Hi All,
Just wanted to see what everyone else’s experiences were like this past Sunday. First some background. I Have a 2-tuner Tablo unit and use the Amazon Fire Stick almost exclusively to view Live TV and recorded programs. I record at 1080p and have the wireless network to handle playback; Netflix, Hulu, HBOGO, Showtime Anytime, and Plex all playback flawlessly.
This past Sunday, I faced 4 issues (some worse than others) that when all added together had be pretty upset at 4pm trying to finish the Pat’s game (bring on your jokes haters)…
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Watching live TV just randomly seems to crash the Tablo - Amazon Fire Stick App. I have had this happen both when selecting a channel to stream live while buffering and after several minutes of actually watching a station. The screen will go black and I will be returned to the Amazon Fire page where I select the Tablo app. Usually works the second time.
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Constant buffering, which I don’t understand as I thought I read that Tablo buffers 12 seconds of a live stream. Seems somewhat related to times where there is lots of motion on the screen. This is one area where I think the Fire Stick could be an issue, but not sure if Tablo could cap the mbps is sends to the player as I think the Fire Stick taps out at 12mbps or something like that (might be 20mbps).
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“Playback Error” which pauses Live streaming, in some cases, hitting the play button right away returns to the live stream, and in other cases, i have to go back to the guide and then select the station again. This happens CONSTANTLY. The most annoying part about using Tablo for Live TV.
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Playback of the content, when not suffering buffering issues, seems like we miss or pause a frame or two every couple of seconds, there isn’t any artifacting on the screen or anything like that, but the motion, especially noticeable watching football, is jittery and annoying. It looks like it is 30fps, but then once every 2-3 seconds, there is jitter.
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Having to constantly leave the app or restart it also helped me realize how long it takes to actually watch a live TV stream. From opening the app, to waiting for the guide to load (even if you know the station you are trying to get to), to selecting the station and waiting for it buffer, this typically takes me between 30-60 seconds and when you are trying to watch live football, that really stinks. This time needs to be brought down.
I am looking for other peoples thoughts or if they have had these types of issues and how you handled them? As of right now, I am going to have to travels to friends or families houses to watch Football because I can’t handle being in constant “fix it” mode while trying to scream at the Patriots or whoever they are playing against.