We had a dual for about a week and all was fine, but I upgraded it to a quad because I wanted more tuners. The quad seemed good at first, but then we ended up having some issues with it where things would just be a problem. It seems slower just to view live TV, and I had it drop out/buffer on my Roku (which the dual never did with the dual). Last night I went to watch one of my favorite shows and it was split into 4 pieces because of signal quality. Too frustrating and too many problems so it is going back to Amazon. Now I wonder, should I get the dual again? Were these problems related to the quad specifically?
I’m no expert, but I would assume that the Quad is internally splitting your OTA signal into 4 versus the Dual splitting it into 2.
Your antenna and/or placement of the antenna was “good enough” to be split into 2 with the Dual, but it is “marginal/not good enough” for the Quad.
Each split of the signal coming from your antenna reduces the signal, thus you are getting buffering, split recordings, etc.
Before you send it back to Amazon, open a ticket with the Tablo team and they might be able to find out the quality of your OTA antenna signal is.
both the Quad and Dual units compensate for split loss with some amplification AFAIK.
That’s correct…
@alank2 It sounds like some additional tweaking of your setup might be required for you to have a solid experience.
Buffering in general is a symptom of a slow WiFi network although sometimes it can be due to incompatible storage.
Split recordings is usually a symptom of weak signals from your antenna (you’ll want to make sure all of your channels have 5 green dots) but again, it can sometimes be caused by poor storage.
It’s certainly worth opening a ticket with support so they can take a closer look at things and give you a few tips.
There’s also some great help documents here:
Once you’ve got your setup dialed in, either model of Tablo should be super dependable for you.
Did not know that Tablo tries to compensate for loss with amplification. Learn something new everyday…I guess I’m not that old, I CAN learn new tricks. 
ruff ruff
Receiving one or two channels on your TV, but not your Tablo:
The main difference between the Tablo and a traditional TV is that the Tablo has multiple tuners - so that you can watch and record multiple shows at once.
The drawback here is a small loss in DB when the signal is split. We use amplified splitting technology to mitigate for this loss, so it’s nearly negligible. In some rare cases, you could have one channel on your TV that doesn’t appear on the Tablo.
As true as this is, you’ll likely have a weak signal or live in a fringe area. I recently relocated my tablo dual lite (have issues with one cable split). I replaces a 1x2 splitter with a -3.5db/split with a 1x3 balanced splitter with a -5.5db/split. There was no noticeable signal loss on either TV or either of the 2 tablo’s.
But this is not to say how it will work for everyone. If you have a reasonably decent signal, quality balanced splitters, done right, just adding a 1x2 should have little to no noticeable impact.
It’s better to have a 1x3 than a 1x2 - 1x2 to get 3 (if you use a balanced 1x3) otherwise you get -3.5 and split that with another -3.5 each on the second for a -7db loss on each split. More than 3 you’re probably looking at a distribution amp/splitter.
What I did, suburbia house, 50 miles out… attic antenna feed to inside utility “box” (with power) where I have a 8 way distribution amplifier (with 75ohm terminators on the unused) feeding the coax ports throughout the house.
Note: I live in pretty flat N. Texas.
At my lab, the coax there is fed into another distribution amp with 4 ports which feeds various things. Works fine. One of those goes to my 1st 2-tuner Tablo which is hardwired network wise. One goes to Plex DVR (2 tuner) and two go to dual Quad HD (total of 8 tuners), the other is unused and terminated.
So Amazon ran the dual lite for $99 and I am back with Tablo now. Wife missed it too. The dual lite detected all channels and all of them were 5 solid circles this time.