Feature request: Channel signal strength in Live TV guide

In our area, channels can go from “green” to “orange” signal strength simply due to weather conditions. This can be really frustrating when looking for something to watch on live TV, only to find that the channel you’ve tuned in (after waiting the requisite 30-60 seconds for the tuner to start streaming) has a poor signal.

It would be nice if the Tablo could run a background task that uses an idle tuner (if available) and periodically scans all the channels and updates their current signal strength, then reports this information in the live TV guide. The user interface could show the colored dot (red/orange/green) indicating the signal strength, next to the channel’s call-sign. Hovering over the dot would give detals, such as how long ago the reading was taken, and what the measured strength was.

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Interesting request - why not just fix your poor OTA signal?

There are lots of way to improve your signal - many people here can help. Bigger antenna, pre-amplifier, remove splitters, shorter cable run, etc.

What’s your setup?

why not just fix your poor OTA signal?

That misses the point of this feature request. No matter how good the antenna is, there will always be some channels that are out of reach.

In my case, I’m in San Diego and with my antenna setup, I get all the San Diego channels just fine. But I can also usually get the Los Angeles channels, which is cool, because for example NBC LA and NBC SD have different content airing at the same time. However, because it’s such a long distance, poor weather or solar storms or whatever, can cause signal degradation on those channels. It’s not worth it to me to get an even bigger antenna just to pick up those stations, but it would be nice to know at a glance whether they’re coming in nicely today, when I bring up the guide.

It would also be a great feature for those that have to use antenna rotators to get all their stations: at a glance they can see which subset of their stations are currently tuned in.

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Agreed.

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This request is already there in Tablo… I think this is redundant in my opinion…

I don’t think this is a good idea because it will use too much resources on the device and that will slow things down…

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It’s good to think outside the box but you need to consider thinking what’s inside on this current box…

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This request is already there in Tablo… I think this is redundant in my opinion…

How so? I can go to the settings page and do a channel scan, but this process takes a while and the results aren’t really useful aside from a “channel planning” or setup perspective.

it will use too much resources on the device and that will slow things down…

I’m not talking about having a channel scan running all the time, 24/7. I’m suggesting that the channel scan run periodically … say once every hour or so, and only if a tuner is idle. Considering that the Tablo device can handle doing channels scans via the setup page while the second tuner is streaming a TV show, without it impacting performance, I don’t see how this would “slow things down”.

How about we leave the technical implementation to the actual Tablo developers rather than “armchair quarterbacking” in this thread? If the feature has merit (which I think it does), then a technical implementation will surely follow that meets the company’s requirements for performance and responsiveness of the product.

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It’s good to think outside the box but you need to consider thinking what’s inside on this current box…

As a software developer myself, I think I have a pretty good idea of what is going on inside this box, and I don’t think that my suggestion is unreasonable.

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I agree 100%. We’ve been asking for these things a long time and its a great idea.

Is the past state of a previous channel scan indicative of the current state. You can run two channel scans in a row and get different results.

If you had two tablos, you could run two simultaneous channel scans and possible get different results.

You can run two channel scans in a row and get different results

Imperfect data is better than no data at all.

Imperfect data will nor allow tablo to tune something it can’t.

And maybe the results of the scan might depend on which tuner is used to run the scan.

You don’t know which tuner was used to run the scan.

If you use a two tuner tablo as an example, you start two recordings(rec1 and rec2) thus using both tuners. You stop rec1 and perform a scan - noting the results. You restart rec1. You then stop rec2 and perform a scan.

You might actually get different results. Are these differences due to which tuner was used?

Imperfect data will nor allow tablo to tune something it can’t.

I never suggested that displaying the current (or at least the “most recent measured” signal strength) would do anything about Tablo’s ability to tune a station. However I do think it would be handy to bring up the guide and see, “Oh, this station that normally comes in marginally (orange) is showing as red today…so I’m not going to bother trying to tune it in” – this would save time and frustration when browsing the guide.

And maybe the results of the scan might depend on which tuner is used to run the scan.

If that’s the case, then I’d be really disappointed with Tablo’s hardware design. A channel that can be tuned with one tuner but not the other would make for a REALLY frustrating and confusing user experience (which I have not seen myself).

You don’t know which tuner was used to run the scan.

So what? I don’t care which tuner ran the scan, only what signal strength was last measured.

If you use a two tuner tablo as an example, you start two recordings(rec1 and rec2) thus using both tuners. You stop rec1 and perform a scan - noting the results. You restart rec1. You then stop rec2 and perform a scan.

You might actually get different results. Are these differences due to which tuner was used?

I don’t understand what you’re arguing here. Signal strength is signal strength. If one tuner measures it differently than the other so wildly differently that it makes a practical difference in how clearly the channel comes in, then Tablo’s hardware designers would have failed spectacularly. I see no evidence of that in my Tablo.

Maybe it’s time to contact Tablo Support directly to raise your concerns.

I still think your best bet is to improve your signal quality across the broad. Link is below for your convenience.

http://support.tablotv.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Maybe it’s time to contact Tablo Support directly to raise your concerns.

But I don’t have any concerns…that’s why I raised this as a feature request and not as a bug. I’m not asking for this feature because of poor signal quality. I’m asking for this feature because it would enhance the experience of using a Tablo, by making it more convenient to add stations that might have marginal signal, for whatever reason (for example, an antenna rotator, or stations that only come in clearly with good weather).

still think your best bet is to improve your signal quality across the broad

I’m not complaining about my signal quality. The stations in my local area come in great! I just think it would be cool to also be able to add stations that don’t always come in that well (in my case, out-of-region stations) and be able to see at a glance in the guide whether they happen to be coming in well tonight. Since weather is often a factor in picking up marginal stations, these stations’ signal quality can fluctuate from day to day. The stations themselves are not important enough for me to justify getting a 10x bigger antenna to pick them up, but it’s nice to have them on days that they happen to come in.

Sorry to disagree/hurt your feelings on your feature request… As it stands, this feature is already there… Your request is basically for convenience, I get it… but there are other important features that need attention than this… Yes, I agree leave it to Tablo’s Developer… After all it’s their decision… Also, you obviously put your request here on the forum which every member is entitled to their opinion too… if you don’t like it… you should just go directly to Contact support…

LOL…The feature is not already there. Many of us have asked for the same feature many times. Tablo could use this same feature in the iPhone app to help point your antenna during install in realtime.

LOL… How many of you? Let me guess just you and your sub accounts?

I don’t have any sub accounts. Do your research.

Your situation is similar to mine, weather and other variable conditions.

The functional spec of showing the current channel signal quality in the Live TV guide is very useful. I added the imprecise word “current” which gets into implementation.

The later arguments about implementation are less useful. I can see several ways to implement the current channel signal strength in the guide without invoking periodic scans, e.g. entering the guide or pressing a signal check button in the guide could trigger the scan or single channel check. Watching live TV requires a tuner, so using a tuner to prepare for viewing is reasonable. This is all implementation which Tablo has hidden fairly well from the users.

I believe the only current Tablo feature is to rescan for all channels vs. say the active guide channels or a selected channel.