Long pauses when changing channels are not something I’m looking forward to as I prepare to dive into this pool. But I noticed something while watching PhiloTV today on our Roku Streaming Stick+…
When each show starts, there is a period of lower quality video. Then it kinda snaps into the crystal clear we expect. I started paying attention to how long these little excursions lasted. They last about 10 to 30 seconds. Roughly. Coincidence that this is about how long a Tablo takes to buffer up a previously untuned channel?
Is it possible that what’s happening is similar and that we’re being shown a slightly degraded video stream until something “catches up”? Once a show is playing on Philo it stays clear. When the next show starts, it is degraded for several seconds again.
Is this something that Tablo may be able to implement to make channel switching faster? I would think a period of degraded video would be preferable over simply pausing or delaying the channel switch while the transcode and spool operation is happening.
I don’t have my Tablo yet. Just keep seeing this issue/observation coming up and now looking at how other streaming services are handling it. I don’t even know if this is within the technical capabilities of the Tablo hardware. Just tossing it out there.