There’s certainly a difference between a straight ATSC signal and a video stream. Not that I’m complaining, as I stream nearly all my sports but I can see a marked difference on my Samsung live and Tablo/Roku on nearly everything I watch.
@chrisfix can you send me a link to the hard drive you have for Tablo?
This is the exact one I have:
I am a recent Tanlo 4 tuner and Roku 3 user. I also have everything using wired ethernet. I have not yet had a chance to watch a lot of sports but I am following this thread with interest.
Do people think hard wired Ethernet makes a difference in sports playback?
One thing I have noticed… I used an old 2T Seagagte hard drive I happened to have laying around. I had to check the box to delay the start of playback on th tablo setting otherwise it would skip/repeat at the beginning. After checking the box for delayed start of playback it seems to play reliably now.
I have thought about buying one of the Samsung 1T SSD USB Drives. I wonder if that would overcome the need to check the delay start setting and possibly smooth out sports live playback? Anyone try running Tablo from an SSD?
I have a 4 tuner and a roku and have never had any issues playing sports. The superbowl looked great! As do any NBA games I watch. My roku and tablo are both connected via ethernet. In fact any device I own that has an ethernet port is connected that way.
I’d like to chime in a bit on what I think is going on with the TabloTV and framerate. The 1080i channels are broadcasting 30 frames/second, but interlaced at 60 fields per second (each frame has 2 interlaced fields). TabloTV is probably taking the fields and combining them into a progressive scan frame. The motion effect you get from this is going from a “soap opera” effect to a “movie film” effect since you are virtually going from 60 fields per second down to 30 frames per second, combining the interlaced fields into one frame. Some people are sensitive to this and others are not. TabloTV would have to keep the frames at 1080i (60 fields interlaced) or go to 720p (60 fields progressive) in order to eliminate this effect, especially on fast moving programming, such as sports.
There really isn’t anything they can do. The Tablo itself is dependent on devices like browsers, tablets, and streaming TV boxes to view content. Many of these only support 30 fps.
Yeah, the cinematic effect that Tablo has on sports can certainly be annoying, but there's comfort in knowing that if you live close enough for your antenna to pull in a channel for your Tablo you can get it for your TV as well.
However, I have to disagree with you @snowcat on the 60 FPS thing. My $200 Chromebook, Surface 2, Nexus Player, Fire TV (EDIT: Fire TV Stick too) and new version Roku 3 all do 1080p @ 60 FPS. I'm not up on the specs for my Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 but sports from the Tablo look amazing at those sizes.
There is certainly a lot that could/could have been done about picture quality for the Tablo. The TiVo/TiVo Mini doesn't suffer from this issue at all, even when you are connecting your Mini to the TiVo over Ethernet or wireless.
There aren't enough sports on OTA TV to make this an issue for me personally, but if the sports that do air on broadcast TV are critical for you, Tablo may not be your best bet for an OTA DVR.
@arrowrand, I think you have some misinformation. Rokus and FireTv only support up to 30FPS.
@arrowrand, I think you have some misinformation. Rokus and FireTv only support up to 30FPS.Of course the Tivo doesn't have this issue because it is it's own native player, just like cable/satellite DVRs. The Tablo is about having a huge variety of platforms to watch TV, and the limitation is going to be no 60FPS video. The Tivo is about not being tied down to a cable/satellite provider device, and it is limited by cost and portability.
My source of information about the Fire TV and Stick comes directly from the product pages for both on Amazon. I’ll stick with how they advertise the product to customers as that’s the one that’s actionable.
I do see where the FireTv supports up to 60 FPS, but not the Roku3.
Well whatever FPS the Roku 3 plays at, I have Sling TV and I was watching the Masters this past Thursday and Friday on ESPN and it looked amazing. I would go so far as saying that it looked identical to the ESPN feed we used to have coming from DirecTV. There was zero “film” effect. So apparently ESPN, at least, is able to overcome the Roku 3 limitations with their stream. I should note, however, that we also watched the NCAA tournament on Sling TV on TNT and TBS. Those channels I would say more closely resemble the quality we get from the Tablo. It’s probably not an apples-to-apples comparison, but I guess I’m just saying it appears to be possible to remove the “film” effect on the Roku 3 b/c of how good ESPN looks on Sling TV. Here’s hoping the staff over at Tablo can figure it out. Like I said, it’s not just sports that this happens with. I’ve watched other television programs that are “live” shows, like American Idol, and the same “film” effect happens on those as well. I don’t think it’s a show stopper at the moment, but I would have to think having the device with the best picture quality would be huge as this market continues to develop.
I would also like to point out that this isn’t a complaint, although it may sound like it, but rather an enhancement suggestion. So perhaps I’ve put it in the wrong thread. We love the device and the features it provides. What a great idea for a product.
WatchESPN has a very noticeable film effect on both the Roku and FireTv. One reason I did subscribe to SlingTv is that ESPN somehow does look nicer on it (when it doesn’t lock up) compared to the regular WatchESPN app.
I do see where the FireTv supports up to 60 FPS, but not the Roku3.However, I am positive the format the Tablo stores files can only be played back at 30 FPS on both platforms.
I’ll have to concede the Roku 3 60fps point, I know that I read “somewhere” reputable that the new Roku 3 did 60fps but I can’t find it at this point. I must have misremembered something.
And I don’t argue that Tablo is storing files @ 30fps, my point is that it doesn’t HAVE to be like that. I can’t say that most streaming players support 60fps but the list that does support it is actually pretty impressive. Nexus Player (insert every Android TV Player name here), Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Chrome/Chrome OS (limited by hardware), Firefox (hardware) and on and on and on.
I don’t know what Roku is waiting for, I have 4 Chromecast dongles in the house that all do 1080p 720p @ 60fps just fine, I’m a little surprised that my super new Roku 3 doesn’t.
Chromecast does not support 1080p at 60fps.
Chromecast does not support 1080p at 60fps.
Yep, 1080p @ 60fps isn’t what I meant to say about Chromecast, I intended to say 720p @ 60fps - my fault.
Either way, 720p @ 60fps would still do Tablo a world good. Their PQ would approach what Fox puts out for sports.
It all comes down to compatibility. The Tablo’s recordings right now are compatible among all the platforms. There just isn’t a way to capture and process multiple versions of the same show.
My guess is that the ViXS 5190 SoC can’t do better than what Tablo currently has it doing with regards to fast transcoding of MPEG2 to h264.
With that said, I think ViXS has announced a new chip… so maybe not a problem in a “yet to be released” Tablo (?).