I have to agree with much of this.
I spent the first couple of months trying to get this thing running smoothly and it took quite a bit of an overhaul between antenna positioning and changing a few things about my network. People have to stop comparing the Tablo to other streaming services! They are NOT streaming uncompressed, raw mpeg-2 video!
There is a lot of resistance in people looking into their network. You mention the registration screen. Every time I’ve ever encountered this, a simple router reboot was all that I needed to fix this issue! Other than a couple Tablo network outages months ago, I’ve only had this happen two other times (Tablos are not on UPS but my internet is).
The only other time I’ve seen that screen is when a friend and I worked on a new network for my parents and had to connect her Tablo to the new SSID.
As @KimchiGUN said, it’s a $100 device (usually around $80 anymore). If it’s as bad as you say, get rid of it. Sell it on ebay and recoup as much money as you can.
You can see thousands of users complaining about an issue, but it’s rare that someone comes back and says, “Hey, this is working now!” That’s kinda how forums work. You don’t see the thousands of users coming her to start a post saying, “I have a Tablo and for 6 months it’s been working great!” I wish that everyone came back to share their tips on what’s worked to get their device running right. It would be awesome if the forum had a “this is the answer” option, or if @TabloTV could lable a post in a way to identify things this way.
Another thing that I have to wonder: how old is your Roku? I don’t care for that system, but I keep one around for a backup and testing (a plain-Jane Roku Express that works “decently” with the Tablo). People worry so much about how warm the Tablo puck is, but it’s the same thing with any STB. They get warm. Things fail.
How are your INTERNAL network speeds? That’s quite a bit more important for the puck than internet speeds You sound very well informed in a lot of network-related issues. It would be interesting to see those results.
Another interesting thing I’ve encountered in the past is that one of my Roku devices only played nice with the Tablo if it was on the 2.4ghz network. I’m guessing the 5ghz reciever was a little wonky or something was causing interference. (Data collection turned off also improved that Roku’s Tablo interractions.)
Tablo is not perfect by any means. Everyone uses their DVR in their own way. Many try to use it in ways that the Tablo developers never imagined. I’m a simple “record it and check it out later” kind of guy. For this, my Tablo works perfectly!
