I have a square antenna with a small amp, and hooked to the Tablo I am getting 77 local channels clear as can be down in my basement (50 religious and shopping channels???). No telling what’ll happen if I move it to the upstairs window.
However, I read on why this doesn’t sync with the Firesticks live channels. It makes sense but it’s unfortunate because it makes Tablo a standalone app with no way to tell if what I want to watch is on the app except to think to try the app. I have an addon on Stremio ( Streaming Catalogs) that gives me every source to a show but unfortunately it’s not on there either. Might be worth it for Tablo to set up a server just to store our channels (has to be less than a meg per account) so the app can be incorporated into the lager picture.
Our cable contract expires in June so we’re not even new to cord cutting yet but I don’t really see how this fits into the picture. I still don’t get FETV and streamfire (which also doesn’t sync with the live channels) gives me the same local channels plus more so I think I would check it before checking Tablo. I’ll give it a day or so to think about it but I think this one goes back… It’s just a so so novelty.
What cord cutters really need is a singular app that can search all your apps and give you all the ways you can watch any program. That in effect is what we paid the cable company to do.
also note, not all multi-splitters are balanced. A 3-way may be have 1 -3.5 the other 2 splitting the other -3.5. Used often for “cable internet”, for example. While a balanced with have all the same.
At least on the legacy devices, each have their own stream, not exactly the same. I can have 2 OTA TVs tuned to the same channel and can hear the “echo”. Slight delay in signal processing I presume. So, I don’t thing you’ll have exact with out an investment.
Typically splitters are just a combination of cascaded 1:2 splitters. Each stage is -3.5dB signal drop, 3dB is due to halving the signal and the 0.5dB is losses in an imperfect device.
A 1:2 splitter drops each output (leg) -3.5dB
A 1:4 splitter drops each leg -7dB
A 1:8 splitter drops each leg -10.5dB
Its odd numbered splitters that are a bit weird (sometimes called unbalanced splitters).
A 1:3 splitter will be -3.5dB on one port and -7dB on the other two.
A 1:5 splitter will be -7dB on three ports and -10.5dB on two others
You can’t really use Tablo at the same time as using the TV tuner unless you switch inputs on the TV and have an input dedicated to a direct antenna.
However, back when Tablo’s servers were causing problems they promised to introduce an option to bypass the need for an internet connection and allow you to select local channels manually in their app. I haven’t seen that feature yet. In this way you did not have to wait for their guide or anything else Tablo gets from the Tablo servers. All you really should need is the antenna, the Tablo to decode the OTA signals and a way to connect your TV to the Tablo.
The old standard was that you could have up to 6 devices pulling from the Tablo at a time, but you can only watch as many channels as you have tuners. So, if you have the 4 tuner, you could have 4 different devices watching 4 different channels at the same time…you could even have two other devices watching 2 of the same channels that the other devices were watching…
