATH
• A Tablo (4th gen) on your local network
• A Tablo account (email/password)

Setup

npm install
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your Tablo credentials

Usage

node app.js

Then open http://localhost:9480 in your browser.

External player streams

For VLC or mpv, use the MPEG-TS endpoints directly:

http://localhost:9480/stream/channel/<channelId>
http://localhost:9480/stream/recording/<recordingId>

How it works

1. Authenticates with the Tablo cloud API to get device access tokens
2. Discovers the local Tablo device on your network
3. Signs local API requests using HMAC-MD5 (the same auth the official app uses)
4. Starts an FFmpeg transcode from MPEG-2 → H.264 HLS when you select a channel/recording
5. Serves the HLS segments to the browser via hls.js

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
TABLO_EMAIL	(required)	Your Tablo account email
TABLO_PASSWORD	(required)	Your Tablo account password
PORT	8181	Server port
GUIDE_DAYS	2	Days of guide data to fetch (1-7)
LIBRARY_DIR	/mnt/storage/tablo	Where archived recordings (MP4 + metadata) are stored
AUTO_ARCHIVE	1	Automatically archive finished Tablo recordings (0 to disable)
AUTO_DELETE_FROM_TABLO	0	Delete the Tablo copy after a verified archive (1 to enable)
ARCHIVE_POLL_MINUTES	10	How often to sweep the Tablo for new finished recordings

License

MIT