When we view live TV without the Tablo, the picture is sharp and clear with great color. When we use the Tablo Gen4, the picture is much duller. Not blurry, just duller. My antenna is GREAT. We are transitioning from a Dish DtvPAL DVR, finally, and the picture from that unit is sharp and clear. I can’t tell the difference between it and regular TV. This Tablo is definately duller. Is there a way to adjust it? My DtvPal is freezing up so we are trialing alternatives. There aren’t many. Anyone find a solution to the dullness problem?
Don’t have this issue with my Tablo setup. Is your other video source distributed over your wifi network?
There is no picture adjustment within the Tablo. It simply decodes the ATSC 1.0 digital data stream from the antenna RF signal and sends it to your streaming device over your network (either in real time or delayed off of the storage media).
However, there is a difference in how the Tablo stores the data stream depending on whether it is being saved on the internal vs optional external drive. There is a compression format change when programs are stored internally to save space. There is no format change when stored on an external drive. This might produce a noticeable difference when playing back recordings, but not when watching “live”. This is a good reason to use external storage with the Tablo, besides just to provide space for more recorded programs.
There could be picture quality differences introduced by your streaming devices, and there may be settings in each that affect the quality of what you see on your screen. The same is true on your TV. In particular, resolution settings, “upscaling” or “downscaling”, and several others. You might check both to make sure the streaming content from the Tablo app is not being handled differently.
Edit: In my couple of years of experience with the Tablo, I can say without out a doubt the OTA picture quality both directly from my antenna coax and “indirectly” from the Tablo is essentially identical and well superior to what I was getting from DirecTV satellite. The same is true when comparing network tv from streaming services. The older mpeg-2 encoding being used in ATSC 1.0 OTA transmissions is much less compressed than the heavy compression being used by these other providers to save bandwidth.
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When you watch straight to tv, you’re connected directly to the coax.On some tvs, the color settings can be changed per hdmi port. Check and make sure the settings are the same.
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Hello all. Thank you. We gave up the 4th Gen Tablo due to it shutting off randomly. I believe the problem is the Tablo App through Roku. Very pixelated and shuts down. Through my old, true OTA dvr receiver, picture was clear and not pixelated at all. I did check the settings in the Roku App and they were the same as always. Roku itself, and various other apps, look fine. It’s just the Tablo App, I think, that is unstable, at least for us. So, I am taking the old dvr for repair and dragging out true OTA as long as I can. Thank you all for answering, though.
Sorry it didn’t work for you. Tablo is a love/hate relationship for many of us. It took me a while to get it functioning at a B+ level LOL. Don’t give up so quickly. Honestly buying a Roku Ultra made a huge difference for us. Also brought a new FireTV for the bedroom and being new for 2025 it functions a lot better.
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I have the same experience with Tablo gen4 as classicrockguy: The picture I get streaming from Tablo to Roku is indistinguishable from a direct OTA antenna signal. I am using wifi and it works quite well. I wonder whether the OP’s issue is poor network quality.
I don’t know if a network setting would cause degraded picture quality. Seems like it’d be a setting or inability of a device to display the streamed content at its resolution.
@Mary1 hasn’t been much help. The pixelation wasn’t mentioned until the second post. Also, @classicrockguy mentioned numerous things in his post that must have been ignored by mary1. One important point is the degradation caused by the mpeg-4 conversion when using the internal storage. The implied question about using internal or external storage was never answed. An answer to that is very important.
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My experience is poor RF signal quality tends to lead to pixelation-type issues, and poor network quality tends to lead to buffering. Either can lead to complete drop-outs, app hangs, etc.
Settings, storage format differences, etc. would be where I would go for “dull” picture (as I did in my response). There are even differences in source resolution for the same channel … I have MeTV available OTA in my area at both 480i and 720p. Major visual difference.
If someone tells me they have pixelation issues, I’m focused on antenna, cabling, amps, interference, etc. Perhaps the OP has moved on, but other things to consider are the Tablo internal amp (overdriven by too much incoming RF) or signal losses from the Tablo internal splitter (incoming RF on the edge of too “weak”).
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