If tablo believes it’s compliant with the H.264 standard what would it tweak the codec to. Maybe H.265. If you are making a recording tablo doesn’t know the end player is a Cube. Maybe it’s an on the fly tweak which would probably use a tuner.
And if it did tweak, the tweak could blow up, slow down, or provide inferior picture quality on the various decoders for Fire TV stick, Roku, IOS, etc.
If the Cube uses the Amlogic S905Z maybe the issue resides in the Amlogic S905Z - which Amlogic doesn’t list on it’s WEB site. It lists S905, S905X, and even a S905D.
Just a heads-up for everyone following this thread…
We do now have an Amazon Fire TV Cube in house.
We are also testing a workaround that * knocks on wood * seems to be looking pretty good.
The delay indeed has been longer than we’d like, but initial investigation showed the problem was in the Fire TV decoder which is outside of our power or view.
We had provided the details of this to Amazon along with test video they could use to reproduce the problem. They subsequently promised a fix in the next Amazon firmware update… But that didn’t materialize.
When it was clear they had better things to do, we began actively pursing a solution, however…
This is exactly what we wanted to avoid. And tweaks of this nature require the support of our chip provider.
Anywho, long story short we’re getting closer to a fix that should allow everyone to enjoy their Fire TV 4K dongles and Cubes.
Once we’ve got it nailed down, we’ll be sure to let everyone know.
OTHER H.264 HLS encoders are demonstrated to work with the current gen of 4K FireTV devices. Tablo simply needs to step up and change or tweak THEIR choice of encoder for better compatibility!
Ugh. I don’t think Nuvyyo should change standards or have to create workarounds to fit Amazon’s mistakes. Of! course! if! they! did! would! you! pony! up! and! buy! a! new! Tablo! device!? (I feel like saying yahoo at this point)
I vote tablo switch encoding for all devices to any one of the following: H.265, xvid, dvix, Nero Digital, or maybe we enter a time machine and go with cinepak…
No matter how much you dumb down this conversation the light might not come on.
If decoding tablo data stream works on various types of devices supplied by various companies including both old and new generations of the devices, including Fire TV sticks, and it doesn’t work on the Cube what should someone conclude.
I don’t think the answer is the Cube is correct and everyone else is incorrect or if the Cube is correct it should be able to indicate where tablo is incorrect. Especially since they were supplied a test video that reproduced the problem.
It doesn’t really matter whether the “Cube is correct” or not. The fact is that Amazon isn’t going to change anything. They have known about this since at least last October and, despite several firmware updates, they still haven’t done anything to address it.
The fact is, that its very likely something could be done on EITHER END to resolve the issue, and, if Amazon isn’t going to address it, then Tablo should step up. Figure out how the other H.264 encoders are doing it successfully and then implement a similar profile.
You can go and blame it on Amazon all day long, but if they are not going to “fix” it then it will be up to Tablo or it simply won’t get done.
There are lots of options to the profiles and features available for H.264 encoding. You can take a look at a list of them here (see Profiles/Features section): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
Perhaps the reason other media streamers are not having the same issues as we see with the Tablo devices is that they have chosen a different profile or feature set for their H.264 encoding. Tablo could certainly do the same. Modify the settings in their profile for better compatibility.
There are also multiple suppliers for the codecs that these devices use. No one writes their own codec. They are simply bought or licensed from third parties who specialize in this capability. You can see a list of some of the more popular software implementations in the same article (under the software section). Maybe Tablo simply needs to compile/license a Codec from a different vendor. (If implemented in firmware/software).
…and curiously enough, Tablo just announced in this thread that they are testing some changes which appear to have mitigated the issue! …changes which are “getting closer to a fix that should allow everyone to enjoy their Fire TV 4K”. (IOW: A Software Update)
Who would have possibly thought that Tablo could do something to fix this issue on THEIR end?
A little additional research seems to indicate the Tablo device uses a Vixs 5190 SOC for hardware accelerated encoding. If so, more info about that SOC here:
Let’s go there.
What’s the business case for Tablo wanting to spend resources on this problem?
Roku devices are their most popular client platform.
Fire TV Cube was released June 21st, 2018.
Yes, but the current Gen 4K FireTV (which has the exact same problem) was introduced late last year. Tablo and Amazon have known about this problem since at least last October and now BOTH of the current 4K FireTV devices have the same problem.
Lets see if the software fix reported to be in testing will resolve the issue (for BOTH 4K FireTV devices). Seems that “someone” is actually getting motivated…
Or maybe they HAVE been motivated and working on it for a while, while also hoping Amazon would follow through on their side, which they obviously didn’t. Working around another vendors changes/decisions can take a bit especially if they are wanting to make sure any changes they make to accommodate the FireTV devices doesn’t negatively impact all the other devices as mentioned above.