Tablo Quad OTA vs Quad HDMI Live Broadcast Quality

Is there a noticeable difference between the Quad OTA and the Quad HDMI? I know that the Quad HDMI says it supports mpeg2 quality, but is it worth it? I am currently testing the Quad OTA and it has been pretty flawless. The Quad HDMI is the same price so it boils down to features and performance.

I tried a HDHomeRun 4K tuner and had an awful experience on a Roku Ultra where the streams just stopped over and over again despite very good signal strength and quality. I suspect it had something to do with mpeg2. Since the Quad HDMI is a mpeg2 stream, I’m concerned about facing the same type of behavior. Does anyone have any feedback they can share?

Thanks.

Seriously? This is going to a personal perception.
Sometime people ask which is best… as though someone is making bad one just so there is the best.

It’s “worth it” if it meets your needs. Is your current device worth it?

note: they are all OTA

I asked if it is worth it because I already purchased a Quad OTA to get a sense of how it works in my setup. I didn’t get a Quad HDMI because they were not available yet on Amazon.

All else equal, does the Quad HDMI have a noticeable difference in live OTA viewing being native mpeg2 and has that native mpeg2 output caused any weird issues for anyone?

Gotcha. Although I haven’t used one, I would expect uncompressed or non-transposed video via an HDMI to be great.

Of course this depend on your channel mix you’re watching… and you eyesight and TV.

The native MPEG2 video quality will look better than the h264 video on 1080i and 720p stations, up to you if it’s worth it.

To streaming the MPEG2 video locally in your house you will need a very strong WiFi network or only wired devices. Also the HDMI Tablo units need a subscription to do in home steaming, the non-HDMI units do not.

I use to own a hdhomerun connect and now I have a 4K. I not only use it with a Roku Ultra but also an old 4200 and 4210.

I’ve never had a problem (performance or other)related to mpeg2 with these products. The hdhomerun WEB app can displays signal strength, signal quality, and symbol quality for any channel currently playing.

So if these figures are within acceptable ranges the problem is most likely within your LAN. And hdhomerun always uses ethernet to the router so that shouldn’t be a problem. And I use WiFi 5g from the router to the Roku with no problem.

So your problems may or may not go away with a tablo.

Thanks, I think an added subscription just to stream in home is a dealbreaker. Didn’t realize that.

1 Like

I think that my home networking is more than sufficient. While it could have been the OTA signal, most channels had consistently “green” signal stength, signal quality and symbol quality. Despite this, I had HDHomeRun returning to menu on Roku and on an Android TV, some channels were pixelated.

I put the Tablo OTA and I have not had any such issues and all channels have full green dots. I wish the Quad HDMI was available on Amazon so I could try it out to ultimately keep one or the other.

Yup, while many may get the subscription it’s already screwy you need to pay someone for internet access to watch your free OTA recordings.

Now you have to pay to use your own network to stream in your own house.

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.