Since Sept 12, 2026 the local CTV station OTA has been unwatchable on my TabloTV for live or recorded streams. The frame size parameter issue seen Flickering/split screen issue - #288 by KIRK seems identical.
My reception OTA on LG or TCL TV tuners is fine, but not my Tablo. I’ve tried changing antennas, amplifiers, attenuators to no avail. All other local stations are fine. Any assistance would be appreciated.
…Long term TabloTV user in Kanata, ON
Since you’re familiar with the issue I experienced, you may already be aware that it was a broadcast transmission setting at the TV station that the Tablo couldn’t decode. Between an email to Tablo and a phone call to the station engineer, I found the issue was caused by a software setting during a temporary switch to a backup transmitter while performing maintenance on the main transmitter. The station had to change the setting to be backwards compatible with my Tablo and the approximately 5 other Tablo users in our city because Tablo was using outdated software and either couldn’t or wouldn’t change it. This was on my Legacy 4 tuner that is now a paperweight.
I am having the same issues in Ottawa. have reported to CTV and waiting to hear back from them. I will have to call Tablo support as I tried the email method and it is just an AI bot. did help with the issues I was having for this and another problem.
It does indeed seem to be a problem with the 2-bit “picture structure” field. Here is a frame grab from OTA Channel 13.1 (CJOH-DT) in 1080i, where the top and bottom of the interlaced frames are not matched.
Thanks for the update Kirk. Looks like you lived it back in 2022. Did Tablo acknowledge this is a problem they could not/did not want to fix on their legacy devices? If so, did they indicate their their newer generation devices copes with such broadcasts better?
You’re welcome Chuck. Tablo sent me a message detailng the parameter the station engineer needed to change on their end and I passed it along. Tablo never offered to fix it on their end, possibly because it would entail a hardware modification.
The engineer commented that it was an outdated setting that didn’t automatically populate on their end and had to be entered manually. He took care of it, but didn’t have to, which I appreciated.
I don’t believe Gen 4 had been announced yet, and I haven’t had any problems with it except for some Roku audio issues when they were first released.
Again - Thanks Kirk. Yeah - I think I might be stuck on this (it is driving the wife bananas). The CTV broadcasts are all owned by Bell-Media and seems like they centralize their Broadcast Engineering across the country. I’m an old communications hardware engineer, so I speak enough geek that I might get lucky hunting down someone who cares to help out. Thanks for shedding light to find that needle in the haystack. I’d never looked at the HDTV OTA MPG2 specs before. Nuvyyo developed the Tablo just a few blocks from me, but after a decade, they were acquired by media conglomerate E.W. Scripps in 2022 for $14M and seem to have total focus on the US Market.
I have a Tabl0 Dual Lite. Experiencing the same problem on CTV (CJOH) for the last couple of weeks. Initially thought it was a signal strength issue. I may have to look for an alternative solution if this does not get fixed. Thanks for keeping me sane and good luck with getting some attention at the Bell big-giant-head!
I have also been experiencing the same symptoms. I sent an email to CTVNewsOttawa@ctv.ca (I couldn’t find a more appropriate address - hopefully they will help, or at least direct it to those who can). Has anyone gotten a response from CJOH or Bell about this?
My station outsources their encoding also. It took about a week to resolve. It happened again about a year later and was fixed overnight. I hope you find someone who will listen and understand.
Hi Kirk.
Im one of the engineers at CJOH tv. I’m wondering if you still have the details of the settings in the encoder that tableo gave you to check. A new encoder was put online on Friday September 11. Which seems to be the date you guys are noticing the issue. I would like to drill down into this unit and fix this setting. Thanks.
Hi @Tm-ottawa,
We’re investigating the problem and will be in touch with the details.
Hey Chuck! I received a request for information from an engineer at CJOH and sent him what I had. I couldn’t find a way to copy you so I’m attaching what I sent to him.
Kirk
Chuck here (with Tablo in Ottawa), with the issue. Tablo had identified this issue with another broadcaster as follows (courtesy of Kirk): Tablo said…
From my understanding, setting picture_structure to “field”, will transmit an alternating 2-bit pattern in the MPEG-2 picture header for 1080i (interlaced) picture: so it will paint each frame using 01 → 10 → 01 → 10 to identify top/bottom. Tablo seems to be sensitive if this parameter is missing.
I’m in the CJOH broadcast area with a Tablo and can help test.
Just want to give a big thanks to everyone who is helping to resolve this - especially Kirk, @TM-Ottawa (CJOH) and Tablo folks.
For ATSC 1.0 1080i the picture structure field is not optional. It can also have multiple valid setting. I’m not sure I read what the station encoder was setting the field to and whether tablo handles the multiple settings.
CTV Ottawa still doesn’t work this morning. Tablo is still rebooting when I try to tune or record on CTV Ottawa.
It’s looking better. I’ve been watching live for the last ~10 minutes with none of those annoying glitches.
Thanks, @Tm-ottawa, for fixing this quickly.
Yes. Just watched local news and it seems fixed.
“Thanks, @Tm-ottawa, for fixing this quickly.” - Bravo! 
Works great now! Thanks to all, especially @Tm-ottawa, @chuckc and @KIRK and Tablo folks.
