Skip ahead buffer delay

When I use the skip ahead button (on FireTV or iOS), there is a delay of ~5-10 seconds every time I skip.  Is the Tablo re-buffering the stream?  I would have though that it would already be buffered ahead a good amount such that the skip would be instantaneous.  It makes skipping a pain…so I often just watch the commercials.


As a side note, the skip function often quits working part way through a recording…so I am forced to watch the commercials.  Pressing the skip forward/back button does nothing, but pause still works.  Happens with both FireTV and iOS.

When I skip ahead on the Fire TV Stick it takes 1-3 seconds and on the Roku it takes anywhere from 3-10 seconds. But the Roku has thumbnail preview so it’s not that bad.

Is your Tablo hard wired? Is your Fire TV hard wired? This is reduce the times to resume after you hit FF.

I’ve had the same issue with our Fire TV sticks. While watching a recording, rewind and fast forward eventually stop working. We usually have to stop what we are watching and come back in. That seems to get it working again. I’m planning on uninstalling and reinstalling the app/video player to see if that helps.

My Tablo is hardwired, as well as my FireTV. I still would have expected the Tablo to buffer ahead some amount (say 5 minutes) so that skips are quick. Maybe it’s not possible due to the way it stores recordings in 10 second clips instead of as one big file? Therefore can only buffer ahead 10 seconds?

The buffer on the Fire TV is not big enough to buffer 5 minutes of Tablo video.

I don’t know what the exact bitrates are for the Tablo, but let’s assume 1080p is 10Mbps. 5 minutes of video would therefore be 10 * 300 = 3000 Mbits = 375 MB. So the FireTV doesn’t have 375 MB of cache available for buffering? The regular FireTV has 2GB of RAM (though I’m not sure how much is dedicated for buffering video).

We use iOS regularly along with AirPlay to Apple TV. The Skip Forward appears to work better on the iPad rather than the iPhone (it skips forward 30s on the iPad). I’ve also discovered that after clicking the Skip Forward button, I only have to wait until the still frame shows up after the skip but before it buffers long enough to play video, before I can click it again. Each skip takes about 3 seconds that way.

What I’d really like is to be able to push it 4 times without waiting and have it skip forward 2 minutes (4 * 30s) without having to wait in-between. Maybe in a future update.

@dog300

You can use the progress bar on both the iPad and iPhone to scroll to a point in the video too. That’s a lot quicker that skipping ahead 30 seconds at a time.

I use it on my iPhone 6 and iPad Air, it works well. Except I hate Apple TV so I use a Roku 3 and Fire TV for playback on the HDTV.

Enable fast Live TV startup appears to affect 30s jumps from most devices. I get 2 good jumps and then everything bogs down and there’s a noticeable delay for subsequent presses of the jump forward button.

I’ve turned that feature off and now testing the results to see if it will at least deliver the same behavior on ALL 30s forward jumps.

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