This is an issue that seems to occur with only 1 channel (13-1, and the others under it - like 13-2, 13-3 and 13-4). In Live TV mode.
Whenever I switch to one of channels under 13, it always start at the same point - showing a news piece about two guys playing in a tub full of plastic balls. There’s some content to fast-forward thru, but not much. The interesting thing is if I try to get to the end of this content, it just returns to same point all over again.
If I switch to another live channel, and then back to 13 again, it starts at the same point.
As if TabloTV is stuck continuously playing a short recorded segment and unable to enter actual live TV mode for channel 13…
And yes channel 13 OTA works correctly on regular TV - signal is strong. All other live channels on TabloTV works fine… TabloTV seems glitched for channel 13 for some reason.
Have anyone ever seen this before? My TabloTV is brand new - less than 1 week old.
And if you think this helps, I have a new HDD I plan to replace & hook up to my TabloTV - right now it’s just using an older HDD (1 TB) for testing purposes, and other than this odd glitch, everything else works great! Gonna replace it with 5 TB HDD. I’m not familiar with how TabloTV “works” yet in conjunction with usage of HDD, etc (other than recordings, obvously - does it also store guide contents there, etc) - I wonder if the glitch segment TabloTV is playing over and over on channel 13 is stored on HDD… so maybe replacing HDD could resolve this?
No recordings associated with this glitch, btw, so nothing for me to delete or interact with.
I rebooted TabloTV, and the “looping” issue is gone, but the live mode for channel 13 is badly pixelated. No such pixelating occurs when watching it on my TV (directly, not via TabloTV). Same for other TVs in our house.
What can I do to rectify this? I’m afraid the answer is going to be to try to amplify the signal, but our connection already is. We are using omnidirectional OTA antenna rated for 60 miles, mounted outdoors on the SE corner of our house, where all our major channels are coming in from - nearly all of those major channels (including one that channel 13 is on) is at 30 to 35 mile range.
What else can I try? I am not sure I understand why the live mode on this channel seems much more pixelated than it looks when we watch the same channel live on our TVs… ?
If all the transmitters are in basically the same direction, you don’t want to be using an omnidirectional antenna. What antenna are you actually using?
Yeah, before I got this antenna, I noticed the channels we want (ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, NBC, and some others) comes from 116 to 119 Azimuth heading, so we probably want directional (not omnidirectional). But we could not find anything rated for more than 30 miles (our stations are between 30 to 35 miles range). Do you have a recommendation for one we could get - as long as it doesn’t look like the wire-type old school antennas
Antennas are wires. Smaller antennas can be put in a plastic shroud (like you have), but it’s still wires. The larger the antenna (the longer the wires) the more signal it picks up. If you don’t have a strong enough signal to start with, an amplifier doesn’t help any.
Same things happens to me.
There was a problem with the broadcasting station signal, the Tablo gets stuck on the last segment it received, and your player just loops that last segment over and over.
The only way to release the tuner that’s stuck is to reboot the Tablo.
This is exactly why I dropped a couple weak signal stations from my channel list.
To clarify your last sentence - when you say if I don’t have strong enough signal to start with, does that mean in cases where my TV tuner (or Tablo tuner) isn’t able to pick up the channel signal without amplifier? That seems to be my scenario. With amplifier, I can see the channel clearly via TV tuner, but not Tablo TV tuner for some reason (but I figure that’s because TabloTV tuner is a different beast and thus the signal needs to be somewhat stronger than what the TV tuner requires). So, in those cases, getting a stronger amplifier won’t help at all, is what I think you’re saying, correct?
Good point about shroud for antenna (didn’t occur to me). If neighbors complain (just in case, but I don’t think they would), I’ll just find something to shroud it and make it a bit more conspicuous.
I’m going to research on your antenna recommendation and probably order it soon (today).
Yeah - what worries me is the 3 TVs in my house picks up the channel signal fine - clear picture and all, but TabloTV cannot seem to broadcast this channel well at all via live TV mode. I suppose I’ll need to check out a stronger, directional antenna and see if I can get better results.
If some other area of the house is more inconspicuous, and you can get the antenna above the roofline there, then you might want to think about putting it there. The closest side of the house isn’t really material. You want it has high as you can get it.
And when you tell the neighbors how much you’re saving on satellite or cable, they’ll understand. And if they don’t, do you really care? They can’t make you take it down.
And… ordered! Crossing fingers for a better result. Based on reviews I’ve read so far, indeed people are happy (and surprised) at how well antenna functions.
RCA ANT751. This is a compact outdoor unidirectional yagi type. It changed my TABLO experience from hit and miss to gangbusters. Inexpensive, compact, high user satisfaction. Check it out on Amazon.
You may be able to find it locally if you’re near major hardware or electronic outlets.
That is a good antenna. Out of 3,000 reviews at Amazon it got 90% 5 and 4 star ratings. Some people at another forum made a signal strength comparison between it and the venerable Winegard 7694; the RCA ANT751 stayed equal to it on 80% of the frequencies and within a few percentage points on the others though it is quite smaller.
Because it is so compact it is easily mountable in an attic or anywhere on a roof (or house corner).
