Tablo 3-Day Report

General Discussion
#1

Hi,

I’m a new Tablo Dual-Lite owner, and am pretty happy I asked for this for Christmas!

I use Apple devices in my home, and so far they all happily receive streams anywhere in my home, and I was able to do some testing at a friend’s house with promising results!

I have many shows recording without issue, and only one or two that had issues; since I use a small and inexpensive indoor antenna, I’m really impressed with all that it’s able to record.

I understand Tablo’s target market seems to be less tech-savvy people who want to cut the cord, but it seems most of that target market would likely still have significant problems using the feature-rich product on offer.

Obviously, there are a few gotchas (why does it take so long to make a local connection to my Tablo? 5 seconds feels like an eternity at times), and the experience does differ based on a lot of variables, I’ve found this device to be very stable and capable so far.

If any prospective owners have questions, I’ll be happy to field them!

1 Like
#2

I had a Dual Lite in service for just over 2yes without issue. Yes the occasional segmented or short recordings… generic weak signal. It’s rare and occasional - OTA is RF signals, so it’s likely to have issues from time to time. It’s not enough to directly blame the tablo I guess.

I wish you happy years of quality service. (I do recall reading grumblings from Apple user)

It's out of service since I got a Quad. Since my first purchase, I had gotten more sub-channels in the area... so got a second, refurbished, Dual Lite - now it's all on one device.
#3

Yes djk44883, I do expect some blips in the signal here and there, but heck I get the occasional stutter even with streaming services; at least with Tablo my monthly cost is minimal!

I did see the grumbling from past Apple users, and I feel some of them were likely cases of user error, while the rest seem to have been addressed by subsequent software updates. No issues here in streaming to my Apple TV 4K, iPad Air 2020, or 4K iMac whatsoever!

I considered asking for a Quad, but I seem to be able to record all that I want with this dual tuner model so far. Maybe I’ll upgrade at a later date, but at the moment, this suits my needs perfectly!

I might add, since I have a pretty large storage drive, I record at the highest available option too. No playback buffering or issues whatsoever!!!

#4

why does it take so long to make a local connection to my Tablo? 5 seconds feels like an eternity at times

Tablo uses the video player that comes with almost all devices. Most of these support recordings in both the DASH and HLS file format.

Thus they require a varying number of file segments to be loaded before play back begins. This is to try to prevent buffer under flow.

If interested you can read up on HLS and startup or load times.

#5

In other words, to support the wide variety of playback devices it supports, Tablo real-time transcodes the content before it starts streaming it, think of it almost as buffering. That buffering just takes a little time initially but it’s the reason an Apple device, a Roku device, etc. can all be used as playback devices.

#6
tl;dr

Re: the time it takes for channel changing, this is due to the fact that Tablo transcodes video before it’s sent. If the video wasn’t transcoded (chopped into smaller bits for delivery over the network) you wouldn’t be able to watch it on all of the devices you do currently (including Roku) and you wouldn’t be able to adjust the quality for smoother streaming across your home network and the internet.

#7

Oh, I totally get that. I’m talking about the connection my iPhone makes to the Tablo before a recording or live stream can be initiated. Launch the app, and wait 5 seconds to connect; also, should you pop over to another app, when switching back you need to reconnect!