TV App vs Roku App

General Discussion
1

I recently purchased an LG 4K smart TV. Tablo has an app for LG. Up to this point I had been using a Roku to stream from my Tablo.

The picture quality - smoothness, brightness, contrast, sharpness, etc. - is better when viewing Tablo “natively” on the LG TV than viewing the Roku streaming Tablo to the same LG TV.

Any thoughts why this is? In the past I thought HDMI was the ultimate interface UNTIL I saw the quality from the LG app.

There is one less hop from Tablo directly to LG. The Roku has the extra HDMI hop. Everything is wired (no wireless). The Roku connection uses the same LG video properties.

The only problem is my wife is so used to using Tablo through the Roku, she won’t use the native LG app.

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2

I have found on my Samsung TV app that it is not as smooth or fast as launching from Apple TV 4K. Looks Extremely better on the Apple TV

The horse power of the streaming device usually trumps the operating system from the TV I have found.

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3

I’ve had the same result (and observation) with my LG Smart TV (my primary). You mention contrast, that’s exactly what I see. To my eye, the colors are richer, deeper and overall image quality more pleasing.

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4

Yay, a fellow LG’er! That LG tuner is fantastic. The best I’ve ever had in any device in picking up signals. I wish though LG would implement pause using a USB stick like others for live TV. I could not believe the quality of a Poirot my Tablo had recorded from PBS. Amazing. Through my Roku it was just OK. Tablo and LG - it was terrific.

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5

Have any of you checked that the picture settings are the same on your TV when using native apps and when using your Roku or other streaming media player?

6

They are identical. Which brings me back to my initial question - what causes this difference? Is it that the LG doesn’t have to deal with the HDMI interface when it gets the Tablo’s stream natively through ethernet? The Roku has this intermediate step of HDMI to LG. What does the LG have to go through in dealing with the HDMI “data” that it doesn’t when getting Tablo’s “raw” stream?

Unless the HDMI interface has to have a different set of settings than the native app in order to equal it…

Here’s another consideration: since the LG smart TV upconverts incoming streams to 4K, is it possible that it does a better job upconverting natively Tablo’s stream than with Roku’s HDMI data?

7

The lack of ability to pause live surprised me greatly, as LG’s attention-to-detail is always excellent. I’m certain it will be addressed / added in a firmware update. As to quality, yes. My TV even gives a new coat of paint to some old DVDs I’ve dug out, brings them back to life.

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