My current satellite box allows me to rapidly swap between two different channels on the device, as well as support Picture in Picture with dual channels. Given the slow time it takes to change channels, this might be a good feature to consider for a future Tablo software release.
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Your satellite box isnāt transcoding ATSC to h264/avc.
Just curiousā¦ how does the Tivo (Roamio OTA) do rapid channel switch?
It decodes the OTA mpeg2 data directly to the HDMI port. No transcoding.
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The answer may depend on whether tablo also uses HLS for Live TV.
If so, maybe the answer can be found if you Google āHLS latencyā
Iām not suggesting that the tuners need to tune faster, Iām thinking that if you could swap between tuners with a single button press, you could watch two discrete shows hoping back and forth between them. I donāt see how that has anything to do with transcodingā¦
It has everything to do with transcoding, because Tablo is always transcoding. Whether youāre watching āLive TVā or a ārecordingā, the Tablo transcodes the OTA signal into a video file that is readable for multiple devices.
That being said, it would be nice if you could āactivateā 2 tuners and be able to quickly jump from one station to the next without going back to the electronic programming guide (ieā¦previous channel button on cable remotes).
And to clarify, the only thing really missing for this functionality is the ability to rapidly switch between the two channels because if you have tuned into the two channels and then just change back and forth between them, the ādelayā for the initial transcoding isnāt encountered because both channels are already being tuned and transcoded.
Once a tuner is spun up, switching back and forth should be quite quick but it does indeed require going back to the guide.
One of the feature requests thatās bubbling up is something like a ālast channelā option to make this easier.
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Yep, that tuner switching would be nice. Others have just wanted a way to jump to next channel (which of course might be slow).
Yes, I will vote for this feature also. I use the ālastā button a lot when I watch live tv.
I thought tablo uses the VIXS Xcode 5190 SoC.
If so, this is a solution designed with transcoding in mind. ViXS was sold to Pixelworks so all of itās processor information was removed.
Even mechanical TV tuners from the 1950ās and early 1960ās didnāt spin up as tablo describes. But a brand new Sony has a 1-2 second channel switch if the auto-tune feature is turned on
I rarely watch live tv but I split my antenna coax, so one feed goes to the Tablo and the other feed to my tv. That way I can by pass the Tablo for trouble shooting and to let my grandkids watch live tv.
This would be my #1 feature request for Tablo on Fire Stick, quickly tune to last channel without having to go back to the guide first.