I have two of the older Roku 1 units. Both are obviously very slow, and very fussy about network conditions. I also have a new Roku 2 and new Roku 3 on the network. The Roku 1 unit has the RCA outputs needed for use with older CRT TVs, which is why they are still in service. These older TVs are used to watch primarily live programming (news, baseball, the Olympics) in the kitchen and the garage.
Had a lot of problems with the Roku 1 when we first got the Tablo. LPWs, long load times, lots of random disconnects, etc. Since the Roku was showing less than full network strength, I put a small power-line wifi router inches away from the unit in the kitchen. This improved the signal, but I still had a lot of Roku issues. (I gave the kitchen router its own SSID to ensure the Roku connected to the strongest signal.)
After discussion on this forum, and help from tech support, I replaced my old DLink router (vintage 2011) with a TP-Link C7 Archer. SHAZAM!! a night and day difference! The Roku 1 units are still slow – but the number of LPWs is almost 0 and the number of “dropped connections” has fallen significantly. The kitchen TV has stayed on, tuned to a program for > 12 hours on a number of occasions, and it almost always lets me watch the morning and evening 2 hour news loop, with out a problem.
I am running 2.2.11 (Beta 3) on my Tablo. The Roku 1 units seemed “rock solid” on Beta 2, and since pushing ahead with Beta 3, I’ve noticed a couple of LPWs within the first 2 minutes of selecting or changing a live channel. Never experienced a problem with them playing back a recording. (My recording mode is 3 Mbs, 720 lines, as our “big screens” are only 32"). Since the Beta 2 release was out for only a couple of days, we may have not had enough time to really say for certain that this change was introduced in the Beta 3 release.
I have noticed that the couple of times when the LR TV shows slight pixelization on a live channel, it will pause briefly, then recover and continue. I assume that this is because the Roku 2 and 3 have the faster CPU and can sort things out quicker. The kitchen TV, tuned to the same Tablo live feed with crash back to the grid or Roku menu on the Roku 1. The Roku 1 boxes seem to be “just enough” – if everything is perfect!
The bottom line is this: Tablo is a “whole house” kind of appliance, which is why I bought it. As such, it will expose any weak links in your antenna, your router, your network cabling and wifi setup, as well as those in the Tablo itself. In my case, it particularly showed the “long-in-tooth” problems of my old router. YMMV.