At my home I am able to receive both Boston and Rhode Island stations.
For a week or so, the Boston stations have not been coming in. They share a tower and at this time, the tower is having an issue and all are running on low power.
Not sure exactly why, but after a rescan all my scheduled recordings defaulted to “Any” channel instead of the specific local Rhode Island stations I had chosen.
It seems the way Tablo chooses what the “Any” channel is to be, is by numeric order. So in my case, BOSTON stations start at channels 2-PBS, 4-CBS, 5-ABC. This resulted in no recordings during this tower issue because Tablo went to the first numeric value for, let’s say a CBS recording (channel 4).
I would think that “Any” should select a channel with a current good signal level. I believe that TiVo does do this.
I’ve never heard of such a feature where the DVR would dynamical check channel signal strength before each scheduled recording to determine which channel to record from.
If you were recording something before the scheduled recording that could be on 2 channels, you’d need a free tuner to tune the channels and check the strength. This is likely not a feasible feature request, especially for people with 2 tuner Tablos.
I disagree.
When you tune to a channel, it does tell you that it can’t display it due to low signal.
So then it should be able to check the next available network station.
How would it check the channels if there are prior recordings using all the tuners?
By the time a recording is supposed to start if one channel is too low, then when it moves to the next channel it’s too late, you’ve missed part of the show even if it’s only 10 seconds.
Also I’m not sure exactly what you mean.
1 tuner would have been allocated to that recording. It tunes in and sees no valid signal. Then that same tuner, tunes into the next available network that’s listed. No other recordings would be an issue.
For this feature to work properly it would actually have to check the channel signal strength before the recording started, so for an 8 pm show it would have to check at 759 pm.
What if there are no free timers available at 759 pm?
If the signal was good… No loss of tuner or recording. If the signal doesn’t exist, the loss of 8-10 seconds is better than the loss of the whole recording on occasion.
OK, then seriously dig into this… the logic and programing - after investing the time for development. Now you have an UNmarketable feature.
“Checks for best signal before recording” - Our product rocks!
Looking down the list of #feature-requests …sort on activity - lots of request for signal meter (goes back years). Lots want to manually add channels or set the order they appear in the grid.
Time shifters are tired of getting kicked off during guide update and/or overnight maintenance mode - setting to vary time of day or night (not everyone works daytime or lives around eastern time)
So how can you justify investing time, to code the logic to “check the signal” before recording – and market it as a profitable feature?
@theuser86 suggest the complexities, you imply “…is not”
This is a rather condescending reply. Due to the nature of OTA signals, the signal availability and strength can change pretty dynamically. Even with the best Antenna setup, there are real-world limitations, which are outside of one’s control.
Since Tablo polls each station, and has an ‘any channel’ recording capability, it seems a logical extension to me that it would use the SNR data to select the best available channel at any point in time, dynamically.
Ideally, that might be wonderful. What so many find to be a logical answer… of course, is a lot of added overhead for the simple little device.
As previously covered, algorithms to determine open tuners, what channels need to be checked, and as you noted, signals can change at any moment… negating the pre-test.
And swapping channels to get the best signal during the recording? Unlikely anyone suggest this.
So, in context -
Yea, instead of “waiting” for tablo to do something, insisting that is the fix… either remove the troubling channel or get the best antenna setup possible…