We have lots of problems with recorded buffering issues. We just cut the cord and got Fire TV. I bought a hard drive and 2-tuner Tablo. Grr. It’s worthless as a recording device. Help??? I do not want to have spent this money to go back to cable.
I am sorry to hear this. The Tablo is an excellent recording device, but there are setups that are better than others.
What is your setup? An ideal setup is to have the Tablo connected directly to your router. The playback devices can be wired or wireless (mine are mixed in my house, but my performance has been solid on both wired and wireless devices). If you can have your wireless devices on a 5 Ghz network, that does seem to help some as well.
Thank you for your response. I am using my Tablo on a 5Ghz wi-fi network.
The router is on the house’s first floor. We have a TV–the one we most
often watch–on that floor as well. We watch Tablo on that TV with Fire
TV. On our second floor, we have another TV. On that floor is where our
antenna is located and that’s where our Tablo 2-tuner dvr and hard drive
are located. Near that TV, we have a wi-fi extender from which I believe we
could plug an ethernet cord to the Tablo.
If we do that, do we lose the capacity to access our Tablo via wi-fi at the
first floor TV? I have wondering whether I ought not attach an ethernet
cord between the extender and Tablo, but wasn’t sure if we’d lose our
ability to watch Tablo on our other TV. We mostly record programs and watch
them later so this buffering in playback is a pain.
*Mary *
I would suggest the following:
- Get the Tablo hardwired to your network if at all possible.
- get your primary viewing positions hardwired to the network if at all possible.
The reason for this is that wireless, although great for many things, is not the best method of connecting to a stream of data that is delay/ timing sensitive (such as live HD video streams) The interruptions that are unnoticeable when web surfing can cause frustrating dropouts and buffering concerns. I have seen issues arising from neighbor’s Wi-Fi, microwave ovens, garage door openers, etc. that could drive a person mad. edit: and some places like Netflix have invested insane dollars into their compression where you can get a good stream even on horrid connections that we could never accomplish in consumer hardware
regarding connection to the extender, that may help a bit… As long as it is not on a separate network you should not lose the ability to access it via the other leg of your network. I take it that the setup of your internet connection is such that you couldn’t switch the router/ extender to collocate the router and the Tablo…
This is fine advice, but nothing in the company’s sales material suggests such necessity. Ultimately, if it doesn’t work as a wifi unit, Tablo should stop selling it as such. Going back to cable. Anyone need a 2 tuner unit and external hard drive, both barely used?
It does work as a WiFi unit, however it needs good WiFi speed and strength.
What is the make and model of your router?
What recording quality are you using? The 1080p 8 Mbps or 10 Mbps is likely too much for WiFi given the engaging in Double WiFi, once from the Tablo to router, and then second from router to playback device.
Netgear dual n600. Designating 5 to Tablo, 2.4 to laptops and phones. Seems a lit of us struggle with using it as advertised. I’m not impressed. I lowered all the upload and buffering speeds. We have excellent strength and speed. TiVo, it is. Damn.
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There’s no way to speed this thing up in live channel? 10-12 secs render it impractical.
Been discussed before. No, it has to wait for segments to accumulate. The Tablo is not designed for channel surfing.
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Have hard wired Tablo 4-tuner to Apple TV thru Gigabit infrastructure … Still get NOTHING but buffering while watching Live TV. Watching on FireTV the same, so wireless vs. wired not the issue. Could it be low antenna signal, hard drive speed, something else? Left multiple messages and emails with Tablo, have received ZERO response … Are they still in business?
Yes, they are definitely still in business. Sometimes they get backed up on support issues, so it can take some time.
It is really strange that you are having buffering issues with that setup. Have you tried lowering the recording the quality a little to see if that fixes things?
@Samkimg - Hi there! Replied to you myself on Friday… Can you try checking your spam folder?
I recommended doing a reboot of all of your devices and also checking out this blog post: https://www.tablotv.com/blog/10-ways-ensure-your-wifi-network-ready-streaming/
Upon reviewing your ticket history it seems like this is a long-standing issue for you so signs are pointing to something sketchy on your network.
We’re happy to help do some more advanced troubleshooting if you’d like.
Snowcat - Recording quality already set down to 720p, 3G. And tried all settings above and some below.
Nothing received in any email folders … One of us will try to call or you can call us.
Buffering solved … At a cost.
Installed an outdoor antenna and with better signal came much less buffering. Wierd that none of the articles I could find mentioned that as a potential problem.
I could understand a hard drive causing slow transfer or network congestion, but not antenna signal that would have caused such buffering.
So, my cord-cutting continues, however with the savings diminished by the cost of adding an external antenna and installation.
Now, can I get on the AppleTV beta list? 