I have a 2-tuner Tablo purchased last year. My TV is an LG OLED from 2024. I have an outdoor TV antenna and I hooked it up with a splitter inside my house, and then I installed 2 signal boosters: one to the LG TV and one to the Tablo, both after the splitter. I used the auto tuner in the TV and got all the local channels with strong signals and no pixelation. Then I scanned for channels on the Tablo, with the signal booster within the Tablo turned on. So 2 signal boosters on the Tablo.
When I looked at live TV on my Tablo, some of the channels had pixelation, which I did not have on the TV itself. Thus, with an external signal booster, plus the one in the Tablo, I was not getting a good picture on all channels. If I turned the signal booster in the Tablo off, it was worse, so I turned it back on.
Are the tuners in the Tablo of lower quality than what you get in a new TV? Is there something else I can do to improve the reception in my Tablo? I sometimes get failed recordings, and poor recordings with some cutouts.
This had been in place for a year? Has it always had this issue?
Have you also removed the external signal booster? With and with out the internal booster?
One booster before the splitter?
Power distributor? ie) and amplified splitter
Process of elimination process of trouble-shooting.
It has been noted too strong signal cases issues as well as too weak.
The Tablo tuners are pickier about weak signal than are the typical tuners in TVs. Also, amplification boosts everything, so if you have some interference in those frequencies you will end up amplifying the interference. This is why too much amplification is not a good thing. I would turn off all amplifiers, and then check the signal as you turn them back on one by one.
To answer your specific question about the quality of the Tablo tuners - remember, your TV has one tuner so it uses all available signal supplied to it. The 2- and 4-tuner Tablo devices weaken the signal by some amount, so each of its tuners receives less signal than your TV would receive.
Has not been in place for a year. At first I used no signal booster, just the one in the Tablo. I had problems until I turned off the internal booster in the Tablo and installed an external booster BEFORE the splitter to the TV and Tablo. This started to cause me problems as well, until I installed 2 boosters AFTER the splitter to the TV and Tablo, and turned the Tablo booster on. Still testing this. No amplified splitter.
I am still testing my current configuration, and I’ll give your suggestion a try later. Thanks.
Thanks. Good to know.
If you really want a good answer to your reception issues we would want to know information you have NOT provided:
- What antenna are you using
- How far from the broadcast towers are you
- Are there obstructions between your antenna and the broadcast towers like mountains, buildings etc.
- Are there FM, Cell phone etc. towers between you and the broadcast towers
- Are there trees in the line of siget to the towers
- Are there LED devices near your antenna in the house or outside the house.
Also, the TV tuner is more forgiving than the Tablo tuners because the Tablo needs a consistent and steady signal for recording and sending across your network, whereas your TV doesn’t have to do all this.
I would assume your current signal is enough for your TV but not enough for your Tablo. Your best bet would be to optimize your signal reception and configuration (splitters, boosters, cable, etc). You might start by providing answers to at least the first 3 questions posed by @Lenlabnj.
It might also be your network speed.
It’s a journey.
My antenna is Antennas Direct ClearStream 2V.
I am between 2 cities, and the towers in one direction are 40 miles away, and 50 miles in the other direction. No obstructions either way.
I don’t know about FM or cell phone towers. How do I find out?
My antenna is installed above the tree line. No LED devices.
Thanks for any help you can give.
I would say the Tablo tuners/system is more sensitive to anomalies (“trash”) in the RF signal vs “signal strength”. My consistent over 1-1/2 years of regular Tablo use has always shown that signal “trash” is often able to trip up the Tablo, resulting in signal errors (“weak signal”, “failure to decode …”, etc), freezes, out of sync audio, etc. where all 4 of my standard TV tuners seem to just stumble a bit and soldier on. They are all different models/ages, but regardless are all more “tolerant” of signal quality issues than the Tablo.
My experience is no matter what I do with antenna, cables, amps, etc. it is nearly impossible to get a clean, perfect OTA signal 100% of the time. I am a loyal and generally happy Tablo user. However, my #1 complaint is, and has been, please improve the Tablo tuners/system to be at least as robust and “trash tolerant” as a $149 Walmart TV. A quick pixel out of place, sound blip, or whatever should be the worst I see, just like my regular TV tuners.
The addition of a real-time signal meter (in the Tablo) could go a long way to showing users that their signal may need to be improved.
Good to know. I will submit a ticket on this, and anyone else reading this should also submit a ticket. Strength in numbers! 
Can you send a link to a signal meter you recommend?
Sounds similar to my setup. I’m 46 miles in one direction and 50 in the other (north and south). Are you using only one ClearStream 2V for both directions? Using a rotor to get both directions?
My first setup (cutting the cord in 2013) was an Xtreme Signal 8 bay bowtie antenna where you could aim 4 of the bays in one direction and the other 4 in the other direction. For me this turned out to be insufficient. I then purchased a second 8 bay antenna so I could aim 8 bays each in each direction. This worked great. Even worked pretty good for high VHF. The main obstructions for me are trees, lots of trees.
I eventually installed 2 Televes long range mix antennas so I had a better chance with VHF. It was a good decision. But even with these two excellent antennas I can have days where the tree’s leaves and/or the atmospheric conditions can scatter TV signals and a complete channel can be absent. And when this happens it’s pretty much equal between the Tablo and the TV’s tuners.
To start, I’d disconnect the antenna from the tv tempoarily. This will allow you to trouble shoot antenna position and filter combination that best suits your Tablo.
Why connect antenna to the tv? Does weather or internet access interfere with the Tablo thst often?
How do you manage to orient the antenna in two different directions?
Just some suggestions to help with your troubleshooting.
I haven’t seen anything in a post to indicate if the pixelation is across the spectrum on most chans or just a few chans.
You can purchase the AntennaMan signal meter or the HomeWorx model. These models only give basic information on signal, but at least its real-time. There are YouTube videos on how these work.
Or, you could opt for the Winegard Preamplifier and Channel Finder. It all depends on what you need or want to use.
It would be good if others would chime in with their thoughts on a good signal meter. I use mine mainly for making sure my antenna is pointed in the best direction for optimal reception.
I found a remarkable deal on an HD Homerun tuner at a local computer store (Flex Quarto for $16) and paired it with the Signal GH app ($2.99) on my iPhone. The app provides real-time simultaneous signal strength for multiple tuners so it’s ideal if on a roof pointing an antenna. Unfortunately the Signal GH app works with only an iPhone and an HDHR tuner. But, as in my case, it can be an inexpensive signal meter if one has all the pieces.
I use this one:
Obviously a bit expensive, but it works well to provide multi-RF channel scans for both true RF signal strength and calculated RF signal-to-noise ratios (based on error rates). It actually tunes each RF channel as it scans.
The truth is, getting something more than a few colored dots, or a subjective percentage scale, or whatever provides more “scientific” detail about what’s going on, is also more expensive. Televes has a really nice portable spectrum analyzer, but it is above $1,000 even in its most basic configuration.
https://www.tequipment.net/Televes/H30-Evolution-Base/Spectrum-Analyzers/
It’s only with these more expensive tools (and the knowledge to use them) that you can truly see what’s going on in the RF spectrum, and perhaps where the problem areas might be. Certainly not practical for the average consumer “single use” case.
The “best meter” for the average consumer is their TV (or Tablo). If it works well (at least most of the time), you’re good. If it’s unreliable, go for better signal capture right at the source first (eg the antenna). A stronger signal with (importantly) lower s/n ratio will cure most reception woes every time.