I have Tablo 2 Tuner, ATT “residential gateway” (modem router combo) model 3801HVG and their 18 MB service. We have the gateway in the upstairs, 1 tv 15 feet away in another room, 3 TV’s on the main floor below, one of them being in a sunroom easily 30 feet and several walls away.
We have approximately 50 channels in our directory in a Metro Atlanta Burb. Today, we had to sync on all of our TV’s and it took at least 7-8 minutes. How often will I have to sync? I do not recall making a channel lineup change. We don’t use all the TV’s every day and have the ability on all but one of them to use a parallel direct to Antenna connection. If I have to sync more than once a week or so this will be a signiificant problem. Does anyone know how much of the sync time requirement is from router WIFI delivery speed and how much is the size of channel database? Will it be worth it for me to get a higher powered router to speed this along? The ATT router is a 2.4gig box, the Netgear nighthawk R7000 I would buy has dual 2.4 and 5.0 gig streams and some high powered software to speed the stream. We use three AMZ Firestick HD and one Roku HD stick. There are two of us so and we also have www.directvnow.com and AMZ prime vids, so Tablo is only part of our picture. Thanks in Advance for your thoughts! shovel99
One of the things I requested before is a Tablo cron, ran at a time user selects on each device, to perform daily sync. It has not happened yet. Hope it gets on the radar soon.
I also have ATT and that seems like a very old router. I found a manual online and it appears to have only 801.11g which is 2.4Ghz. No 5.0 Ghz.
50 is a lot of channels. But if you accessed tablo after 1/23 via a WEB app you got a full sync. Not a reduced shorter sync. Roku syncs take place in the background.
The Roku app is not a WEB app. But I heard the current Amazon Fire app is WEB based. The new preview app is not. But 30 ft and several walls might be too much for 5.0 Ghz.
I have a Amazon Fire TV stick that I only take out of sleep mode every month or two, just to make sure it hasn’t burnt up.
The new fire app 1.4.1 does cause a full resync - on first connect. And for my 17 channels with very few recordings, that is around 3 1/2 minutes. The preview app 1.2.1 doesn’t seem to do a full resync.
And the part I love now is that both Fire TV apps start up in the Live TV menu. Not only is that the slowest to populate, it just always seem so right that a DVR product starts in Live TV.
Back to sleep little Fire TV stick monster for another month.
Thanks Zippy. As a lot of reviews have said, Tablo is apparently a work in progress and they have a lot of challenges in what can be accomplished in a small electronic box and a functioning directory for $5 per month. So if I understand you correctly, the immediate resync response has been triggered by a revision to the Fire(stick) app? Not that it matters, I guess.
I may be the statistical odd man out with four TV’s and only one full time watcher and the occasional second watcher, located near a large metro where there are a lot of channels that the user might watch, and with an older (monthly fee free modem worth an extra $84 per year in savings! I bought it and am grandfathered as not paying the $7.49 per month “rental” fee for the modem prior to 2015, so in this case old is good and I will add a new Netgear R7000 if I think that is the problem).
But NO, WAIT! Probably 75% of Americans live within TV signal range of large metros, and want to be able to watch whatever there is… so like us they include a lot of channels that take a long long startup time to SYNC, at minimum of once per day when you fire up in the morning. This is likely a big issue with everyone.
Here’s a suggestion, Tablo: instead of dumping and reloading entire dbase on each Sync, just roll the new day on: day 15, roll off day 1. That should reduce sync time tremendously.
As of this time, my Tablo will only display 24 hours of directory, so I cannot “look ahead” beyond 24 hours for recording purposes. My verbal Firestick search for Les Feldick Through the Bible on ION search yielded “nothing” (it apparently only searched what I could see… 24 hours… and the show is not on Saturday or Sunday… so “nothing”)
So how is it that I can set up to record two weeks worth? I searched from the search bar in Tablo menu (left side or left “button” on Firestick remote), which did find the show, Monday-Friday at 6:30 AM on ION TV. I set up recording it for two weeks. We will see how that goes.
shovel99
Doesn’t work that way. The day by day guide data is not static. The stations post updates daily if not more often.
The grid guide is only 24 hours. As you found out, the show lists are for two weeks. That’s how you record shows. For many people, it’s faster to use the search box for a show, or browse through the channel lists, then to search through a grid listing.
Thanks FD, it makes sense that continuous changes are being made on the fly. My remaining big question at this point is how much can I reduce the Sync time by adding a fast dual speed 2.4 and 5G modem behind my old and slow ATT 3801HVG Pace “gateway” modem? I think I will post that question and see if there are others who have upgraded home modems behind ATT required device.
shovel
The Tablo app on some devices (AppleTV and Roku, I think) use a new API to communicate with the Tablo server, which doesn’t require syncing. I think the intention is to switch all client apps to that new API.
This
Hi Folks. Thanks again.
The long Syncs I was experiencing must have been a result of my change of channel lineup creating a “major” one time long sync. Since then, with more regular use of all the TV’s trying Tablo, they seem to be relatively infrequent and shorter.
Yesterday I installed a second drop amp in the attic… so that the leg feeding both the upstairs tv and the Tablo from the 2 way splitter (after two combiners, 3 antennas, one Preamp 50 feet away) is amplified first. Wow, major improvement. Signal quality from Tablo improved. The op amp now feeds the antenna coax on the master bedroom and has two more positions for two more bedrooms. We can now access the antenna directly from all home TV’s (saves two tablo channels for recording). Or we can use either Tablo channel for accessing the guide… watch there or on TV feed. We are starting to figure out better how it works… .like once you point to a description in the guide… it lays out in front of you all the next X times the show appears in the lineup, so you can just click off record. We see where we could like this a lot. The ability to record from anywhere, watch from anywhere in the house way beats out one DVR in the master bedroom.
I also concluded that I might benefit from a wired access point. I have pretty good access to drop a cat 6 cable down the chase next to a no longer used gas furnace flue (replaced by 95% out the back of house). I will be able to position the WAP in center of basement near floor. Almond got terrific reviews. Will see how that goes.
I haven’t gotten into the apps yet. Just so much tech my old brain can absorb at one time.
Thanks again! Shovel
My only real annoyance with Tablo is the syncing times.
I do not use my Tablo for live TV so the only channels I need active are those we may record from. Long before Tablo (installed nearly 3 years ago) I built a very reliable network of cables, wall outlets and a distribution amp to send the signals to all 5 TVs, and frankly I like the faster performance of our TV’s native tuners vs Tablo’s. Our main living room TV (an older Vizio) actually has a really nice built in (free) guide so we do not need the Tablo guide to see what’s on. I wish all TVs had this feature.
Our basement TV, much further away from the router, can take annoyingly long to sync especially if we don’t use it for a while. It is using a Nexus player just like our living room TV. One day I got to thinking about the channels we have active in Tablo. We are 45 to 50 miles from towers to the north and south of us and many of the channels are duplicated. So I went through all channels looking for redundancy and channels we rarely watch. I managed to reduce our active channels from 46 to 32. Syncing times have improved quite a bit.
Thanks SophieCat for input. I guess like all fairly sophisticated tech there is a learning curve. I am optimistic that getting the Almond AP down close to the 3 sets on the main floor will eliminate some buffering etc. I may even be able by the same path to get a 150 foot Cat6 cable directly to the theater screen in the sun room. I bet that would really snap.
When using them more often, the sync time appears to be dropping a good bit. Good suggestion to trim as many as are not used… please tell that to my sweet TV bride. We have several redundant oldies on sub channels, I need to “recommend” that we choose the ones with best picture.
Just working the learning curve.
Paul
I kept all of the main network channels. And I also kept the two MeTV and Antenna TV channels as they are our favorites. I did find the programming sometimes varies between those north vs south channels.
I looked at the guide for all the pbs channels and found many of them “eventually” play the same programming. Got rid of 5 of them.
I also considered the typical signal strengths of redundant channels.
And the shopping, weather, religious and Spanish channels (7 total) are not active. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, there’s just nothing I will ever record from them.