I’m trying to determine whether my TV dropouts are caused by low signal from the antenna, or problems with router/Internet. As a test I recorded a football game and noted during the live broadcast when a dropout occurred. When I played back the recording, I discovered that there were three blank preview thumbnails showing the “no signal” circle, equating to around 30 seconds of recording, at the time the dropout occurred. I assumed this meant that the antenna signal dropped out at this point, but when I played back the recording over this time period there was no video dropout - the content played back perfectly. So, I’m still at a loss to know what the problem is. Any ideas?
I apologist if you find this just semantics “my TV dropouts” …as viewed while using your tablo? or watching directly TV tuner it’s self?
Presuming tablo - there was a “no sidnal” circle viewed here “live broadcast when a dropout occurred” as well? Or was this the TV tuner dropping?
From what I kind’a ciphered thumbnails are generated every 10sec. It’s likely you’re correct. But it’s also possible (less likely), thumbnail generation flubbed up so it’s blank. Playback - check the total length of finished recording, is it just that much shorter than “scheduled time”? Although I’m not familiar with any recording editing out a “bad spot”.
But have you ever watched a recorded show and saw the “weak signal”? presuming you’ve recorded a show with this situation. It may possible tablo has the player skip over this during playback… maybe.
just a different perspective I guess, not so much any ideas.
- I’m referring to dropouts seen during live TV broadcasts through the Tablo and connected WiFi router.
- No signal circle with blank blue screen appeared on the TV screen during playback TV watching through the Tablo and WiFi. The playback preview thumbnails showed a blank screen with the “no signal” circle at the time of the dropouts. But the video content during this “no signal” period actually played back perfectly through the TV.
- Good suggestion, but I only recorded a portion of the game, so I don’t know the “scheduled” time. Video that is played back during the live dropout period was definitely not seen while originally watching the game live. I noted the playback thumbnail frames immediately before and immediately after the 3 blank frames. The 3 thumbnails between these frames were blank, but the missing video during this period did appear during playback on the TV.
Maybe there is a Tablo threshold that prevents low amplitude signal from being sent to the router, but the recording still continues and the signal strength is good enough for the TV (?). Just clutching at straws here.
So, at this point I don’t know whether to get an outdoor antenna, a new router, or to blame Spectrum. I’m leaning antenna.
How is your Tablo connected to your router? Via WiFi or Ethernet? What is the make and model of your router?
So now the missing frames in the playback thumbnails suddenly appear! Sorry to waste your time. Since there apparently was no break in the recording (as I viewed it in playback mode), I’m leaning toward the router as culprit. I don’t know if the Tablo continues to generate playback thumbnails after exiting the app, but if not, then I guess I exited before they all were generated. But it’s a coincidence that the (temporarily) blank thumbnails occurred at the same time as the live dropout. Thanks for your help.
My Tablo is connected to the router via ethernet cable. It’s a Spectrum-supplied modem/router TG1682G. Since I probably need Spectrum’s modem, I guess I could daisy-chain it to another router and connect to that. But we never had a dropout problem with cable TV using this router.
I’m not sure where this is going. Networking is networking… is networking. Tablo is an HTTP lighttpdhttps://www.lighttpd.net/ web server, just like any other server on the internet streaming video. It uses a playlist to send the “steams” or segments.
It appears to use a file with time stamps to skip for commercial skip… but still sends the entire content, the player skips over specified times. WiFi networking continues to communicate at what ever speed/signal it’s at the whole time. It may be remotely possible the tablo defaults to skip over the no signal during playback… not sure - has anyone ever seen it, if they’ve ever actually recorded one. Usually end up with segmented recordings.
The “weak signal” has nothing to do with the WiFi signal it is or isn’t receiving. I seems to be a generic error message for the broadcast signal.
There is nothing any app can do or not do to generate or cancel thumbnail generation thumbnails.\
https://www.tablotv.com/blog/tablo-faqs-why-dont-i-always-see-ffwd-previews/
You Haven’t Waited for the Process to Complete
There is an Error in the Recording
OK, problem solved, I think. Or, at least I know which hardware is at fault. I don’t get the dropouts when I use the native Samsung Tablo app. Something wrong with the ROKU setup. I lose some functionality by not using ROKU (no preview thumbnails in FF, only 24 hour guide) but, at least, I get to watch the programs without interruption. Now, I guess I’ll go to the ROKU community.
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Which model Roku?
Premier