In reference to, How many people can watch Tablo Recordings or Live TV at once? – Tablo.
“If Tablo has a wired connection to your home router and uses 802.1 G or N technology, up to 6 devices can watch a live or recorded program simultaneously.”
The Tablo is wired to the ASUS RT-AX86U router. How many devices would be able to watch a live program simultaneously, if 802.11ax/WiFi 6 mode was enabled, and Wireless Mode was set for ‘Auto’?
We haven’t tested more than 6 but if you have additional network bandwidth you could potentially support additional streams.
So live tv would be limited to # of tuners. Meaning if my internet was fast enough we could theoretically watch 4 Live / 2+ recorded on our OG Tablo Quad?
Couple of clarifications:
Internet speed doesn’t matter. What matters is your home network speed, and that is mostly dependent on your router (though direct ethernet, moca, powerline, etc can help if your devices are far apart).
You can watch at least up to 6 streams if your Tablo is connected via ethernet to your router. The streams can be live or recorded, so you could watch 6 live streams at once (just some or all would be of the same show). You could also have 6 different recordings playing in your home at once.
Here is a test I ran years ago on a OG 2-tuner. Some other user ask about whether a sub-channel stream from a tuner already being used counted as a tuner assignment. And I’m too lazy to run it again.
I had a station with main channel 10-1 and 3 sub-channels 10-2, 10-3, and 10-4.
If you had 4 display devices(TV’s, PC’s, etc.) you could have all 4 different 10-x channels playing on the 4 different devices. Thus you had 4 different live streams but they were all from channel 10.
But if you tried to play a different channel tablo would kick you off of sub-channels 10-2, 10-3, and 10-4. Leaving only channel 10-1 and the new Live TV channel.
With the info supplied in my original post, how many TVs with Roku Streaming Sticks, are able to watch the same Live TV channel, before the Live TV Quality has to be lowered from the Recommended HD720-5Mbps?
Roku Info:
5G
Signal Strength - Excellent
Internet Download Speed - Good 86 Mbps
Sony TV - Signal 60-65% - SNR 25.30
Again the internet speed doesn’t matter so who knows the maximum number based on the info you provided. The importance is how fast and robust your internal network is. It all depends on how “good” your WiFi router is, you likely could watch the same live TV channel on 6 Roku devices.
I’ll further point out yes your router is the new fancy WiFi 6 aka Wireless AX but your Roku devices are likely only WiFi 5 aka Wireless AC, or even older Wireless N. So no one can give you an exact answer.
Thanks for clarification on that.
The Roku Streaming Stick shows the ‘Signal Strength’ as ‘Excellent’.
Isn’t that the signal strength that is being received from the WiFi router?
If it is, does that mean that the Streaming Stick is receiving an excellent WiFi signal?
I fully realize that the Internet Download Speed has nothing to do with my question.
5G
Signal Strength - Excellent
Internet Download Speed - Good 86 Mbps
I just happened to find the answer to my previous question, about ‘Signal Strength’ shown on the Roku Streaming Stick, being the actual WiFi signal strength. It appears that it is. So now that I know that I have an ‘Excellent’ WiFi signal strength value in my ‘Home Network’, there’s going to be more questions concerning the buffering while watching the same channel, at the same time, on one to three devices.
It also appears that there is absolutely nothing wrong, that my router is transmitting 802.11ax (WiFI 6).
Use the latest technology
Router technology has come a long way in the last few years. Newer routers will offer upgraded internal components and stronger external antennas which can increase performance and range.
Make sure yours runs either the [802.11ac (WiFi 5) or the newer 802.11ax (WiFI 6) standard, both of which are designed to handle the speeds streaming requires.
Now that the WiFi signal strength of my ‘Home Network’ has been clarified as being up to snuff, it’s now time to bring up the buffering while watching a live program on three different TVs equipped with the Roku Streaming Stick, on a Mac laptop running macOS 11.4, and on two iPads that are also running the latest OS. I haven’t recently tried the three other Mac desktops, and two other iPads, of which one is running the latest operating system.
Last Tuesday night, while watching the hockey game on CBC 5.1 Toronto, I fired up a TV in the kitchen, and another one in the living room. The buffering started. I then also fired up the laptop, of course the buffering continued.
The broadcast signal strength was just about perfect, not too strong, not too weak. The WiFi signal strength was excellent.
One TV was using 2.4G, the other 5G. The laptop was using 5G.
I had to lower the Live TV Quality to SD 480 - 2Mbps, to be able to successfully view, without the buffering.
There are a couple of things that I wish to stress about this buffering.
1 There is no degradation of the signal before the buffering starts up.
2 Whenever the buffering quits, the show always continues where the buffering began.
3 If I use reverse, the show continues without any buffering, past the point of the original buffering.
4 If I happen to watch the same show being recorded, and there was buffering during live TV, there is absolutely no degradation while watching the recored show, at the same point.
I previously jumped through numerous hoops, numerous times.
The only thing I never did, was to disconnect the external hard drive, and see if if the buffering stopped.
Well, it certainly did not, and here are the results of my tests this morning.
There is a solid connection from Tablo, to router.
The hard drive has been disconnected.
Sony TV direct from antenna diagnostics, SNR 24-25, and signal strength of 68%.
NetSpot shows nice long green bars for both 2.4 G and 5G, throughout the building.
These devices were turned on in turn, and left on.
The buffering started on the first device.
Living room TV, with Roku Streaming Stick, about 30 feet from router. Roku shows 5G, CH 165, WiFi signal strength is Excellent.
Kitchen TV, with Roku Streaming Stick, about 8 feet from router. Roku shows 2.4G, CH 1, WiFi signal strength is Excellent.
Laptop beside the kitchen TV, is using 5G, CH 165, and NetSpot shows 5G signal at 65%
iPad in basement has a direct line of sight WiFi connection to router, which is about 30 feet away. Buffering galore!
Basement TV, with Roku Streaming Stick, about 10 feet from router, with only thin wood panelling in between. Roku shows 5G, CH 165, WiFi signal strength is Excellent.
And now I just tried the iPad and TV in the basement. Even with Live TV Quality set to HD 720 - 3Mbps, I’m still getting buffering on both devices. The external hard drive is still disconnected, and the broadcast signal would make the three bears happy. Not too strong, and not too weak.
Another thing that I’ve noticed, whenever the buffering stops on one device, it starts on another device.
Made for an interesting experience this morning, with 5 devices buffering in turn.
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