Old 4-tuner Tablo vs. new?

General Discussion
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I’ve been using a refurb 4-tuner Tablo with the NVIDIA Shield, the rectangular Tablo, for over a year now. Lately been getting some casual pixelation occasionally, not related to local network or OTA antenna…the Tablo is directly wired via MoCA 2.0 to the rest of my home network. Plenty of bandwidth for streaming. The Tablo scan shows all OTA TV stations as 100%, all green, all the dots (like 5) for all the stations.

I’m wondering if the current/new Tablo Quad OTA DVR (the curvy one) has better quality video, less pixelation than the older one? Maybe updated electronics that work a bit better/faster? Has anyone used both of these that can compare the overall video quality?

I’ve been trying to find comparisons of the two, and haven’t come up with anything yet.

Thanks.

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There was an update to the internal encoding chip but the specs are VERY VERY close for the 4 tuner model (the 2 tuner model also had a change in the internal splitter that might help some if you were going from the first 2 tuner to the new ones but again, no change there on the 4 tuner models).

The issue is most likely with the OTA antenna signal.

Tablos displayed 5 green dots doesn’t really tell you much.

First, that meter is static, meaning, its only showing you what it was at the time it was scanned. You would need to re-scan to see if its changed.

But even if you do re-scan, there is a wide spread of signal quality that can still present as full signal in that “meter”.

You can contact Tablo support, they can pull data on the REAL signal quality.

Google OTA TV signal quality problems and you will find a LOT of information that helps explain why it changes…

Time of day, time of year / season, weather, outside temperature, cloud coverage, local foliage, amount of sun radiation, planes flying overhead, a close neighbor gets a new microwave, someone is using an older garage door opener or an “illegal” radio nearby, cell antennas, one of your lines runs too close to a refrigerator compressor (that was one of mine).

All of these things and a lot more can effect OTA transmission. Even if your antenna is inside, whats going on outside between your house and the tower can make a LOT of difference from minute to minute…

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