They have no skin in the 5.1 game (no AVR, no speakers, no sub, etc.), so they’d rather divert Tablo’s attention to something that they care about more.
Again I’m not saying this should be Tablo’s next priority, but I am surprised that Tablo is taking it so lax “eh, we’ll get to it when we get to it”.
They stated they can handle it. Multiple times. As recently as last week, and as far back as 18 months (probably longer, but I don’t have records of that).
I’m confused, are you pro 5.1 now?
Your article clearly states “The only problem is that most TVs dumb down incoming surround-sound audio signals to a stereo PCM signal.”
So thus passing 5.1 to the TV shouldn’t be a problem. What your article is about is an HDTV PASS THROUGH 5.1 sound, and most don’t.
Cough, that was me who pointed it out multiple times in this thread, cough.
@cjcox We don’t agree, but that is beside the point. I’m trying to figure out if your argument is at least consistent. Are you saying that 480/5.1 is HDTV? If your answer is yes, then I can surmise that, if either the sound or the video fidelity is maintained, it’s OK to claim an HDTV experience.
Edit: I should also re-ask the other question. Is 480/2.0 also HDTV? Seemingly from your posts, a converter box hooked up to an old SD TiVo should count as an HDTV experience, The converter decodes the video and audio after which it’s allowed to do anything it wants. It’s not an ATSC re-broadcaster. So, is 480/2.0 an HDTV experience.
Lots of interesting points being raised in this thread. I’m in the camp that believes 5.1 should be added but its clearly not something trivial to add/fix or it would have been done by now. Tablo was initially targeted toward mobile devices and tablets. Yes, they did have basic support for Roku but the initial target customer was not the home theater enthusiast. Shortly after introduction and from feedback from users, a pretty clear message was sent that a high percentage of users wanted a home DVR system which resulted in a major shift in priorities. This lead development of Fire and Android TV apps and improving the Roku app experience, all of which are continuing to this day. Tablo is far from perfect and the pace of development is on a glacial time scale but the product does function as what they originally set out for it to accomplish. Will we ever get 5.1 audio? I don’t know but insinuating legal threats or false advertising is sour grapes.
I don’t think it’s false advertising, but I 100% believe it’s misleading. Otherwise we wouldn’t have people showing up here randomly saying they thought Tablo had 5.1 sound.
@Max@7up, I sorta thought there might be a “legal” issue with the use of the DD+ logo, but as @snowcat pointed out, Tablo is justified in using it. But I’ll admit, that logo suggested something to me… but at the end of the day it’s just a logo and that logo doesn’t mean the device handles any kind of high quantity channels (e.g. surround sound). So ignore what I said… Tablo is fine from any kind of legal mumbo jumbo with regards to DD+. I probably came the closest to sounding like there could be a “legal threat”. I was wrong.
I have an Onkyo receiver, and Polk audio speakers, and a Polk audio sub. The reason we keep commenting on this has already been clearly stated. Saying I want 5.1 NOW, 248 times, a hundred different ways is becoming more and more silly. What is the hope here? That Nuvyyo will suddenly say “Gee, that 200 something post made all the difference”.
You guys want to postulate the necessity of 5.1 but don’t want to hear anyone who thinks it isn’t as big of a deal as you do. To you it seems to be the Holy Grail of features, and to some of us, it would be a nice addition, but there are bigger fish to fry.
Tablo offers a 30 day money back refund as do most retailers. If you honestly believe there was anything misleading, that is more than ample time to evaluate the product and simply return it for a refund. I’ll restate, I want 5.1 audio as well but there was nothing misleading regarding Tablo or its advertising although everyone is always free to believe whatever they wish.
If a home theater DVR setup is your priority over streaming to mobile and wireless devices, there are better options than using Tablo.
I’ve looked through this thread, haven’t found what you’re talking about. Can you post the comments where people were saying they want it now, 248 times, a hundred different ways? And yes, I understand you were using hyperbole, so just show me where people were saying they want it now, 5 times, 5 different ways?
I knew what I was getting into, I pre-ordered my Tablo 18 months ago. Some of the newer members were surprised, because obviously Tablo doesn’t publibly state anywhere that they don’t do surround sound.
ETA: Misleading is not the correct term. Tablo never lead anyone to believe they do 5.1. There has to be a good term somewhere between surprising and misleading…
I was being facetious, obviously. Now can you point to where you came to the conclusion that I didn’t have an AVR?
Look, I don’t have any problem with constructive discussion, but in THIS thread, the “Constructive” ship seems to have sailed about 200 posts ago. I guess I am still trying to see the point of it continuing for this long?? I mean, what is the goal here? What on earth are you hoping to achieve? I am sure that Nuvyyo would LOVE to have every planned feature enabled yesterday, but they have to prioritize.
You feel like DD 5.1 is top priority. I feel like getting that grid out a whole lot further than ONE DAY is top priority, but I have not railed on about it, and if I did, I would naturally expect people to get annoyed with my apparent sense of “self-importance”.
As a News and Sit-Com guy, I would be OK with mono - it just has to be reliable. The most annoying thing to me about the transition from Analog to Digital was the audio drop-outs ( until I got my antenna tweaked ). You can keep up with things with a little video drop-out, but an audio drop-out make you lose continuity.
Dev A: “Hey, I’m going to take 2 minutes and code that Dolby thing everyone wants”
Dev B: “we’re going out for Beavertails!”
Dev A: “Whoa! OK…wait while I post that GIF of the dog”
I hope you actually don’t think it takes 2 minutes to add this feature. It is a fundamental necessity the 2.0 AAC track be kept, so adding a 2nd audio track will not be that simple.
No it’s not.
Android can decode AC3.
Apple can decode AC3, just not with the built in software, but there are 3rd party apps, so I’m sure Tablo can do it.
Roku can pass through AC3, and TV’s can decode AC3 (except your 2 TVs, which leads me to believe it’s user error).
I don’t know anything about FireTV, etc. so I’ll leave that to people smarter than me.
End:
ETA: I’ll be using the dog image in every one of my replies in this thread from now on*
