I am using a Ethernet connected 2 tuner Tablo with Ipad to AppleTV via Airplay. When I do the 30 second fast forward I get a quick result from my first press, but additional presses are very slow to react. The screen will freeze for seconds at a time with each additional button press getting longer in time. I don’t think this is not a Tablo issue because fast forward works fine when viewing on the Ipad screen and not using Airplay. My question is if anyone has this same experience and if there is any known fixes.
@larryg4b - Have you tried rebooting the AppleTV and updating the firmware? Those two things seem to fix a litany of AppleTV issues.
Hi there, I think I can help explain the issue further. I have a Tablo with an all Apple setup - iPhone 6, Macbook Air, iPad Air, Apple TV. When I watch a show on the iPad and use the 30 second skip, the program skips ahead 30 seconds. The television program then has to buffer in at least another 30 seconds forward before you can effectively hit the 30 second skip button again, otherwise it will just advance to the furthest ahead it has buffered. This delay seems to be more pronounced when Airplay mirroring to Apple TV. I hope this makes sense.
One possible solution would be for the Tablo unit to buffer ahead 2-3 minutes of programming (essentially the length of a commercial break) so that when the user hits the 30 sec skip button, it would feel more responsive.
@ventivent I think you nailed it. I see the same thing with my PC and the Android phone. First FF/30 jumps fine, and if you WAIT for it to just begin play again and hit it again, it goes another 30 seconds but subsequent FF presses or clicks don’t move the full 30 .
I also believe it’s a Tablo issue as far as buffering or caching program ahead. Playback seems to not buffer the play very far ahead. this can be seen when you load a show to watch on a PC or phone and it starts to play after just a very few seconds after you first try to start playing. It’s not buffering or caching ahead very far so you cant press FF/30 more than once at a time.
When playing a recording yes you have to wait for it to start playing again before you can press the FF a second time. But buffering only takes like 1 second for me. So it’s not much of a wait. When I use Tablo Connect it takes longer due to slower transfer speeds (aka my upload speed).
the problem becomes those times when there’s 3 or so minutes of commercials. By the time you have to wait to FF again, you end up doing FF 6 times but due to the lag of getting back that ability you are then often several seconds into the show again already. I’d rather hit FF 3 or 4 or 6 times one after the other and have Tablo understand and as soon as it’s ready, having “cached” the FF clicked and have Tablo just go ahead and FF - much like Windows apps cache your key strokes and when the processor is free again, it goes ahead and handles those key strokes you made seconds ago.
It’s a combination of waiting for it to buffer, reaction time for the next FF click or touch, etc and you end up either going past the start of the show again, or needing to put up with the last few seconds of a commercial to not miss the first few seconds of a show after commercial break. Tablo doesn’t even pay attention to the other FF hits, it ignores them.
I just set up my new Tablo (4 tuner w/ 2 TB WD Element HD). I am part of the Apple ecosystem. I like everything except for the clunky fast foward experience during AirPlay. The ultimate purpose for this system is to watch what we want when we want and to zip through commercials as efficient as possible. There is a huge room for improvement here.
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This has been my experience too but you must live in a much more user friendly television area than me. Our commercial breaks are 5-6 minutes! 
This has been one of my frustrations with the iPhone app. That first “Skip” works fine. Then you have to wait several seconds before you can skip forward again. Not very user-friendly.
Even less user-friendly is that after you’ve skipped ahead several times and you end up a few seconds into the show, then you hit “<-” to skip back, it skips back to the beginning of the show. That makes no sense to me. If “->” skips forward 30 seconds, “<-” should skip back 30 seconds (or 10 seconds).
I was showing a buddy my system the other day on AppleTV. I got him all hyped up about Free OTA with Tablo and his main concern was being able to FF through commercials and such. Then when I demonstrated the FF and RW he criticised the system and laughed. It just was not worth the hassle for him. For me, I adapted. My buddy did not even want to consider getting one after this. Lost tablo sale just in case the company cares.
Improve this functionality and maybe I can win him over at a later time. But for now, I agree, trying to drag the slider or use the skip buttons on either AppleTV or my iPhone (which is 10x worse) is pretty hokey.
Wait a minute… compared to what?! the near 0 lag interface that allows me to scroll with preview window through the time line so I can pin point exactly when the show comes back on…is worse then what? Everything else is 30 second skips… commercial breaks arn’t 30 seconds long… nore are they always multiples of 30. On tablo you won’t over shoot commercials, can’t be said of other solutions.
Yeah the FF on multiple cable company DVRs I’ve tried are no better than the FF in Tablo apps on the Roku or Fire TV. So I’m confused why this would be the one feature that’s missing for him?
I get services like Netflix don’t have to FF cause there aren’t commercials and when you do want to FF it’s pretty easy to.
I have a mostly apple household… macs for home and work, iPhones, iPads, an Apple TV, couple Roku’s and an Android TV… On the Apple TV front, I end up hating the Apple TV Remote, and hating the Harmony Hub if I use that… It’s not specific to Tablo… skipping through commercials has become PAINFUL. the scroll with preview is much as it is cool is a pain when compared with hitting the 30s skip on the directv remote until commercials are over… the 10s skip on the AppleTV is way too short. may have to replace the AppleTV if I don’t want Tablo kicked out of the house by my wife and kids demanding for DirecTV back…
frankly I think your being to much of a baby if such a thing is making you consider such a feat as “painful”… but I will admit the remote is a love/hate thing. I love it for its simplicity and the touch surface, but yea holy crap it needs more buttons for a tv remote!
My level of pain is proxied for the rest of my family… It’s just not as easy as hitting skip forward 8 times to get through the commercials like it was on the DirecTV and my wife and kids want DirecTV back… For me, it’s just not the simplest interface… at a minimum it takes some getting used too, at best, I don’t think it’s better in most cases than 30s skip… if Apple just allowed us to change the 10s skip to whatever we wanted, that would solve this problem…