Michael L

19 de diciembre de 2025

It's great! You might not want to believe negative reivews!

I've been recording broadcast TV on my own for years now. Back in the day, before streamers were available, I built my own computer, bought some network tuners, installed and setup (painfully) TV receiving and recording software.Life is so much easier when it comes to TV thanks to Tablo!I'm wondering if the negatives reviews are valid. I think not, actually. Why am I doubtful? Because there's more to watching and recording TV than just hooking up your Tablo.I've had my Tablo for 2 years now and I love it. It's the easiest and most reliable over the air system I've ever had. What's really cool is that I can watch the same shows on all my TVs at the same time. So, only one tuner is actually used when streaming to TVs that are watching the same broadcast. Nice on football Sunday at our house, we have 3 TVs watching the same game at the same time.I've also recommended Tablo to some friends, even set them up at their houses. They've had them for a year now and are also happy with Tablo and now recommend them to their family and friends. That's quite a positive statement, right?It's not completely without issues but none are major.If you have issues with Tablo, before blaming Tablo, heck, even before you buy one, check the following1. Where are you TV broadcast towers located? You can use TV Fool (tvfool.com). You enter your address and it will display a map with tower locations, distance, power output etc. If you are using an indoor antenna you will likely only be able to access the stations with a green background. Note the distance from your house too, the farther way the station is the harder it will be to receive. Also note the direction from your house. If (like me) not al of your towers are in the same direction, you might have issues with some of them even if they are the same distance from your house. If you can, test your antenna at different locations facing the towers2. Run a speed test on your phone from each of your TVs that you want to stream over the air broadcasts to. Run a speed on your phone from windows or areas in your house that have the best "line of sight" to the towers broadcasting to you. Those should be the likely places you'll test reception for your antenna. If any location reads less than 20 megabits per second you'll need to improve your router or add some in key locations in your house. You really want to have ample bandwidth for your TV signal to stream to your TV. It needs quite a bit to stream a 1080i stream from your Tablo to your TV. Each TV in use simultaneosly needs addition bandwidth, so think that 40 mps as a minimum for two TVs that are being watched at the same time.3. Weather. Weather plays a HUGE role in how well TV signals will reach your house. If it's raining, snowing or windy your signal will degrade and cause pixelation,a dropped signal, or a spinning wheel on your TV. Take note of the weather if you have some issues receiving a live stream or a stream that was recorded during inclement weather. We have very windy days where I live and TV isn't great on those days. No issues when the weather isn't windy, raining or snowing. Don't blame Tablo if "sometimes" it doesn't work will and those "sometimes" are on bad weather days. Try an antenna alone in bad weather, if you can test it for a few weeks before hooking up your Tablo you might have some good history to compare with.4. Software glitches or bugs. All software has it. Every once in awhile, you probably need to restart a phone or computer when it goes wonky. Tablo is no different. Restarting your Tablo from time to time will cure issues. I also restart my streaming device (TV or Firestick routinely. I find that they perform better after a restart. So restart both your Tablo and your streaming device when there are issues (every day even better!)Issues -1. From time to time when watching something from my Tablo the screen goes black. Then a few seconds later it comes back on. Then all is well, maybe I should restart more often to avoid this, maybe it can't be avoided. It's weird.2. Sometimes, when launching Tablo, it'll try to continue playing what was last watched. That is, I terminated a viewing while watching a live show. Tablo tries to re-establish that same show in flight but it's gone. You have to select "cancel" to get back to the main menu. It's not intuitive, but that's what I do.3. If I'm watching something live and recordings commence that use all tuners the recordings win and I'm shown a message "No tuner available". I guess that's good so the recordings are made but it's still annoying. I have no solution to offer, actually so I guess I'm just compaining.4. Sync. When watching the same show at the same time on multiple TVs. As much as I like having the same football show on all my TVs at the same time, for whatever reason, they aren't in sync. One will be ahead of another. I can pause the fastest for a few moments until it's pretty much in sync but that's a first world problem that I'm not happy with. Sometimes, there's as much as a 2 second lag between TVs. That doesn't sound like much but it is when there's a touchdown or an interception and people in the other room scream out.5. Tablo customer support - Network password. I had issues getting my Tablo to connect to my network. Tablo's customer support was very bad. They respond via email at 3:00 to 4:00 AM EST. I suppose that means they are on the other side of the world. They aren't knowledgeable. When all their recommendations failed, they wanted me to film myself and send them the video so they could review. That was BS, for sure. I mean, even if I did that my personal email won't send a file that large. And, I was doing all the steps properly so I saw no reason to film myself. I suppose someone would have to film me setting up my Tablo since it is setup from my phone. That's how it works. Anyway, I came to discover that I had an apostrophe in my network password and Tablo won't connect to Wifi if there's an apostrophe. Once I changed my home network password to not include an apostrophe it worked fine. As a former (long time ago) programmer I'm aware of apostrophe issues in strings of characters. All programmmers are, at least all except for the programmers who work at Tablo, apparantly. Anyway, the apostrophe should not have been an issue, it just needed one or two more lines of code to handle it. Tablo support should have been aware of the issue and been able to troubleshoot with a simple question, they didn't. Sorry for the rant, but i purchased an additional Tablo thinking that my unit was defective, then when the 2nd couldn't connect either I purchased a third. Then I figured out the apostrophe issue and returned the 2nd and third unis for full refund. Not good for me, Tablo or Amazon.All in all, it's great unit. If you try one I hope you enjoy it too!Wrap up.I do love my Tablo. It's not plug and play. You'll need to make sure you have adequate Wifi in your house and your antennas in a good spot and can receive stations.Also, even if you have 1 gigabit or more internet speed that's pretty much meaningless when it comes to watching broadcast TV. The only things your Tablo uses the internet for is to get guide data and send back what it is that you're watching. The broadcast comes over the air, not the internet and streaming of shows from Tablo to your TVs is your home router's job. If you've an old slow router get a new one. Your internet provider (Fios, Spectrum, whatever) will likely give you one for free just to keep your business. At least where I live, nobody ever gets a router upgrade without asking.Try it, you just might like it. If it doesn't work for you and you're a Prime customer send it back - no harm, no foul! I think it works for most people and the issues reported by some here just might not be Tablo's issue at all.Ver más

57 personas la encontraron útil

Anachronism

12 de enero de 2026

Poor Programming, Not a Real Upgrade, Just Adds Ad-Bloat

Since the fourth-gen Tablo does not require a pay subscription for the guide (which Tablo gets on-the-cheap from a second-rate service rather than TitanTV or a more reputable company), I upgraded recently, hoping that the connectivity problems I often had with the old Tablo were fixed.Nope. They're worse. For reasons having nothing to do with the over-the-air signal, Tablo sometimes can't connect to my home network. Product support is an utter waste of time - defensive and filled with 1980s-type "suggestions" like "unplug it and wait 30 seconds and maybe it will work better." It doesn't.Worse, the Roku app for the new Tablo is really, really buggy. For something that's been out more than a year now, I think they've just abandoned it. Trying to highlight and click on an entry to record a program is a whimsical adventure. Will you click on the entry in time to actually review what you clicked on, or will the interface suddenly move to the beginning of the list again? Best of luck. You'll love the new "Dismiss" button popping up constantly when the app loses track of even the most simple lists of programs.The new Tablo app has introduced Ad-Bloat. A completely new main screen - which you cannot change - that advertises whatever idiotic streaming show you'd never want to see. So two extra clicks just to get to where you want to go. And one of the additional "features" of the new Tablo is access to a hundred or so streaming channels, just in case you missed Cable Television and the dozens upon dozens of channels that cluttered up your program guide and made channel surfing a thing of the past. In a horrible decision made to squeeze a few more pennies out of advertisers, Tablo will even add one of those stupid bloat-channels to your active guide every now and then.But wait, there's more. In Tablo's rush to "4th" gen (or out of sheer incompetence), you can no longer use a desktop computer to access your Tablo to set it up or manage recordings or the channel guide. Instead, there's an app you have to install. And if you think the Roku app is a buggy pile of failed-first-year-CS-student garbage, wait 'till you have to deal with the Android setup app. Obviously, no one at Tablo has ever actually tried to use it.Watching live TV is frustrating because there's no way to tell this app that you want to watch as close to live as possible. So when the app falters (as it does on a regular basis) and reconnects to the Tablo (I set up an Ethernet connection, just so I wouldn't have to rely on wireless, but that doesn't seem to help), it gets further and further behind. If you try and "fast-forward" repeatedly to try and get it to go to live, you're likely to crash the app. It crashes a lot, though you're probably used to that if you had the old Tablo.You still can't run multiple channel scans to take advantage of having a directional antenna. Obviously, the child who programmed this app lives in a large city where you'd never want a directional antenna.I'm not sure what to do at this point. You get what you pay for. A cheap box with everything made as simple as possible (if you can endure the buggy apps). I could spend a lot more and set up the latest roll-your-own, no doubt, but if Tablo only hired a real programmer and fixed the myriad of problems with their setup and apps and connectivity, it would be a nice setup - worth paying about twice as much.I won't hold my breath.

hjs

17 de abril de 2024

Some minor problems but an good unit

My previous setup for local TV was: outside antenna, Amazon Fire Recast, Mesh Wi-Fi and various Amazon Fire Sticks to connect local signals to my TV(s). The Recast unit never worked well—I had to replaced it once and it was requiring a unit reset once every two weeks or so, and a factory reset every 6 months or so. The main problem was that the transmission was always pausing in the middle of programs (buffeting?)—to the point that it almost impossible to watch. After a reset, the pauses would still continue, but they were at longer intervals and shorter duration. Shortly thereafter, the pauses would grow in duration and with shorter intervals. When the antenna feed was wired directly to a TV, there were no problems with the OTA signal—the TV had no problems with the signal. In the last few months, the unit’s pauses were getting worse and worse, even with resets. Time for a replacement.As Recast units have been discontinued and I wanted to try something different (better) anyway, I purchased a Tablo 4th Generation unit as the replacement. I wired the Tablo unit directly to my Mesh Wi-Fi System. The setup went smoothly and I was watching local TV stations as soon as I loaded the Amazon Tablo TV app on the Fire Stick. After closing the Tablo app and using some other apps on the Fire Stick, the stick was having trouble reconnecting to the Tablo unit. A forced stop of the Tablo app, and the other apps I was using, corrected the connection problem and the Tablo unit was back to working normally. These problems seemed to be related to the Fire Stick app rather than the Tablo unit (Was the Fire Stick not closing the apps properly?). I am getting pauses, but they are fewer and of shorter duration (a few seconds) then I was having with the Recast unit (see below).To address these problems, I decided to try another streaming unit: Roku Express 4K. So far, this streaming unit has worked very well with the Tablo unit (no connection problems). The Tablo app does take some time to load (it seems to update the live TV schedule most every time it starts). I have had some short-duration pauses in the transmission (black screen) on some OTA stations. I did find a web article that gives some suggestions on correcting and/or reducing these pauses (Change Buffering Problems), but all of these suggestions are not available on the unit. Looking for other suggestions.Having used the Recast unit for several years, becoming familiar with the use of the Tablo unit will take a lot of time. Differences I have noted: The guide screen for live stations seems to be cumbersome to me. In particular, the guide does not start at the last station used. Rather the guide always starts at the top of the list—a lot of button pushing to go down the list. And, choosing a program requires going through a secondary menu. The order of stations listed in the guide cannot be arranged to move the most watched stations to the top of the list. Also, the control of the various parameters within an app is limited.Succinctly, operational parameters and interface personalization are limited when compared to Recast, but these are not a deal breaker.The biggest problem with the Tablo unit is that it does not come with a comprehensive guide. All you get is a ‘Quick Start Guide.’ I have had to search the Tablo site and the web to get even the simplest questions answered-- as what are the functions of the various buttons on streaming unit’s remote when using the Tablo app?Most of the problems with the Tablo TV/Roku Express combo are relatively minor, but the buffering problem (black screens) is very annoying. All things considered; the Tablo 4th Generation unit is significantly better than a Recast unit. I plan to continue to use it. And, hopefully, firmware updates will address (fix) the buffering problem.

Bob

21 de diciembre de 2025

Game changer for cord cutters

I have several Roku TV's around my house. Currently subscribed to streaming services, but I'm done with paying $100+/mo for that. The recent Youtube TV / ESPN squabble did it for me - I was done. All I really need is ESPN and local OTA networks channels. Ordered an indoor/outdoor Clearstream 2Max antenna and and some RG6 coax cable to get the best reception and this Tablo to wirelessly connect all the TV's to it. The 2Max Antenna hasn't arrived yet, so in the meantime I connected it to a very cheap flat antenna I had laying around just to try it - SUCCESS! The Tablo works as advertised and even better. The Tablo apparently has a signal booster in it because I receive many more and much clearer than without it. Only missing one high VHF local channel with it now. I'm sure the 2Max will soon help with that.The Tablo looks like a high quality device. It did, however, take me a little while to set it up, but it very intuitively walks you through all the steps. It got hung up on one step, so I had to reset the Tablo and try again to complete the setup. Downloaded the Tablo app to my Roku TV's and it works fine! The streaming channels look like any other channel on the Roku. I've also tested it on my phone and tablet, and on my PC with the Bluestacks android emulator. It works perfectly on all of them.I've set up some recordings and we'll see how that goes.Coupled to a quality antenna this Tablo will allow me to cut the cord on YoutubeTV and will save over $70/mo.UPDATE: Clearstream 2Max antenna came in. I positioned it in the window just below where the old flat panel antenna. Perfect combination! The 2Max got a few more channels AND the lone remaining network channel that was on High VHF that was very difficult to receive. Tried it with and without the amplification feature in the Tablo. Amplification helped with the problematic high VHF network station, so I left it on. So, all is good with reception. The OTA and internet supplied channels with the Tablo totaled 218 channels.I tried the DVR function of the Tablo by watching one of my scheduled recordings and it was perfect. Quality was the same as watching a live station. Very happy.Ver más

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JimE

11 de febrero de 2026

Mine was glitchy

Had high hopes for this technology, being able to run my roof antenna to all my TVs and lose the Leafs on the others got my ears up!Initially works great of roof antenna. Resolution was excellent. Found all my Stations and more!Easy to add Tablo channel to ROKU…What I didn’t like was the buffering to start a channel compared to OTA. Then I started noticing a slight delay in audio. a bit annoying But I was willing to keep it. Then I turned it on the next day and had no channel guide. I tried to force a channel guide update which was painfully slow. Like 3 minutes. Went back to Channel GUIDE and still not showing up. Tried it twice.I’m sure if I turned off the Tablo with a hard set it would probably fix it. But the issues out weighed the convenience at this point and the price was a bit steep. so sorry to say back in the boxVer más

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Amazon Customer

11 de diciembre de 2023

Changed my TV Experience....In a GOOD Way!!

I've been watching OTA programs for a while now, but being able to record and watch programs later is a game-changer for OTA TV watchers... I love it, and I use it constantly.. I added a 3TB hard drive, but it'll host up to an 8TB drive.. That said, there are a couple of things to know going into it, good and less-than-good...1 - It doesn't improve your antenna reception... It doesn't claim to, but just don't think that it will...If you have issues with some channels that drop out, or have pixelation issues at times, you're going to have problems recording that.. And you might find nothing recorded.. Your reception doesn't have to be 100% at all times, but you'll be more satisfied if you record only your strong-reception channels..2 - The Tablo will stop and want to set-up itself (again) up from time to time, even though it's already set up.. Doesn't really hurt anything, but it's annoying when it happens.. Usually solved by hitting the very small (tiny) "Reset" button on the bottom of the unit, but it'll interrupt any recordings (for a minute) going on at the time..3 - Sometimes it seems to bog down a bit if I overwhelm it with navigating the remote quickly... It's probably a little light on processor speed, but, it usually works fine as long as you don't go too fast...4 - It has two tuners, so two OTA recordings at a time is all it's going to do.. BUT, it will also record (actually not recording but Tablo is saving them for you) two of the "extra" internet channels the Tablo brings to the table as well.. So it'll do a lot..5 - I've also used a splitter from my OTA antenna, so one output goes to the Tablo, and the second output goes to the Ant input directly on the back of the TV.. So, it can record 2 OTA channels plus + 2 internet recordings at once, AND I can watch another OTA channel (have to change the Input Source on the TV to Antenna) while the Tablo runs independently recording the other 4 channels...So it's pretty amazing...6 - For some reason, it has difficulty letting you watch a recording at the same time that it is still recording that same program.. Simply, if you plan to start watching a movie 30 minutes after it started, you may or may not have success doing that... Maybe a processor capability issue, maybe a software issue, not really sure.. But it can be annoying if that's important to you..So, all that said, it's got a few slightly annoying quirks, but it's an incredible unit overall, and I'm glad I bought it.. I use it every day, and would recommend it to anyone that could use that capability...I would definitely buy it again, and the best part is, you only have to buy it once, for less than I used to spend on cable in a month... I have seen that Tablo is soon coming out with a 4-tuner version of this, which would certainly solve some "recording conflict" issues.. That would make this even better, but otherwise, I'm very pleased with what this does...UPDATE: I adjusted my antenna configuration a bit since I wrote my original comments, and now I get a more solid and reliable OTA signal coming into the Tablo unit... And now it works even more reliably.. So just wanted to reiterate, if you have solid reception from your antenna, you're probably gonna love using your Tablo.. But if you have a marginal signal, with some drop-outs, you'll probably just be underwhelmed with the unit.. I love it...UPDATE #2 - Program Storage - Learn from my mistake - Do yourself a favor and only use the Tablo-recommended hard drives. If you've got buffering issues, or trouble with longer (sports or long movies) recordings playing-back reliably, the correct hard drive really helps..And make sure it's bigger than you think you'll need.. BECAUSE, if you realize down the road that you need a larger drive, you're going to lose access to your programs on your old drive.. As of now, there's no going back.. You are basically starting over any time you install a different drive. I'm now using a 5TB WD Elements (external 2.5" USB-powered only) hard drive.. Playback is much more reliable now...

Matthew M. Hogan

19 de septiembre de 2024

great idea - horrible execution

The idea of a modern equivalent to the tivo is great. And if this product did what it advertises, it would be amazing. It does not, and it just kinda sucks.Before I get into specifics, let me note I live in an area with very strong OTA TV signal, and have an excellent antenna that has worked flawlessly with my prior TV. My new TV does not feature OTA live TV pause, hence buying the Tablo. I also have fiber intent with MESH WiFi.Installation should be pretty straightforward...but it is not. I spent nearly two hours staring at constant error messages. The setup is through your phone, and when it cannot find the Tablo, or it stops responding, you start over. This was incredibly frustrating. Again note I have an excellent internet and WiFi.Once installed, the problems did not stop. To use on your TV you must use an app, there is no direct plug to the TV etc. I think if there were it would get rid of 90% of the problems. The app for Fire TV is incredibly slow. It often will not load at all. It takes more than 60 seconds to load, then at least that much time more to get info. App loading speeds have nothing to do with connection, it is just a really large clunky app. Once loaded I often get error messages. These just randomly pop up and the app has to reload.App usage is extremely poor. It is extremely slow to respond. Often fails and the system just reboots. While watching life tV it will briefly display an error message before rebooting. It has also failed during recording multiple times.My primary desire was to pause life TV. When you hit pause it takes 5-10 seconds to pause. that brief period is not recorded and is lost. you can rewind, though it will only rewind in preset increments, again needing 5-10 seconds to rewind an equal amount time. The net result is that to go back and watch the previous play in your game takes roughly a minute, and you will lose what happens in that minute on live tv. You are stuck with a display bar of where you are until you get back to live tv, which will take another 5-10 seconds to load or simply cause the device to reboot.Unfortunatley this device fails at every possible level. It does not do anything it promises well, or sometimes at all.Ver más

Christian G. Heilman

8 de febrero de 2024

After 1.5 Years, Dumping Tablo Because It Just Doesn't Work Reliably

8/11/25 Update - Two Stars - I'm done with Tablo. I've really tried. The bugs have only gotten worse. The last straw was an "update" that provided better guide data that riddled my guide with blank spots so I couldn't record lots of the shows I wanted. I reached out to support only for them to say they won't troubleshoot missing guide data.On top of that, all of Tablo's servers went out later that week, so I couldn't use my Tablo for days with vague updates from support and promise after promise with no real resolution.Looking back, I think I spent more time trying to watch TV than actually watching TV, so I got rid of it and bought an HDHomeRun. I'm a couple days into it and, while the interface is a little bit older, it consistently works and the software runs faster, which is more than I can ever say for Tablo.***12/14/24 Update - Now Three Stars: I stopped using the Tablo for a couple months this fall because I was frustrated at its bugginess. After picking it back up in November, I was pleasantly surprised to see some incremental improvements. Namely, the number of times the Tablo would buffer has cut down dramatically (and I haven’t done anything with my mesh WiFi network). Thank you, Tablo.I also picked up a new antenna that gives even steadier signal. I will say that the Tablo does NOT do well if your signal has much of any interference. If there is even a momentary blip in signal, the Tablo will call it a failed recording and there is no way to restart the recording.Is it getting better? Yes. Would I recommend it for someone who is not technically inclined? Still no. There re still too many bugs. But the dev team seems to be working on it still, and maybe it will be better a year from now.***5/31/24 Update: After four months of owning the Tablo, I'd like to be able to recommend it, but can't. This device is like paying to beta test a product that's too buggy to actually rely on and use.Recordings will fail for no apparent reason. Other times, I'll select a channel to watch live, and the Tablo will say "Playback failed." I click retry once, the signal comes up perfectly. It's not the signal at fault there - it's the Tablo.When it works, it's great. We'll have stretches where we can watch for an hour or two with no issues and perfectly clear picture. Other times, we'll get non-stop buffering and it's unwatchable. We use a WiFi 6 Mesh network that reaches every crevice of our house.My wife and I don't record anything we really want to watch (i.e. primetime shows we follow) because recording fails too often. And doesn't that defeat the point of buying it?***It looks like a lot of negative reviews are from people who don't understand what the Tablo is. As someone who has been a Recast user since 2018, I wanted to write a review for those who are looking for an alternative.For background, we gave up on the Recast after Amazon announced it was going to stop supporting the device, and it became increasingly buggy. Picture quality became awful (think 480p YouTube quality at best), and we couldn't stand all the ads on Fire TV devices.The Tablo is relatively easy to set up. Was it a little buggy? Yes. I started the initial setup on my iPad, but got stuck on a step, so I had to install the app on my phone to finish. But it worked, and I finally got all the TV channels I originally got with my recast.Picture quality is fantastic. I'm finally getting a steady HD picture. Very little buffering using the Tablo's Wifi connection, especially in comparison to the Recast.DVR features are there, too. But yes, I have had some strange experiences, where I close out of the app on a TV, come back a day later, and Tablo tries to pick up where it left off. Once I fully close the app and go back in, it works like it should. There are other strange bugs here and there, but the basic functions generally work.For those who are accustomed to the quirks of these types of devices (none are perfect), the Tablo is a great alternative. Would I suggest my parents use this device? No. Not yet. There are still too many bugs to make it a perfectly simple option, but it's stable enough for the semi-technologically inclined to use it.I'm optimistic though. With continued development, this is going to be a great device. And I'm forever thankful I can finally use Rokus in my house to watch OTA TV.