Tablo not ready for prime time

My biggest complaint right now is - damn it I bought the two tuner and I should have bought the four tuner - LOL.

Well, they are still going for a good price on eBay. If you went that route, you probably won’t take too big of a hit on it.

1 Like

In three months, my Tablo has not failed to record a program. What is the difference between our environments? I have a set of powerful antennas that supply 100% signal strength and signal quality (SNR - which is NOT the same thing as signal strength; as an example, a water pipe may deliver a powerful force of water but not necessarily good quality water).

I don’t entirely trust the Tablo’s five green dot indicator because my other tuners will report less than 100% signal quality from time to time whereas Tablo indicates 100%. So I suspect that people having recording problems may not be getting optimum signal reception which will cause recording failures. OTA is affected by trees, wet leaves, wind, topography and geography. One can go for two or three days with reception being hindered by inclement weather (which is why cable became popular). Several years ago when I had less than optimum reception, my Hauppuage PC tuner would die and break off recording if the line had too many errors (and the files would disappear or be corrupted because they had not been properly closed). And Hauppauge is a company that has been in this business for over twenty years…

Recording problems may not necessarily be from the DVR end; they can start at the source (the antenna). Antenna reception is variable, not fixed.

Your Magnavox recorder is not the same device as the Tablo; each has different functionality\complexity and may be responding to circumstances differently. I’m sure Tablo will implement algorithms to handle circumstantial events such as fluctuating reception. My solution has been to avoid fluctuating signals through antenna redundency; in most cases people cannot implement this and rely on one antenna. So Tablo will have to address such limitations.

In my case I got exactly what was advertised…

2 Likes

FYI - there seems to be anecdotal correlation between how people use Tablo day-to-day in whether they are experiencing missing recordings or not. That being said, we believe we have a solution to this which will be going into beta today.

We realize that missing recordings is a major problem for our users which is why we are so focused on finding a solution for this.

1 Like

@TabloTV - can the Tablo detect if a recording failed or is in the process of failing?

It shows up in recording but it shows it fails to record but It will record on my DVD recorder. I live 20 miles out of Birmingham and have a out side antenna that runs 5 tv but I have a dedicated outside antenna for the Tablo and there are on different sides of the house.

I occassionally get failed recordings due to a weak signal.
My Tablo correctly marks those recordings as failed.
That channel’s signal fades late at night.

Are both antennas pointed in the same direction? Do both get the same channels at the same strength?

An antenna in front of another, at the same height, will impede the second antenna if not suitably distanced (like six feet) and even reflect signals off it to create multipath interference.

Which antenna is the Magnavox on?

I am missing recordings that I am pretty sure have nothing to do with signal strength. Just this Sunday, Brooklyn 99 failed to record, but Last Man on Earth did, Same channel, same night, the recording that worked is excellent quality.

Also, when I say failed to record, I mean I can’t see them. Prior to the 2.2.6 upgrade, I noticed that I thought some recordings were missing, but I wasn’t sure as I wasn’t paying that close of attention.

After I installed 2.2.6 these recordings suddenly appeared and the recording quality was very high, so pretty sure it wasn’t signal strength.

So the recordings may actually be there I hope.

My Tablo works just fine during Prime Time :laughing:

1 Like

Yes - if you are affected by the issue we’re seeing, those recordings are there, just not visible within the apps. The new beta software will not only recover these recordings from ‘purgatory’ but will prevent this from happening in the future.

I was missing some recordings; submitted a Support Ticket. The beta was pushed to my Tablo, got all the missing recordings back. (Happy wife!)

1 Like

Happy life :slight_smile:

1 Like

@TabloTV

Just to throw in my two cents, I personally believe that the Tablo is a really impressive product which just needs to be finished.

I would consider buying two more Tablos in fact, one to use with my north facing antenna to begin viewing and recording stations from Canada, adding to my existing Tablo which records American channels and the other new Tablo to take down to Florida for winter use when I am there.

Despite what may be viewed as “complaining” by me to see the remaining debugging take place, I genuinely love nearly all of the Tablo features and performance. Designing and manufacturing a four tuner recorder which handles MPEG2 to h.264 on 4 live recordings along with simultaneous playbacks to multiple players is no small achievement. And dealing with the diverse variety of customer player platforms is also extremely challenging since they are all moving targets as well. If I look at the hardware I previously used to accomplish the same workload as Tablo, it was enormous, expensive, and very power hungry by comparison

We are all impatient to see this all come out right and may disagree as to where problems lie, but we all share enthusiasm and interest in seeing that such an excellent product succeed. My passion in attending this forum and voicing my opinions comes directly from my respect for what is being attempted here and the fact that it is so very close to being achieved already

Larry

5 Likes

A little punctuation and spell-checking goes a long way in helping others understand your points. This entire paragraph has only 3 periods and not a single comma - makes for a very challenging read.

1 Like

“This entire paragraph” ?

Which entire paragraph ?

Hard to understand your point !

1 Like

You just joined this forum 28 minutes ago and your first post is to spell check a long standing, contributing member? You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Good start!

3 Likes

I think he was referring to the original post, which was made way back in the beginning of October but was likely new to him if he just joined the forum. For clarity’s sake, I have edited the original post so that adrefs can understand the relevant points. Forgive me, John_Wellborn_Jr, if I inadvertently altered your meaning.

Hope this clarifies the confusion so that you can provide assistance if you have any to share. Not everyone has the same skill sets and even if grammar and composition is not someone’s forte, that doesn’t mean they don’t have something meaningful to say/share. What may be simple for one can be a struggle for another. If you are confused as to the meaning of a post, asking for clarification would be more helpful.

2 Likes

The paragraph at the beginning of this discussion, do you not understand how a “reply” works? I read the initial post that started this thread and hit reply.

Thanks Vonda - that makes more sense. The OP was a little rambling…Gotta stand by my assertion though of first impressions :grin:

Actually, you hit the reply button at the end of the discussion, which just adds to the current discussion without referencing a specific post, which is why there was some confusion. It is understandable - I have made that mistake myself - but it is especially confusing when referring to a post that was made over a month ago in a thread that has more than 50 replies. So the confusion here is reasonable. To be even more clear, it is helpful to use the quote button - then there can be no misunderstanding.

2 Likes