I have been reading these forums for about a year now and I have also read and watched a lot of reviews on the Tablo. I went as far as to add it to my Amazon wish list, but didn’t actually buy until a couple of weeks ago. One thing I’m kicking myself for is waiting to buy when I did. It was $199 on Amazon, dropped to $160 and then went back to $197. I didn’t buy when it dropped to $160 because I honestly thought I had time since Amazon rarely drops the price and then takes it back to almost the original price.
Anyways, I bought it, along with a 1TB WD Elements drive. Right off the bat I was dissappointed. Just a quick background, I’m an RF professional with roughly 15 years of experience behind me. If there is anything I know, it’s antennas, feedline, LNAs and RF in general. I decided to put up a good quality antenna at about 30’ on my tower. The feedline from the antenna to the Tablo is roughly 50’. Initially, I didn’t install an LNA at the base of the antenna, I have a 30dB LNA to install at some point on my tower.
With a standard HD TV, I did a channel scan and was able to pick up about 10-12 channels with decent signal strength. Good enough that I could hold the channel for viewing. Here is one of my complaints with the Tablo, it can only see four of these channels. I question the sensitivity of the receiver in the Tablo. I knew that I was putting all of my eggs in one basket by going to the Tablo, hinging it on the quality/performance of the receiver in the Tablo. So far, I’m not impressed. Yes, I plan to install the LNA right at the antenna to hopefully improve, but I honestly could have just used several TV’s and their built in receivers, along with an amplified distribution amp and came in at less than what I have invested in the Tablo and the WD drive.
Second problem, I’m seeing the buffering problem quite a bit. In fact, last night it was so bad, I got 5 seconds of a live show and then it never showed me anything after that. I finally gave up and went to Hulu to watch something. Very frustrating. Before anyone asks, I am hardwired ethernet to my switch/router and I have a static IP set through the router. I don’t think this will make a difference, since my network doesn’t typically change configuration and all of the devices on the network just have renewed IP leases indefinately.
I read where people complained about the infinite buffering, but I honestly thought that had been solved or at least reduced down to minimum. I understand how the system works. It has to buffer up some live video before it can start streaming. I just think something is wrong or not working quite right to constantly drop into a buffering routine. It’s almost like it gets stuck in a loop.
Not often, but several times I’ve had problems with the Android app not finding the Tablo on my network. In those cases, I’ve checked it back in my server rack to find the blue LED either off or dim. A power reset usually brings it back and available on the network. This is frustrating from a reliability stand point.
I want to like this box! I really want to make it my primary source of TV. I was THIS close to dumping satellite, but now I feel like I need to wait and see if this is really going to be a viable option or if I need to box it up and send it back to Amazon before it’s too late to return. Very frustrating for me.