I’m guessing you have Comcast? Maybe Charter? Post the model and we can have a look. If its a dedicated modem, you will probably be fine. The key part is having a dedicated router.
The far left is power. Then you have the two USB ports. Then you have a single ethernet port and then 4 ethernet ports. The first one connects to your modem. This is the one bringing in the internet service from the modem. The 4 yellow ethernets distribute the network. Your Tablo would connect to one of them.
A note on the media server. If you are planning for Plex, you will not not be connecting to those USB ports. The Plex media server runs on a computer that is connected to your network, either by wifi or ethernet. For instance, my PMS connects right to the back of that router, in a port next to my Tablo connection.
Connecting to those USB ports could be an external storage. This is called a network attached storage (NAS). You probably could work something out with Plex as a front end through this method, but its beyond my experience. The simple way is to have PMS running on a computer, said computer has storage drives with the media, and said computer is on the network (either by wifi or ethernet). You could then install the plex channel on roku and access the server.
For 7 connections you would need a switch ideally. Basically, the switch would connect to one of the yellow ports on the back of the router and then you would connect all your lines into the switch.
Good to hear. I have updated my graphic with labels for the connections, specifying how I have things connected.
It sounds like your setup would be mostly the same except instead of WiFi AC under the router, you would connect a switch via ethernet and then 7 ethernets from that feeding each box. If you go the Roku 4 and AC router option, you can pretty much copy my setup exactly.
There are also HDMI switches available to augment HDMI TV inputs if needed. I have a blu-ray player and a DVD recorder (remember them?) with HDMI outputs so I needed one.
I know I am a little late to reply but I feel like you are slightly overthinking this.
Seeing as you already have cable going to all rooms and TV’s all you need for live TV is to disconnect the cable feed from the street from everything except your modem then connect the antenna feed to the existing house coax plant. I think all TV’s made in the past 10 years have built in tuners to receive OTA signals with no additional equipment although I installed an amplifier as some of the Hartford stations benefit from the boost after going through a 5 port splitter. It may be easiest to move the modem or just install a new dedicated line from where the cable enters your home to your modem depending the location of the modem and your other networking equipment. As an added bonus having your cable modem being the only connected device may actually improve it’s speed and performance
In my case I just hard wired almost every room in my house an admittedly a smaller 3 bedroom ranch( I couldn’t see the need for a data connection in the bathroom) with cat5e wiring as I found the WiFi performance to be unacceptable for anything but web browsing even when streaming to my AC enabled lap top unless I was sub 10’ LOS from my router. Depending on when your house was built you may find that any phone jacks may have cat5 running to them already and you just need to change from an RJ11 to an RJ45 port.
Watching live TV via the roku/tablo will provide a more cable like experience with pause/rewind functionality compared to tuning directly into the antenna. If you are concerned about the experience for your other family members I would strongly suggest a fully wired network for the rokus and at least one 4 tuner tablo is not two if your usage warrants.
