I am an avid and mostly satisfied Tablo user with a recurring issue. Specifically, when watching live TV the Tablo occasionally gets “tripped up” by a signal glitch, and winds up in a continuous loop trying to recover.
I believe this behavior is rooted in the live TV “pause, backup and replay” functionality which requires it to be recording anytime a live TV broadcast is being viewed. It is clear to me that every time this happens, Tablo tries to “recover” by backing up and trying to replay the live TV recording through the point the live TV glitch occurred. But, it then keeps rewinding and tripping over the same glitch over and over again in a continuous loop that is very difficult to exit.
I would like a new user setting established that allows the user to disable the “real time” recording feature such that the Tablo is truly in a “live TV” mode with no concurrent real time recording behavior or pause/rewind/replay available for that program.
Further, the “glitch recovery” behavior should be changed such that it simply restarts playing the current live TV program at some “clean point” after the time the glitch occurred in real time. This is essentially what every TV in my house does base case. They stumble, and then just keep going once they establish a clean decode point in the live TV signal. Of course, I miss any content during the “glitch” period, but it’s gone anyway.
I am running the Tablo app on 2 TVs with Google TV, and 2 TVs with the latest Amazon FireTV stick. I occasionally see the same live TV “stuck in a loop” behavior on all 4. All firmware/software is up to date. All devices are hard wired on a very capable and advanced home network.
Agreed. We never use the “pause or rewind live TV” feature anyway, and it would be nice if there was an option where we could configure the Tablo device to behave exactly the same way as a regular TV with a tuner.
What would be the purpose of using the Tablo for viewing only, with no Pause or Rewind, when you can do the exact same thing on your TV with no hassles?
Because, as another poster also said, the coax cable doesn’t reach the TV. We use the Tablo mainly to watch TV. We rarely (very rarely) use the DVR features at all.
There’s no reason you can’t also use the DVR for recording programs to watch later, as well as using the Tablo to simply distribute OTA over your network. I was simply suggesting that the “record while watching live” functionality was causing issues while trying to watch live TV, so a setting to optionally disable that “multitasking” functionality might make watching live TV smoother (vs this looping behavior).
I had similar glitches with one channel until I tweaked my outdoor antenna. What kind of antenna setup do you have? A good stable signal from your antenna is crucial to viewable TV. The best way to troubleshoot your signal is to connect your antenna directly to your TV and check signal diagnostics.
That is, in fact, the very reason I bought the Tablo in the first place. The DVR features are, to us, merely a “nice to have” but not at all a requirement.
I totally get that both the RF side and the network side of this equation are critical to getting good results with the Tablo. I’ve been way off in the deep end on this OTA stuff for several years. First with the FireTV Recast, and then Tablo Gen 4 for the past couple of years. I have high end Televes antenna and signal processing equipment. I have my own RF signal meter. Point is, while I do have occasional signal quality issues (solar crap, other interference, crappy days), I know exactly where my signals stand (strength and s/n) and can compare between Tablo and TV tuners any time.
This looping behavior is probably triggered by a signal blip that my TV tuners usually blow right past. However, the Tablo seems to try and use its real time recording process to try and “recover” from these unavoidable blips by going back and looping through the recorded problem data over and over.
I would love for the Tablo to simply power through any signal blip just like every one of my 4 different TV tuners do. I think being able to disable the real time recording if not needed/desired might make the Tablo more able to handle minor blips more like my TV tuners do. Perhaps not, but maybe. That is why I suggested it as a feature.
The Antenna Guy has some good reviews of antennas. The Televes are generally the highest rated, short of huge, multi-element, highly directional Yagis.
I have a Televes Ellipse Mix and very good signal quality as I have already posted. My wife and I both record a number of programs across most of the channels. I can’t remember the last time there was a failed recording or even a “blip” in a recording. Recordings are always fine. They would not be if there were signal quality problems. Also, my TV tuners do not just start looping during live TV viewing.
It’s a crappy behavior of the Tablo related to simultaneous live TV feed and recording specifically, and I would like them to provide some sort fix. Thus my “feature” request.
@classicrockguy - our experience with this same/similar repeating issue only lasted a day or two and we haven’t seen it again in 2-3 weeks. I’m not sure why it’s doing this for you and why it resolved for us.
There also seems to be a bug in the live playback/pause option that will fill up memory and cause the channel to be unusable until you reboot the Tablo. Would be nice to just turn this off when you don’t want it.
