Is Tablo planning on doing anything about the issue with the new Fire TV devices?
I have read several times where Tablo Support has basically claimed that it is something on Amazon’s end & that future Fire TV updates are supposed to fix it, but I am now 100% sure that they (Amazon) never will. Given their new devices seem to not have issues except for Tablo, they don’t view it as a problem on their end.
The issue only exists with their units that run their newest OS (Fire OS 6), so is Tablo working on a solution? Or are we Fire TV users just SOL?
Tablo says they are working on a solution but in reality they have known about this since January and it’s still not fixed. It’s sounding more and more like this is another “5.1 surround sound solution” that has never happened.
Personally I’ve begun researching alternatives like HDHomeRun with Channels app and/or HDHomeRun withe Plex DVR. There was a time where Tablo was far superior but it looks like both of those solutions are catching up quickly and indeed may surpass it.
Tablo has known about this for well over a year. Video stuttering issues started with the current gen 4K FireTV and they have NEVER fixed it. Now the FireTV Cube comes out and we still have the same issues. Its pretty clear that Amazon is not going to address this.
Based on the past year, Tablo is not going to update their data stream for better compatibility either. I know of no other media streaming device or service which has this issue. Tablo wants to blame Amazon, yet they also refuse to modify the way they stream data for better compatibility.
I’ve had it with this product… Rather than spending time trying to find some way to keep it working (like with 1st gen 4K FireTV), I’m going to spend my time trying to find something to replace my Tablo…
Maybe you can suggest what the data stream should be updated to so that it is also compatible with all supported client devices. Of course some people purchased the fire tv stick on sale during Black Friday for $25. Any of my fire tv to tablo frustrations seemed to have gone away.
And if you check out the various hdhomerun forums you might find a few posts about a recent release that caused the fire tv stick app to freeze and/or crash and burn.
Of course if you hurry you can purchase a hdhomerun quad for $120.
To be fair, the 3rd gen Fire TV was first released last October so it has only been about 10 months now. But yes it is very frustrating that the new Cube is out & the issue is still without a solution. And it is clear that Amazon is not worried about it. As long as my 2nd gen Fire TV boxes function without problems then it is not a deal breaker for me but this is the biggest inconvenience to date that I have had with Tablo.
Fire TV gen 3, Fire TV Cube, and Toshiba 4K are the only devices currently running Fire OS 6 (Android 7.1). All other Fire TV devices run Fire OS 5 (Android 5.1).
So if the Fire TV product has an OS problem where does a fix come from - Amazon or Google?
Tablo makes BOTH the firmware on the DVR/Tuner and also the APP which runs under FireTV. Yes, I fully expect that the Tablo FireTV app simply hands off the stream to some generic codec for display, but Tablo owns software on both ends of this connection!
If Tablo really wants to see this situation resolved then its pretty clear they are going to have to update their Tuner and/or FireTV app to play better with whatever codec the FireTV is using to display their stream(s)…
Tablo seems to place more effort on blaming Amazon for this issue and very little time trying to improve/fix/update their data stream for better compatibility. We have seen several firmware updates (inc a new Tablo “Preview” app) and none of this has the slightest effect on resolving the issue with dropped frames (stuttering).
Whatever codec Tablo is blindly using to encode their data stream is simply not playing well with the codec that Amazon is using to decode it. Its pretty clear that Amazon is not going to change their software so the only way this is going to get fixed is if Tablo steps up and changes the way their data stream(s) is/are encoded for better compatibility…
Another suggestion… (Let’s do this AGAIN as we did last fall…)
Amazon watches the reviews for their products pretty closely. If this matters to you, please be sure log on to Amazon and post a “one star” review for the Amazon FireTV Cube to fully disclose its incompatibility with the Tablo DVR/Tuners. I did this yesterday and have already been contacted by an Amazon employee about what they could do to resolve my “one star review”…
…and while you are at it… Also post a “one star review” for the Tablo DVR/Tuner not being compatible with Amazon FireTV!
Public disclosure in a pre-sales environment is undoubtedly our tool with the best leverage.
“Whats good for the Goose is also good for the Gander”…
I posted the other day on cordcutters in reddit that you need to avoid the Cube and the last dongle (but not the stick) if Tablo was something you desired. There are some more scathing bad reviews of the Cube out there though. Since the device often centered on cord cutting, people like devices that “work” as they make their choices. Clearly the Cube is a device that doesn’t work today if you like keeping your choices flexible.
H.264 has any number of profiles and level numbers. These define a whole set of capabilities and constraints in the video stream. So I really don’t think tablo blindly hands the video stream off to the cube decoder.
If the decoder can’t decode the profile and level it should reject the stream. Could it be that the cube decoder is inefficient or doesn’t truly support the profile?
Lots of complaints on devices built with the Amlogic chips with regards to both decoding and network latency. I know people are picking on the Tablo here, but seems that this might a bigger issue, just not as well seen outside of Tablo on FireTV devices using the chip.
My point is that prior devices (2nd gen) didn’t use this chip and they don’t have the problem but likely also have “modifications” to handle what Amazon needed (somehow).
You will also see I noted it doesn’t own the codec (decoder) on the FireTV (which is actually what you are trying to imply). However, it does have full control over the codec (encoder) in the DVR/Tuner.
If Tablo wanted to solve this problem they could simply change the codec on the tuner or tweak its output to be more friendly…
