About Tablo's Automatic Commercial Skip Feature

As of August 24th 2022, Premium Service/Automatic Commercial Skip
is no longer available for purchase. Learn More.

What is Automatic Commercial Skip?

Tablo's Premium Service subscription enables the Automatic Commercial Skip feature which makes it possible for your legacy Tablo OTA DVR to play the majority of completed recordings without ads on our most popular apps and in the interface of TV-connected Tablo DVRs like the Tablo DUAL HDMI and Tablo QUAD HDMI. 

How Automatic Commercial Skip Works

Once Automatic Commercial Skip is enabled within the settings screen of a compatible legacy Tablo app or interface, your Tablo DVR will upload a small portion of eligible completed recordings to the Tablo Commercial Skip Server for processing.

A hybrid of digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms and machine learning will examine the data and mark the sections containing commercials (in yellow). 

When a recording has been processed successfully, a new playlist will be delivered back to your Tablo that will automatically jump over the ads.

Depending on the recording quality and audio settings of your Tablo, this process will use between 100-200 MB/hour of recording in external internet bandwidth.

Those with upload speeds slower than 3 Mbps, or with very low data caps should NOT enable this feature.

How To Enable Automatic Commercial Skip

If your legacy Tablo DVR has an active Premium Service subscription, you can enable Automatic Commercial Skip detection within the settings screen of any supported app.

All subsequent eligible recordings will be processed by Tablo's Automatic Commercial Skip servers until the feature is turned off or your Premium Service subscription is canceled. 

Once enabled, automatic skipping will also be ‘on’ by default in the player of supported apps.

Automatic Commercial Skip Supported Devices

• Roku
  • Subscribers to Tablo's Premium Service can enable Automatic Commercial Skip via the settings screen of the Tablo app on Roku.
  • To disable Tablo Automatic Commercial Skip on a per-recording basis from within the playback screen press down on the D-pad for Options. 
    
    
• Amazon Fire TV
  • Subscribers to Tablo's Premium Service can enable Automatic Commercial Skip via the settings screen of the Tablo app on Amazon Fire TV.
  • To disable Tablo Automatic Commercial Skip on a per-recording basis from within the playback screen press down on the D-pad for Settings.
  • NOTE - Automatic Commercial Skip is NOT supported on playback via Tablo Connect unless you are streaming at full quality.

• Android TV
  • Subscribers to Tablo's Premium Service can enable Automatic Commercial Skip via the settings screen of the Tablo app on Android TV.
  • To disable Tablo Automatic Commercial Skip on a per-recording basis from within the playback screen press down on the D-pad for Settings. 

• Apple TV
  • Subscribers to Tablo's Premium Service can enable Automatic Commercial Skip via the settings screen of the Tablo app on Apple TV.
  • To disable Tablo Automatic Commercial Skip on a per-recording basis from within the playback screen swipe down on the touchpad for Settings. 
    
    
• PC/MAC & Mobile
  • Subscribers to Tablo's Premium Service can enable Automatic Commercial Skip via the settings screen of the Tablo app on iOS or Android mobile devices, the Windows 10 app on PC, and the web app at my.tablotv.com on MACs.
  • To disable Tablo Automatic Commercial Skip on a per-recording basis from within the playback screen, toggle the Commercial Skip icon which looks like this: 

• • NOTE - The Android mobile app and the web app will not show Automatic Commercial Skip success/failure messages.
    
    
• Tablo DUAL HDMI & Tablo QUAD HDMI Interface
  • Subscribers to Tablo's Premium Service can enable Automatic Commercial Skip via the settings screen of the Tablo interface on TV-Connected Tablo DVRs like Tablo DUAL HDMI and Tablo QUAD HDMI.
  • To disable Tablo Automatic Commercial Skip on a per-recording basis from within the playback screen press down on the D-pad for Settings. 
  • They can also enjoy Automatic Commercial Skip on supported secondary streaming devices.

Eligible vs. Ineligible Recordings

In order to be eligible for commercial skip processing, your Tablo DVR’s recordings must:

• NOT be a manual recording
  • Manual recordings lack 'program type' details and therefore are ineligible 
• Be completed successfully
  • In-progress, failed, and incomplete recordings are ineligible.
• Be created AFTER commercial skip has been enabled in your Tablo’s settings screen
• Have completed Fast-Forward Preview processing successfully

Certain networks, program types, and shows are always ineligible for commercial skip processing including:

• [NETWORK] PBS
• [NETWORK] TVO
• [PROGRAM TYPE] Manual Recording
• [SHOW] Bonanza
• [SHOW] Gilligans Island
• [SHOW] Good Morning America

Details about why certain shows/networks are ineligible as well as a complete list of ineligible networks and programs are explained in this article. 

Potential Error Messages

When Tablo's Automatic Commercial Skip detection is enabled, all recordings that have been processed will show a commercial skip message identifying either success or one of several error messages:

• SUCCESS - Commercial skip is ready.
• FILTERED - Program ineligible for Commercial Skip.
• NETWORK - Commercial Skip upload failed.
• UNSUITABLE - Recording does not meet criteria for Commercial Skip.
• RECEPTION - Commercial Skip failed due to poor reception.
• OTHER FAILURE - Commercial Skip detection failed.  

For a full overview of the meanings of these error messages, head over to this article.