djk44883:
I will admit to not going to the support forums, nor searching Google for Tablo problems prior to making my purchase. Shame on me for not doing due diligence. I did, however, review Tablos own web site for pre-sales information. I then went to Amazon’s sale pages for the Tablo and read that information. Then I did search YouTube for reviews of the Tablo, and there are several very good reviews of the Tablo Quad. Thus I made my purchase decision on that information and that all of them indicated compatibility with all current Rokus.
Nothing was mentioned in what I did see about incompatibility with what the Roku might connect to in processing surround sound. Nor what I experienced in that even if it was compatible with my home theater, I wouldn’t be able to use the Tablo with combinations of Rokus and a “standard” TV set if I left the Tablo in surround sound mode. Thus my frustration.
I have several courses of action to take:
Ignore surround sound from the Tablo and just use it as a whole house DVR. I’ll get my fix of hidef and Dolby sound from other Roku apps in the home theater.
Decide to use the Tablo only for the other two TV’s in the house without surround sound since they don’t support it anyway, and obtain another brand of DVR for the home theater system.
Uninstall the Tablo, sell it on eBay, and cut my losses (hopefully getting a refund for the extra services I purchased, or confirming that they’ll transfer with the unit.) And get a TIVO system or Amazon Recast or similar once I see that they are truely compatible.
No decision made as yet.
Contact @TabloSupport via email or phone (on Monday) and allow them to help you with your individual problems. As other users have stated, the Roku devices you own should be capable of providing surround sound and other users have successfully setup their systems to work correctly.
As I stated in my original (or perhaps one of the subsequent posts), I did indeed contact Tablo support. I spoke to a very knowledgeable help desk person. We went over everything that I had done to troubleshoot my problems and he agreed I had done everything that could be done in an attempt to make the Tablo connect through my Roku Ultra to my Denon amp in surround sound. He had no further suggested troubleshooting for me to accomplish given what I had done already.
I will take some screenshots today and I plan on doing a factory reset of my Roku Ultra; a step I had hoped I wouldn’t have had to make, since I’ll have to reinstall all my apps and certify them app by app. But I’ll do my troubleshooting with only the Tablo app added to the basics a factory reset provides.
Ok, my frustration level subsided this morning and I decided to take some logical step by step troubleshooting even though I had gone through almost all of this several days ago.
First, screen shots of my Roku Ultra’s Sound settings in the first picture, and an overlay of my Denon’s sound field setting with those Roku sound settings:
With those settings as a start, I turned surround sound on the Tablo and as before, I had no access to any live stream nor recording.
I then did a factory reset on the Roku. After the Roku restarted, I took the extra step of turning it and my Denon off and waited 5 minutes before turning on again.
Following all of the setup including the sound settings, the screen shots are exactly the same, BUT when I turned the Tablo’s surround sound on, I DID have access to live streaming with surround sound. Finally!
Ok, given that a full factory reset was required to make my Roku Ultra work on my home theater system, I went into the bedroom. There I have a Samsung 32" panel TV; about 5 years old. I did check it’s sound settings, and it was set to digital surround. I did a factory reset on the Rioku Premier that is in the bedroom and had similar results. Surround sound has been restored there. I’ll take the same steps in the kitchen where we have a small portable TV; if that doesn’t restore sound via the Tablo, I’ll just use the Roku and switch to antenna if I want live TV on it in case of emergency, which is what we got it for.
So I’ll step off my soapbox except to say that Tablo support should note to advise users with the same problems I’ve had to do a complete factory reset on their Rokus if they don’t have surround sound as the first step in troubleshooting. Merely restarting or power off and back on again did not resolve my situations.
Under the Audio settings, can you change the “HDMI” settings to “Dolby Digital” only. This is just a test. The Tablo app might need fixing cause it doesn’t like what the Roku has currently auto detected.
Never mind, I saw you got it fixed. It is possibly before the factory reset the detected audio formats on the Roku were different.
This is out of context, never suggested searching for problems. You implied you were a technician with a background in home theater installation. Current information. At least suggest you’re an above average consumer, looking into products prior to purchase… it is on tablo’s web site, on the product page - “To learn more about…” Just say’n
tablo’s have a 30 day return policy, depending upon place of purchase. Hope you realized it was “broke” inside of a month.
Indeed I am a home theater and computer technician. Over the years I’ve gotten several industry certifications for computers, networks and home theater installation. I’m retired now and do “technical support” for friends and family…and myself. As I stated early on, I’ve been associated with Roku since their beta days and still have one of the first Rokus off the line (gathering dust, as it’s nowhere compatible with modern television protocols now.)
As I stated, “shame on me” for not expecting a device I investigated as a “knowledgeable consumer” to function properly out of the box without extensive diagnostics and the requirement to do a full factory reset on all of my Roku devices to work as advertised.
Ok, enough said on this issue. Were it not for this forum, I would have likely either returned the unit or as I said attempted to recoup my investment as well as in the hard drive I purchased and the services I signed up for prematurely fully expecting everything to work properly.
Thanks to all who made positive comments that motivated me to keep trying.
Glad to hear the factory reset did it for you. Based on the experience I had I don’t know that it’s entirely on Tablo. I think there is something going on with Roku OS as well, specifically on the standalone Roku units as I did have to reset my Roku Ultra once but had zero issues with my TCL Roku TV.
I am reviving this old topic as I cannot get surround sound to work. I use Roku as my streaming device. I have a receiver and 5.1 surround sound speakers. With Prime Video, Netflix and a number of other Roku channels, surround sound works. So, I know it is not the Roku settings. It is not the receiver. It is not the HDMI cable. It is not my speakers.
In Tablo, I turn on Surround Sound and try to watch live TV. I get the typical error message from Tablo. So, it could be that Roku is reporting to Tablo that it cannot handle surround sound.
I could do the Roku Factory reset. What do you think?
Not sure what you are asking for so here is a screenshot of the Tablo settings. Next, I will get a photo of the Roku Audio settings on my Roku 4660. Thanks for replying.
When I turn surround sound on, I get this. This is live TV. Same problem when I turn on surround sound and try to record a show. And, of course, previously recorded shows will not play when I turn on surround sound.
On the Audio settings on the Roku, leave the “Audio mode” to “Auto”, but change the “HDMI” to “Dolby Digital” only. Let me know if that works. If yes, it seems the Tablo app is not picking up the Audio settings on the Roku do in fact support surround sound. And in the past when this happened, a factory reset of the Roku fixed the issue for some users.
