Excited to join the TabloTV Forum! I’ve recently made the leap into cord cutting and picked up a Tablo device — so far, I’m loving the freedom and flexibility it offers.
Still getting the hang of things like antenna setup, recording schedules, and streaming across devices, so I’m here to learn from the pros. If you’ve got any tips for boosting performance or troubleshooting common issues, I’m all ears.
Really looking forward to connecting with the community, sharing experiences, and getting the most out of this awesome setup. Thanks in advance for the warm welcome!
It sounds like you already have it up and running, so clearly you are doing it right. To build on what exwxman95 already said, success with a Tablo all comes down to getting your home network squared away and getting a good quality antenna (DO NOT SKIMP ON YOUR ANTENNA).
For me the Tablo mostly just works. Yes, you will see a lot of complaints on this forum, but this is the place to go when you have problems. If you do have a problem, start here. There have been some recent service interruptions, but they are mostly fixed now.
I don’t think you said which streaming device you are using. There is a lot of debate, but in general, I find that using a relatively new model Roku is your best bet.
Welcome to the forum, and enjoy keeping track of the money you are saving having dumped cable/satellite.
I would echo what others have already said. I would add …
Do some homework on what transmitters and virtual channels are actually available in your area. Rabbitears.info is a good way to get started. Knowing both what’s available and where the towers are physically located is key to making good antenna type and location decisions. Google Earth can also be helpful in mapping specific tower locations relative to your location. Everything on one hilltop might suggest a more directional antenna design. Transmitters in multiple directions might require a more non-directional antenna. (Just some simple examples.)
Having the right “catcher’s mitt” pointed in the right direction is a crucial 1st step in getting a good OTA experience, regardless of what you plan to do with the resulting “catch”. Conversely, if you can’t get a quality OTA signal, especially on the virtual channels/content you really want, the rest of this process will be an exercise in frustration.
The network side is equally important as has already been stated. The Tablo is a network device. It basically has TV tuners that decode the digital program data streams from the OTA RF signal (COAX), stores them as files (internal or external drive) and/or sends them out over your network (ethernet or wifi) to your various clients (the infamous Tablo apps on your media players like Roku or whatever). These network data streams are large and create fairly heavy traffic, so the reliability and robustness of your home network is important to a good TV experience.
So, it’s a 2-part game … getting a good RF signal to your Tablo (via antenna + coax) and distributing the digital content to the Tablo “clients” (via network). The stability/reliability/quality of both parts matter.
There’s lots of discussions on this forum covering the gory details of all of this. I suggest you try to sort through some of the “struggles”, and hone in on what really seems to work well.
I spent some time looking at the reviews and looking in the knowledge base from Tablo to see what kind of solutions there were and I realized there’s a lot of complicated stuff going on and Tablo itself gets pretty right most of the time.
The first thing I did was upgrade my router to the highest speed that was available for my cable company 2 GB because I’m covering five TVs in my house and I even have a booster from downstairs to upstairs so my signal’s been tested as reliably excellent everywhere.
Most of my channels were available in two towers, not too far from each other. So I tried the the antenna the tableau sells and it worked for all but ABC which was my favorite channel which was a VHS channel. So after doing some looking I figured I needed an antenna that had features that stick out to catch the VHS signal. I am using an amplified mid-priced $50 antenna which has worked perfectly indoors once I got the positioning right?.
Later I purchased a Western digital hard drive 2 TB for about $60 from Amazon.
Since I started out about 5 months ago, I’ve had very very few problems. Before I got my Tablo I was spending $220 a month for cable and internet and a little box for each of my five TVs that cost $15 a month. It was ridiculous. I did upgrade my modem to the fastest they sold and that only cost me about $15 a month extra. So now I get pretty much everything I got from the cable company and more for pennies.
In fact, the price of the tableau, the antenna and the 2 TB hard drive was less than one month of cable where I live.
@exwxman95
Yeah, ethernet really is a game-changer. I thought Wi-Fi would cut it, but once I hard-wired the Tablo it was like night and day.
@KGBnut
Totally agree on the antenna part — funny how a $40 antenna can make or break the whole setup. And yep, Roku seems the smoothest client by far.
@classicrockguy
Rabbitears.info is gold, I used it too. Honestly feels a bit like aiming a satellite dish sometimes, nudging the antenna and praying the bars go green.
@RobertLSmith
I had the same “ABC problem” until I upgraded antennas. Crazy how one stubborn VHF channel can send you down the rabbit hole of antenna designs. And wow, yeah, compared to cable, Tablo pays for itself before you’ve even finished the return window.
With all the recent problems Tablo has had it still is worth it to try. We have a Antenna Direct rooftop antenna and a above average WIFI router and it works for us. Would love to go Ethernet but our house is to difficult to hard wire.
VHF low in my area is only for station Tablo openly said it will never get the channel guide. I don’t think folks who have cable for a long time realize that most broadcasts are on UHF and high VHF now.
Neighbor has a slightly bigger antenna in his attic and gets about the same channels as me Told me he should of tried it when he asked me several years ago instead of this year. Asked me why I have a roof mount and I told him I’ve had it because of low VHF channels from early 2000 when we moved in. We’re in suburbs under 30 miles from broadcast tower. Sears Tower not the Willis Tower
There is a reason they invented powerline adapters. Of course the companies that make routers want customers to think that the most expensive and powerful WiFi router will solve all problems.
I tried one of those powerline adapters and it was more trouble for me. I might try to hard wire one line from office where internet comes in to my downstairs living room. I can feed to lower level and go through crawl space like antenna feed goes through. I live in a Split-Level house. Have to get all of the supplies I might need because I don’t won’t to have to stop as I will be very sore afterwards at my age.
But for now spending on a better router did the trick.
I’ve been using the same pair of netgear 5101 powerline adapters for 12 years with no problems. I have 5 devices running through a switch into the powerline. And the house has 45 year old wiring. Maybe you tried some cheaper models or didn’t install any firmware updates.
It’s possible that having 45 year old wiring means the wiring is laid out much simpler.
I had a starter home built in 1999 that handled Powerline absolutely fine. However, our current home that is bigger and built in 2015 simply would not allow the living room adapter plugged into the router to connect to the other powerline adapter in the master bedroom. I was never sure why it wouldn’t work at the new house, but I ended up ditching Dish Network after 1 year in the house.
I replaced it with TiVo and utilized the MoCA method instead, which worked wonderfully.
Different circuits yes.
You have a Red and a Black feed coming into the breaker box as well and the neutral and ground.
Both circuits need to be on either the Red feed or the Black feed.
No way to send a signal over A/C line from one to the other.
What is also confusing is inside the breaker box there are usually 2 vertical columns of breakers. Logic might say the left column is one side of the split-phase, and the right column is the other.
Nope. They alternate between the 2 phases as you go down the column, at least for all of the 110v circuits. So, in the 110v world every other breaker in the column is on the same side of the split-phase buss.
The 220v double breakers can be on either column as each of the breakers in the pair pick up one side of the split-phase for a total of 220v.
