Well… I’m sure Comcast, even as evil as they are, would tell you to use the right modem. I’m sure they’d put you down a tier on par with your modem as the alternative. Again… get what you pay for & what is advertised. 
When you say that “more than half of the recordings are 720p”, do you manually go into your Tablo settings and change your “Max Recording Quality”? I believe that Tablo will up-vert or down-vert your data stream to your hard drive based on this setting. If you say your Max Recording Quality is “HD 1080 - 8 Mbps” then all of your recordings are going to be quite large, and require a lot more network capacity to stream or cast than if you had set it at " HD 720p 3Mbps".
Tablo will then also need to use an available tuner to convert the stream out to whatever stream your player indicates that it can handle. (Note that some players are adaptive (they determine “best stream” based on network conditions)).
My preference is to minimize the number of conversions that need to be made, as they always introduce some artifacts or visual distortion. I know my network consistently will transfer HD 720p 3Mbps, regardless of what else is happening in the house – even backups over the network, or someone watching over Plex. I’ve chosen this as my recording rate. But I’m old, and my 32" TV is only capable of 720p. YMMV and you may need a more robust player or network setup.
Bottom line: instead of working from the “top down” on Max Recording Quality, you may want to try working from the lowest quality you can accept – i.e. in my case, HD 720p, 3 Mbs) and then push the upward limits until your overall system begins to fault out. I found this to be must less frustrating.
@JerryG
I’ve only had the Tablo for like a week so… huh? Me? Several months? What?
This buy new equipment even tho it says every where Tablo works with chromecast is not a reasonable or rational answer. I don’t care for the Nexus Player. I like using my phone to fling content at the tv. It’s a much smoother & open experience to me.
Refund is an option but I’m not there yet. I do like the Tablo! It has worked with out a single flaw since day one & I can’t say that for any other DVRs I’ve had or built before. It even runs great in Plex. It’s a great system! But…
I just want to know when casting will be fixed.
@jimzix
65" 1080p TV… there’s a very noticeable difference between 1080p 8Mbps & 720p 3Mbps. I’ve mentioned above that I have tried recording at 720p 3Mbps & it still does not cast correctly. I went back to 1080p recordings currently.
I have had 5 streams running to various devices around the house just to see if it could, all at 1080p. They all worked flawlessly. Cast to even one single chromecast & the whole thing breaks down. It’s got to be a bug of some sorts with how they are casting.
I just want to know when casting will be fixed.
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Riffy:
Should have read your frustration re Chromecast/Tablo has been shared BY OTHERS… It’s a long standing ongoing thing. If you’re adamant about Chromecast as opposed to all other options out there you’re in for a rocky ride. We can discuss fault or the merits of each but the bottom line comes down to poor compatibility.
Hey folks - Just wanted to give a bit of an update. This year we’re undertaking a major update of our Android apps. Part of this will be revisiting Chromecast integration which should provide a much needed improvement in this area.
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WOOT!!
Thank you! That’s all I wanted to know is that you are fixing it! Now I can just find a temporary work around till then.
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I have no problems with 3 different Chromecasts casting from Chrome on PC and Android devices - one over 5 years old. AFAIC, there’s no problems with CC. Reception, bandwidth, PC resources, etc., etc., etc. all will affect your Tablo experience over all devices. It’s a bit to fine tune everything but as several here will attest, Tablo works great and as advertised!
What settings do you have that this is working?
Hey riffy. I’m currently at the 720-5 setting and haven’t really played around too much to see if I can higher without problems. I try not to run anything else on the pc when I’m casting as that tends to slow it down and stutter like you described. I don’t have a speedy computer by any means so that is essential on my end. I have really fast internet but I don’t think that affects the casting other than that initial handshake with the Tablo servers when logging on - somebody jump in if that’s incorrect. Most of my performance problems with Tablo in the past I’m pretty sure can be attributed to low pc resources or reception issues. As far as casting from my Android devices - my S5 does very well over our wifi. I also have an old Moto Razr that I use as a media server and it will work eventually but takes up to several minutes to kind of ‘catch up’ . It’s throughput is only 72 Mbps where the S5 will go up to 866 so it’s slow with everything it does. I hope that helps. Also, click on my orange “I” for my setup info.
Ahh… low bitrate. Still not a single person that has got chromecast working as intended then.
Your pc or android doesn’t effect chromecast. Once it’s handed off to chromecast that’s that. It connects to the Tablo from there. You just get the remote controls on the pc or android. Unless you’re casting your screen of course. Then that’s all the device you’re casting from.
Right, and I’m usually casting from my Android as they’re right there with me by the deck tv and like I said, no problems. But if I cast something from Chrome on my PC, then other running programs definitely affect chromecast performance. For example, last week, the Key West Music Festival had some streaming content from one of the local bars and we wanted to be able to see the performers as well has hear them but my little tv’s speaker is less than desirable. So I mute that and broadcast the audio from a second instance of Chrome (via an FM transmitter) to my outdoor boombox and it sounds great. But in doing that second instance, it makes the casted video choppy. But since we’re really there for the music and the FM transmitted audio is clear, we really don’t notice the occasional hiccup in the video. But of course, trying to cast a movie via Videostream or something means I have to basically close everything but the essentials to make it work without choppiness and it works pretty good for a cheap device.
In the meantime, I just switched my setting to 1080-8 setting and casted to my main tv just fine. I then made a test recording of 30 minutes of NBC (broadcasting at 1080i) and then casted it via Chrome to my main tv. No problems. I then switched over to the deck cc and again, no problems watching a 1080i recorded stream (or live for that matter) pushing out from the Tablo at 1080-8. Maybe I’m missing something and you all are trying to do something different but it seems I’m doing what you insist is not working for anybody. ???
If 8Mbps is castable for you… you’d be the first I’ve heard of. I’ve gotten lucky & had a couple of shows work fine too tho. Most won’t cast. Most won’t even make it past the first 5 mins before freezing.
The other part. That just sounds like you’re on WiFi that’s congested. Once it’s handed off to chromecast, it does all the work unless it’s an unsupported format. Then the casting device has to re-encode it. BTW, double casting like that is kinda cool isn’t it? hehe
I’ll keep playing around - granted, I only watched a few minutes of the golf recording as I wanted to get back to live. 
I’ll keep the setting on 1080-8 and make some recordings and see if I encounter any problem casting to my CC’s. I’m not just watching tv, I’m testing! 
With regard to casting from the chrome browser. If you are using a site that incorporates chromecast as part of the webapp (like Youtube for instance) Chromecast goes to the source URL for the video data - pretty efficient. If you are using chrome browser frame capture, the icon that sits on the browser menu bar. The video is being rendered in the browser, re-encoded, and the PC becomes the source for the chromecast. Very resource demanding on the PC. If your Key West broadcast was on Youtube it would have been efficient. The frame capture method, not so much.
In chrome the extension automatically switches to the YouTube casting app if you hit either one. It’s actually hard to get around I noticed one day trying to cast that tab… it switched to the YouTube app every time & wouldn’t let me cast the tab.
It would make sense if the web app had chromecast support included. Google provides SDKs for iOS, Android, and Chrome Browser. Youtube utilizes the SDK for Chromecast and Airplay depending on which it detects. So if the key west music fest web site utilized the chrome SDK or youtube video services it gets video from source URL. If not it can really dog out a PC.
They’re all Google too… 
We all may soon be … 
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