Oh, there’s always something…so far, anyway… 
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Honestly, I can see how it would be frustrating. Like you said, you made the purchase based on their advertisement of working with your existing setup. I almost threw the towel in multiple times on Tablo back then. I think it is disingenuous, at best, how they recommend Roku first and foremost on their recent blog post “Which streaming device should I use with Tablo?” when it seems you have about a 20% chance (it’s an estimate, don’t jump down my throat over this) of having a perfect experience with Roku and Tablo currently. Perhaps less, if you want the highest quality 10mbps quality setting. They can’t have it both ways - either (1) admit that Roku is not a great option for Tablo and recommend other platforms first, or (2) spend the required investment to make it a great option with Tablo, if this is even possible at this point.
For those who demand they have a legitimately perfect experience with Roku and Tablo, I would ask what quality you are recording at, how long it takes to start recordings, how long it takes to resume from fast forward, # of occurrences of LPW per week, # of random lockup/reboots per week, because I think the definition of working perfectly may be somewhat ambiguous.
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Before the Roku firmware update to 7 and the latest Tablo firmware I had no issues at all at 5mb setting. Startup time was a few seconds and at the most that after FF/RW.
Now latest firmware on both, still at 5mb, startup from first time in Tablo app takes about 10 seconds or more. Second time watching a show in Tablo app is considerably shorter, around 3-4 seconds. But FF/RW is 3 seconds max. However, things become unresponsive, I know this is roku because I also see this in Amazon and Netflix apps, but I believe Tablo shows it more. Not sure if that is because I watch more Tablo on Roku, but I can probably make that assumption.
Oh an LPW rarely if at all
It is not perfect - but we are very happy with it. Recording at recommended HD 720, usually takes 2-10 sec to start, 1-4 sec after FFW, LPW varies but 1 or 2 a day, and don’t remember the last lockup/reboot but its been over 2 wks. We have ~1TB recorded on a 2TB drive. We watch 4-5 hours of recorded shows most days using 2 Roku 3s. (on 2 iPads it works perfectly with little on no delays ever) We are amazed at the video quality and like FFWing thru 20 mins of commercials every show, and really like not depositing $100/mth with Dish!! We also use the Rokus for Netflix, Amazon and Hulu and see 2 or 3 reboots a YEAR. We do not use it for live tv (split at tv) and do not use Tablo Connect.
Could it be better? Yes, there are some improvements we would like to see in the future, but we have confidence that they will continue to make Tablo an even better product with time
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I’ll admit, I don’t record at 1080p. There’s only a handful of 1080i stations in my area (Dallas/Ft. Worth). I record currently at the Tablo recommended 720p - 5 Mbps setting. The other reason is of course disk space.
I am a very happy customer.
My network is either wired or wireless, but my Tablo is wired and hangs straight off the ATT supplied (old) 3800HGV-8 2wire router. It’s the only source of WiFi in the house (apart from WiFi direct). I have done numerous tests on Roku 3 (wired and Wifi) and the very very old Roku 2nd gen XD (which can only do Wifi). I can watch live TV, FF, RW, FF, RW, etc… and never have an issue even on the Roku XD.
I realize that on the forums when somebody’s setup doesn’t work well there is a tendency to exaggerate and suggest that 80% of all users, Tablo + Roku, are having the exact same problems, but maybe that’s not really true. Unfortunately, people not having major issues are not likely to post in the forums. So… maybe it is 80%, but it could be that 80% are not having problems… right? I mean we’re just guessing really.
Anyhow, the forums here are become increasingly negative with a lot coming from non users and a lot from at least non-Roku users. So, I just thought I’d post something positive. Maybe the combo is too risky and maybe I’m in the vast minority of people (apparently) that don’t have major problems with Roku + Tablo. With that said, I do like to look at alternatives. Roku is showing its age and the Roku 4 showed us that new doesn’t mean competitive.
But for right now… I’m pretty content.
Roku 2nd gen XD or Roku 3 (wired and Wifi)
Tablo 2 tuner (wired) + 1 TB HGST Touro
802.11g (basic) WiFi
ATT Internet 2 wire 3800HGV-B wifi router
Obviously a minority opinion, but want to put this out there…
[quote=“getcashmoney, post:63, topic:4976”]
what quality you are recording at[/quote]
I have always recorded at 8MB, other than the period of time that the firmware update made it impossible to do so, during which time I recorded at 10 MBps. Honestly, I can’t remember having as many lock-ups during the period of time that so many people were having trouble as I do now, and 8Mbps vs 10 Mbps didn’t seem to make much difference one way or the other. every display that I care to watch any amount of TV on has a native resolution of 1920x1080, so 720p just doesn’t look as good.
[quote=“getcashmoney, post:63, topic:4976”]
how long it takes to start recordings[/quote]
If you are asking how long it takes scheduled recordings to start, I’m afraid I’ve never times that. I have timed how long it takes live TV to start, and that seems to range between 8 and 12 seconds. And I have not been able to correlate any cause for it taking longer one time than another. If I go back to a channel that is still flashing red, that takes under 2 seconds. If you were asking how long it takes a recorded show to start playing back, that has rather recently been reduced to under 2 seconds.
You know, that is a very interesting question because it used to be about the same as live TV, but here lately, it is much faster. It’s usually under 2 seconds these days, which just changes everything. I don’t know if they decided that they didn’t need as much buffer, or if they are now filling the buffer in the background, or what, but this is a huge and important improvement for anyone who uses Tablo the way that I do.
Well, I don’t know that it is entirely predictable, but here recently, I don’t think I’ve ever made it though a one-hour show without a lock-up. Lock-ups surrounding skip-forward/back are a long-standing issue, so for a long time I had assumed that it was some particular combination of forward/back operations that triggered the lock-up. But at this point Tablo is fast enough that it now seems apparent that I can get away with just about any combination of commands, a certain number of times. And then, after that, it just becomes unresponsive. Sometimes the Roku will return to the show, but the picture and sound will be out of sync. Other times, there will be audio but no video. I have also seen it where the on-screen navigation graphics won’t hide.
Once any of that stuff manifests, the Roku becomes unresponsive to the remote control. Sometimes, if I have the patience, the Roku will eventually respond to multiple and continuous presses of the Home button, at which point the Roku seems to be working normally, but then if I launch the Tablo app again, it becomes unresponsive again. If instead I navigate from the home screen to the system menu, I can do a soft reset, after which everything works fine again. If I’m less lucky, the Roku just spontaneously reboots before I can get back to the home screen. By far the fastest way to recover is to get up and cycle the power to the Roku.
Granted. There is very little that is actually perfect. Netflix via Roku is not “perfect”, but it’s close enough that it’s hard to tell where to lay the blame on the rare occasions that it doesn’t work perfectly. If Tablo can reach that level of perfection, it will be close enough for me. But a lock-up every day is too many lock-ups. And multiple lock-ups during a single show is completely unacceptable. What Tablo has going for it that Netflix never can is that the server is on the local LAN. That should eliminate all kinds of potential bandwidth issues. What Netflix has going for it is that there is not as much reason to skip forward. I do pause, and I will frequently skip back if I miss something, but I almost never skip forward. And maybe skipping forward is particularly difficult for some reason.
LPW is a completely new thing for me on the Roku. Before the recent round of firmware updates, I didn’t even know what people were talking about. Now I am seeing that happen occasionally, although less that the straight unresponsive state. And now, I also see this with the iPad app almost every time I try to use it.
Maybe I should put that to the test by trying a whole ton of skipping frontwards and backwards during a Netflix stream and see if that kills the Roku as well. It might also make sense to try a ton of skipping around with Tablo and try to draw some conclusions as to whether it’s the number of skips, or if it’s more about time. But the, you would think that the Tablo guys would have already don plenty of that sort of thing. And honestly, I just keep expecting them to fix it real fast. And for some unknown reason, I’m continuously surprised when they don’t. It seems like such a glaring problem to have languished for so long.
In all honesty, I had pretty much stopped using my Tablo and gone back to my more relaxing SageTV setup. SageTV is so smooth and trouble-free that it’s hard to abandon it. The aging user interface is still much more useful than Tablo’s, and the ComSkip plug-in is just a beautiful thing. Since the SageTV client box has an HDMI port, there is no need for a third-party client. And the SageTV clients all work rather perfectly. And the SageTV server records the original transport stream, so the quality is as good as it can possibly be. I mean, Tablo looks very good at 8Mbps or above, but it’s still not native. And SageTV is rock solid. The server software runs as a Windows service and it has never locked up, not even once since I installed it in 2010. The same can be said of both the client box and the Windows client. This is something that really does “just work”.
It is very sad that Google bought out SageTV and then unceremoniously discontinued the product. The chances of native Windows 10 server/client software seem very poor. It may just happen to work, but the last time I had to reinstall it on a new server, it was quite apparent that SageTV was already on borrowed time. It’s hard to believe that something so great could could be gone with no viable replacement, but that’s the reality. I tried to replace it with Tablo, but so far, I’ve been met with so very many small problems…death by a thousand ducks. Sigh.
I personally think the forums are recently extremely positive with posts by Android TV users, most of whom switched from Roku, who all claim how great their experience is with Tablo. I post positive experiences all the time. The only negative posts I have seen are those with issues on Roku and occasionally Chrome.
I’m glad you feel it’s working well, though you didn’t mention how long it takes to actually watch anything, resume from FF, etc. I just wasn’t happy with the lower recording quality or slower playback I had on Roku.
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Awe for the good old days. Where a wired tablo and roku 3 running version 7 firmware didn’t just decide out of the blue to hang, freeze, and lose control. It just rebooted.
And even better being able to go back before the 3332 roku firmware update where the roku neither rebooted or froze.
Well, your report just makes me jealous! I can remember feeling a little bit smug myself when so many people were moaning and groaning after the firmware update, because I wasn’t having any of the problems they are reporting. And then something else got updated and all of that changed.
I think you’re certainly right though…there is a lot of exaggeration…or maybe it’s not so much exaggeration as it is conjecture, because as the end of the day, when things go wrong with Tablo, there are no diagnostic tools at hand to find the actual reason, and quite often, no official position from Tablo’s creators. But what more can we do In the absence of facts? Personally, I’m just trying to see a pattern, but so far, it’s just not clear. All I can say with certainty is that it’s driving me nuts. I hope I’m not the one who is exaggerating…I only mean to speak for what’s happening to me.
Just out of curiosity, do you always skip through commercials, or do you just let them play through?
Combination. I skip when I’m focused on skipping and don’t when it’s just “on” as background noise or something. I really really really rarely have any issue. But again I’m recording in the recommended 720p 5 Mbps. So if there are problems at the higher rates, I simply would not know.
I may take this down… hopefully not too big of a violation, it is for educational purposes and overlayed with a self-incriminating watermark and transcoded to be small… etc… (off the very slow Roku 2nd gen XD over WiFi:
oh…
Let me state I started watching the program came out, started my frame buffer recording and came back in. So it is slightly faster, but not that much… I let it play for a bit just to make sure there was enough content to ff and rw through.
(at the end I ff to the end and didn’t realize it was in a paused state, do the delay was mine)
I’m not saying I don’t see a LPW every once in a while… but perhaps not nearly as much as (apparently) the vast majority.
@MrMark your request is reasonable. You’re talking to a bunch of people that got fed up with the problem and just ditched Roku to solve it, rather than suffer through endless cycles of Tablo firmware upgrades to solve problems they shouldn’t have.
I switched away from Roku for other reason - like menu speed, picture quality, etc. Tablo working for me was simply collateral damage - I’d given up on it completely. Who’s problem is it? Given Roku market share, I believe it’s Tablo’s problem by default - but which platform is faulty? I have no idea.
Yeah, I agree with what you’re saying other than the fact that I’d need to buy at least two and if I buy the nVidia Shield, it looks like it would cost me another $320.00 to do that. And then, does anyone happen to know how it gets controlled by a home automation controller? Is it IR, or some proprietary wireless format?
The Optional Remote is Bluetooth…but the console has an IR receiver, so most universal remotes will work with it.
I watched the whole thing, but I’m not sure exactly what I am supposed to be seeing…other than the fact that mine probably would have locked up within that amount of time. But then I have never tried to skip without the thumbnail views…I wouldn’t know how to get to any particular place without being able to see where I was going.
Although I have to admit that you have me curious about how you captured the video from a Roku…(?)
I was trying to show FF and RW, I know it was a limited example, but as you said, you probably would have seen a problem.
Tonight I watched Supergirl (twice, Roku 3 on WiFi and Roku 2nd gen XD WiFi, recorded at 720p 5 Mbps, played to 1080p TVs/monitors). Second time was on the Roku XD and I was actively skipping commercials (post thumbnail). During the 2nd commercial break, upon resume, I got an LPW, but it wasn’t long and wasn’t a lock-up. That was the only one though.
I’ll probably investigate other avenues, but unlike most here, Amazon Prime is something we want and we don’t want a plethora of devices, but I do like to play with tech stuff.
Yes, the Shield DOES have IR capabilities. It will work with any Harmony IR Universal Remote. The included controller works over WiFi Direct. I’m not sure if the included remote works over Bluetooth or WiFi Direct. I use a Harmony Home Control remote and it works flawlessly with the Shield.
The Shield remote is Bluetooth. If the Shield console has IR capabilities, then it will definitely work with any Harmony remote (or basically any programmable IR remote)
Yes, the Shield has an IR receiver, which was his original question.
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So it does…and that means most any IR universal remote should work…and Harmony has a profile pre-built for it. 
P.S. - Edited earlier post to make clear the console has IR compatibility.
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I purposely abused my Roku last night. By doing a lot of skipping around while watching a Tablo recording, I was able to make it die within five minutes. And to be clear, this was not “LPW” - this was the Roku becoming locked up and unresponsive.
Then I tried the same thing with with Netflix, but I couldn’t make it die, no matter how hard a I tried. I’ve never done that much skipping around with Netflix, so I almost expected it to cause trouble. But it never did. I went on to watch for another few hours and it never faltered.
I’d still like to know how you captured the video from a Roku, though…