Being a long-time Tivo user, I wanted to try out the new Tablo DVR and see if I may want to switch to it from Tivo. I had looked at Tablo DVRs previously but had never bought one due to the fact that Tablo seemed to “nickel and dime” you to death if you purchased one of their DVRs. They would charge you a certain price for the DVR, then you had to purchase a hard drive for the DVR to store your recordings on. After that you had to pay a monthly, yearly or lifetime subscription fee for the guide to be able to use the DVR and on top of that, if you wanted commercial skip, that was yet another fee. It got pretty expensive by the time you were through! So, kudos to Tablo/Nuvyyo for coming out with this new DVR and a new business model that does away with all the extra fees and is much more consumer-friendly. You just pay for the DVR and you’re done. Great! So after using this new Tablo for a couple weeks, here are my thoughts about it. Setup was pretty straightforward. I created my account online and went through the setup process on the device. It hung up at one point so I had to restart it and then the process completed without any further issues. Here are my pros and cons about the device: Pros: Device size is very compact - about 5” round. So it will fit in most any size cabinet or table where space is limited. DVR can be accessed on anything and anywhere in the house that supports the Tablo app - smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, Roku etc. without needing another device. The program guide is included for free - no monthly or annual charge. There are over 40 free streaming channels included that can be recorded from. Programs can be listed by genre and channel. Channel setup in settings lists channel signal strength on all channels at the same time as a string of 1-4 dots with color coding. When fast forwarding or rewinding through a recorded program, the UI will display thumbnails of the scenes. Cons: Because no remote is included with device, navigating the interface takes more keystrokes than a Tivo which has many dedicated buttons to access features instantly. At the time of this writing, the channel guide has only 6 days listings vs. 14 for Tivo. There’s a delay of several seconds when accessing another day’s listings for the guide to refresh. There is a several-second delay when tuning in to any channel. There are no channel up and down buttons for surfing channels. Instead, you have to arrow down to get a horizontal row with thumbnails of shows currently airing from which you can choose one of those shows. However, this is only available in the Android TV app, not the Android mobile app or the Roku app. On those you have to exit the program and go back to the guide to choose another program. Program descriptions are often very minimal. For example, no actors for a given show or movie are listed in the description. Original air date only shows when you are in the guide and click on the show. It then shows in the pop-up display box. It does not show for recorded shows. If you leave the Tablo app to go to another app and then come back, the Tablo app will often start over again like you’re running it for the first time rather than go back to the place you were at when leaving the app. When scrolling through the channel guide, if the cursor is positioned in the channels column, the thumbnail and program description will not update as you’re scrolling down or up the guide. On the Android TV app, the thumbnail and description disappear. In the Roku app they stay to whatever thumbnaiil and program description were last displayed. There is no option to restart a recorded program when playing it back if you’ve watched part of it already. However, a program can be rewound pretty quickly to return to the beginning. The included amount of storage - 128GB, may not be enough for someone who records a lot of programs. For that person, they will need to buy an external USB hard drive or SSD to increase recording capacity. The DVR has 2 tuners vs. 4 tuners on some other DVR products which may be a deal-breaker for some users, depending again on how many programs you plan to record with it. Overall, in spite of some of these cons which may or may not be important to the individual user, I think this is an excellent DVR solution, especially if you don’t currently own any type of DVR. I’m not aware of another stand-alone DVR solution that you can purchase at this price point.

It seems to heat up and at the end of the game buffer ever 60 seconds. I have done all the trouble shooting... Too late to return but can not finish any games. No help from. Don't buy.... Big waste of money Who ever filed the class action lawsuit.... Include me Update.... Another great game ruined. 2 minutes left in overtime. 20 minutes later no idea who won because tablo won't replay it and kepts buffering in the game. I requested a refund though tablo. I will update how there customer service is when it's done. Update one. When you email customer service you get an email back saying because of high volumes responses are delayed 2 to 3 days. Apparently everyone needs support because it doesn't work. Additional update... It took them a week to reply and they tried to blame it on my equipment. They said I need to use a Western digital hard drive. Ironically I use a western digital hard drive, which I spend an additional $100 on. If you read there forum you will see The buffering issue is not a small issue by a few customers it's actually very widespread. Even at that.... the picture I provided if from live tv. Buffering is just as bad. It is not the hard drive. I would definitely not recommend this product until they work out the bugs. Update again. 2 weeks later customer service replied with a blank email. If you have issues the support is terrible. I was reading over the table forum and customer support was getting after customers for talking badly about their lack of support. I just want to do it do a final update, the support for tableau does not exist. They sent me through various troubleshooting guides including spending more money to relocate my router, buy a new hard drive, and additional cables to hardwire the tableau to the router. We rebooted the tablo and everything else they they could suggest. And ironically once we've tried everything they could think of, they literally started to over by telling me to reposition the router. When I told them that we've already been through all those troubleshooting steps, they sent me an email that they were going to send it to support. At this point I was rather frustrated until then I would just rather them send back my money, or a replacement unit. It's been months with no reply. I bought this for the NBA season, which ended last week It has been a nightmare for almost a year. I would highly recommend find a different solution

I am using a Fire TV Cube and it is connected by a ethernet cable. The Tablo (4th Generation) Over-the-Air [OTA] DVR it is connected by a ethernet cable. I have antenna that is a bowtie configuration with 4 elements (4 bowtie) and 40 foot RG6 cable. The TV towers are 35 miles from my location.(line of site) In this review I have left the In-Line Antenna Amplifier Inside Tablo on. In the Tablo (4th Generation) the In-Line Antenna Amplifier is set to on poisition by default. Having a In-Line Antenna Amplifier inside Tablo makes connections a hole lot easier , and can save money, But if your RG6 cable length is 100 feet or more then you will need a pre-amp to overcome the cable loss. In that case you will need to turn off the In-Line Antenna Amplifier inside Tablo (4th Generation). So if you buy an antenna with a pre-amp you will have to turn off the Tablo (4th Generation) In-Line Antenna Amplifier. If you line very close to your local broadcast TV towers you will need to turn off the In-Line Antenna Amplifier inside the Tablo (4th Generation). • How to turn off the In-Line Antenna Amplifier. Go to General Options, Antenna Amplification The 4th Generation Tablo image quality is clean and Sharpe as compared to Tablo Dual LITE [TDNS2B-02-CN] . When changing a channel it does take a few millisecond to display the new station. The setup was easy to do using the Tablo Tv App. Doing the setup you will be ask to scan for channels, on the right side you will see green or light orange or red dots this will indicate the signal level you are receiving . And I update the firmware on the 4th Generation Tablo during the installing process and It did take some time to do this. The 4th Generation Tablo does include free streaming channels. For me having this include in the 4th Generation Tablo is a good thing to have. The menu system is nice a very well load out. Their channel guide did not correctly assign one channel, unlike my AirTV2 or my SiliconDust HDHomeRun Model: HDHR5-4US. Which correctly assign all the channels . The menu system is nice when you just want to change channels you position the curse over to the left. If you want to record you place the cruse over the description and another menu comes up, Nice!!! Also this is a Two turner unit. Which means two people can watch two different channels. And this 4th Generation Tablo is a ATSC 1.0 and not the new ATSC 3.0, The ATSC 1.0 standard will be around for some time June 2027, so you are not wasting your money. I connected a usb drive to the usb port of the Tablo (4th Generation) a 250Gig drive that was used by my old Tablo Dual LITE [TDNS2B-02-CN]. The Tablo (4th Generation) went into some kind of strange behavior. I could not selected any of my local channels and the screen not would displayed that channel . When I removed the usb drive from the Tablo (4th Generation),my local channels came back. I reformatted the drive to a NTFS. Then went in to the Tablo (4th Generation) menu and saw the drive need to be formatted, I do so, and the Tablo (4th Generation) was back to its normal self. Lesson: you can not use a drive that was used by an older Tablo uint. With an external drive connected to Tablo (4th Generation when you selected a channel the external drive light indicator would blink on and off and a black screen be on the TV. I unplugged the external drive and unplugged the power to Tablo (4th Generation. And plug the power back into the unit and then selected a channel then the channel was display on the TV as normal. Some thing is going on with a external drive. Please check out your location form the information below. This will help you elected the correct antenna for your specific location. DTV Reception Maps by the FCC or ReceptionMaps.com to fine the TV stations near you location, Conclusion : The 4th Generation Tablo makes a much simple and easier to connected to One Antenna ,one RG6 cable. And now every TV in the houses can view local TV channels. The 4th Generation Tablo is a huge improvement over the older units. Having the In-Line Antenna Amplifier on did help with my TV reception , in my location. If your are going to buy this Tablo (4th Generation stick with the internal storage for now. It looks like Tablo needs a some improvement in the firmware. Overall it did work . UPDATE 4-3-24, The uint has been thru serval OS updates and 3 times I had to unplug the power cord to get the uint to work. and other time I went to watch my Local TV all I got was the blue cycle, and no TV, Until I have to pull the plug and plug it in again the unit began to work. I think that the OS need a bit more work .

I owned the prior gen Tablo and used it for several years. It worked, with significant issues. I wanted the 4th gen months ago, but there was no Tablo app for my 2023 Samsung TV until recently. This tuner does not work with the legacy Tablo app that I had on my phone and computer. You must have the current Tablo app for this to work. Along those lines, that app is not currently available for Windows or Mac, as was the case with the legacy app. The 4th gen setup and initial settings run through the phone app. You can control it via the phone or TV app once it's fully installed. The 4th gen version is better than the prior one. First, the prior version refused to work via Wi-Fi. It had to be connected to my router via ethernet. That meant the tuner had to be near the router, which is the basement in my case. That was not ideal because, unless I wanted to punch a hole in the wall and attach an antenna to the side of the house, the antenna had to also be in the basement. Since the 4th gen connects via Wi-Fi with no issues, I placed the tuner and antenna upstairs. As a result, the signal from the antenna is significantly better than it was before. I suspect some, perhaps many, of the problems users have with the Tablo tuners are caused by antenna placement and a weak signal. Another nice feature of the 4th gen is the free guide. I paid $5.95/month or something like that with the old tuner. No more of that. There's also 50 hours of onboard storage, an improvement over the prior version. The picture quality is comparable to what I get on YouTube TV, at least on the local network affiliates. It can be a mixed bag on some of the other channels, some of which can be pretty sketchy. By far the most annoying issues you will experience are well-documented. When accessing live or recorded programs, the device is painfully slow. When I go to the Library to watch a program that is still recording, there's no way to start from the beginning. When I choose Watch Episode, it goes to the live feed. I have to rewind to the beginning. Fast forwarding and rewinding within a recorded or live program is totally wonky. There are other similar issues, mostly related smoothness of operation. I think the app is buggy. Sometimes it freezes for minutes or longer. I've deleted and reinstalled it several times. I also suspect the tuner firmware needs refinement. I can't imagine using the Tablo tuner for all of my TV (I subscribe to YouTube TV for about half the year). Tablo has a bunch of wonky issues that are annoying and frustrating. However, it does it's job reasonably well as long as you're patient enough to accept a painfully slow interface and occasional technical issues.

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...

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.

TLDR: I needed a new OTA DVR solution and this worked out better than I hoped. There were a couple of issues the first day of setting up, but the product has been working great for over a couple of weeks since. More detail: Of course the family needs a new DVR during the transitions between ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0. At the time of writing this, there are no really good ATSC 3.0 DVR options out there. I say that with the perspective that no one should have to pay a subscription/service fee for the privilege of using a OTA DVR. Ever. There are quite a few negative reviews out there, which made me hesitant to consider picking one of these up; however, at the price point that Tablo is selling this two tuner ATSC 1.0 DVR, I just had to try it out. Pros: 1.) Installation options for this are fantastic. I use an amplified indoor antenna (separate product that I should review at some point) and the combination of that plus this being a “headless” WIFI enabled device made picking an optimum location in my home a breeze. No need for getting on my roof to install an antenna, and no issues of figuring out how to get this device into my entertainment stand or audio rack. All my HDMI ports are full on my main TV, so not having to worry about adding an addition HDMI switch there was great too. 2.) The dual tuner works well, and the pictures I receive are crystal clear. I can watch one station while recording another and neither suffer degradation. 3.) Being able to watch OTA channels and recordings anywhere in the house without having to run coax, splitters and the potential of additional amplifiers is fantastic. The flexibility of seamlessly moving from one screen to another in the house is great too. I use this setup with Roku, Google TV, and iOS devices. 4.) The UI of the app is clean and consistent, no matter which platform version of the app you are using. Finding content is easy, and scheduling recordings follow pretty much the same workflows I’ve seen using other DVR solutions in the past. 5.) I have not run into the dreaded “buffering” problem that other reviewers have experienced. Periodically my GoogleTV app will report that it is having problems connecting to my Tablo when I start the app. I just select “Disconnect” from the bottom of the screen, and it automatically reconnects and runs just fine from there. 6.) No service fees. Just buy the device and it functions as it should. Cons: 1.) You’re going to need reasonable WIFI in order to enjoy this product to the fullest. If your network topology is not setup correctly, you will run into issues. The classic “buffering” problem being one of them. 2.) As stated before, periodically the app will have difficulty connecting to the Tablo, I’ve only seen this behavior with the GoogleTV version of the app, but the workaround is simple in this case: just select the “Disconnect” option from the bottom of the screen and it reconnects just fine. 3.) I installed the product late morning and it worked great for hours with my iPhone and GoogleTV. I periodically tested it out through the day (tuning into shows and setting recordings) and it worked fine. Later that night, scheduling a recording off the guide on my GoogleTV stopped working. Even worse: I could not even select a show to watch off the guide on my iPhone. The only way I could tune a station from the guide on my iPhone was to select the station name on the far left side of the guide. I tried reseting the app multiple times, and various other trouble shooting steps without success. As I was going to bed, I tried my Roku in my bedroom. It worked fine. I woke up the next morning to find all my devices (Roku, GoogleTV, and iPhone) were working just fine. It’s been well over a couple of weeks, and I have never seen this issue again. I’ve never reset or power cycled the Tablo box, so I’m at a loss as to the root of the problem. I can only surmise that there was a corruption of the guide data for whatever reason, but it sorted itself out as it continued to update guide data. Summary: This product design is fantastic. There is always a gamble when your main interface is WIFI only; however, it works very well even on my heavily loaded home network. The only downside is that it does not have an ATSC 3.0 tuner. My hope is that over the next couple of years Tablo will update this product with a compatible tuner and not change anything else. If they do, I will purchase a upgrade and fully recommend one for friends and family who could use one as well.

I've found this 4th generation Tablo to work quite well. Having been on satellite TV service for years and grown accustomed to DVR capabilities, I wanted to get something that would provide the ability to record and playback over the air (OTA) TV programs. This thing definitely fills the need, and playback works even if I'm viewing something that's being recorded at the same time, contrary to what I've read in some reviews. The online guide is spot on from what I've seen so far, and the ability to tailor it to eliminate duplicate channels is nice. Setting it up to record, either one episode or an entire series, is a piece of cake, and it's easy to see what's scheduled for recording by simply looking at the guide. For such a small package at a reasonable price, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised! With all that being said, I have to address some of the setup issues I encountered. First of all, don't try to set up Tablo using a tablet that does not have mobile data capability. At least, I think that was the root cause of my problems. I later learned that when the device being used for setup is connected to the Tablo with a temporary network, it switches to a mobile connection. My tablet would hang up at that point, presumably because it cannot obtain a connection. I called Tablo Support for assistance, and after being on hold for 10 minutes, I decided to download the app and try set up with my phone. Before I could get anybody to answer, I had successfully downloaded and installed the app, went through the entire setup process, and saw the Tablo had begun downloading the first day's program guide. So, after about 30 minutes of being on hold, I terminated the call to Support and let the Tablo do its thing. After it finished downloading the guide, I was able to view OTA TV and schedule a couple of programs to record. I also went out to my game room, located in a separate metal-clad building, and (as best as I can remember) viewed OTA TV there through the Tablo. I should have left well enough alone... I decided to move the Tablo from my house TV to my game room TV. (My outdoor antenna is installed on the same mount as my satellite TV dish was located, and the coaxial cables running to each of my two TVs are connected via a splitter at the antenna. That was the easiest way to switch over from satellite to OTA service for the two TVs.) I hoped to simply disconnect the Tablo from the house TV cable, move it to the game room and connect it to the coaxial cable there, but no luck. I believe the reason it wouldn't work is because my house TV is connected to my primary network, and my game room TV is connected to a mesh network that I had to install in order to get the Wi-Fi signal inside the metal clad building. So, now I needed to go through the setup process again. Along the way, I saw instructions that I'd need to reboot the Tablo. My assumption had been that disconnecting power and connecting it to power in the game room would result in a reboot, but apparently not. The instructions mentioned a reset button on the bottom of the Tablo and, without doing any research, I pressed the button down and held it for about 10 seconds. I later learned a reboot happens with a quick press and release of the reset button. What I did was a factory reset, which blew away my scanned channels and scheduled recordings; no big deal. As I continued the setup, I got to the point where I had to enter the Wi-Fi password for my mesh network. When I did, I got an "Unknown Error" screen that suggested I retry. I did, with the same result. After trying a few more times and double checking my network password was correct, I called Tablo Support. This was the point that I realized I was on mobile service, as my Wi-Fi connection was to a temporary network created during the setup process. Knowing that I'm in a metal-clad building where I get poor cell service, I moved near an exterior window to get my best possible signal and placed the call. I don't recall how long it took before I got an answer, but I do know the entire call lasted 19 minutes before I lost the connection. To the support person's credit, he later sent me an email with suggestions on how to proceed that included steps for uninstalling and reinstalling the app (really?) and doing a factory reset, all of which I did. He also provided a link that I hoped would be a custom solution to my "Unknown Error" issue, but it turned out to be a video that explains how to do a Wi-Fi setup on an Android device. That's exactly what I had been doing when I encountered the "Unknown Error" screen. Needless to say, it didn't resolve the problem, nor did the suggestions in subsequent emails. I could tell from the suggestions that this support person is following an internally developed troubleshooting program that doesn't apparently have anything to explain the "Unknown Error" cause and solution. Without going into more mundane details about the various troubleshooting efforts I tried, I was finally able to get the Tablo connected to my network by using an Ethernet cable between the Tablo and one of my mesh network routers. That was my solution, not something recommended by Tablo Support. Now that I've been able to get the Tablo to work and have seen how well it supports my needs, I'm happy. I do, though, have to take off one star for its inability to connect wirelessly to my network and Tablo Support's lack of solution to this setup issue.

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.

If you are using an antenna for over-the-air (OTA) TV signals, this is a great must-have for owners of Roku, AppleTV and FireTV. It allows a single device to connect to your antenna and send that signal to any streaming device in the house. The 4th Gen device adds several free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels to the mix, including a couple news channels, numerous general interest channels, and other channels that may be of interest. The device will handle the viewing of 2 different channels simultaneously, and allows basic recording of shows that you might otherwise miss on their airing time. So single antenna, one device, multiple streaming TVs. You can also expand recording storage by adding a portable hard drive. 1TB = 250 hours of recordings. The guide also now contains highlights that are based on "what's showing now" when the app is launched, which is nice to know for suggested viewing. The 4th Gen also includes WiFi connectivity, so that's a major improvement over the prior generation device. No more tethering to your router, which could be an issue for many. Now for the criticisms (or "Why 4 stars and not 5"): The guide is clunkier than the 3rd generation device, so you can no longer go back to the program guide without leaving your current channel. It's also not the most intuitive interface to get to recordings or the channel guide. Also, I've had some concerns about support and fixes which have taken over 6 months to correct the close-caption problems on Roku. Recent app updates have finally corrected this. Also, there have been some issues with recordings from prior devices being viewable on the new device. This only affects you if you upgraded from an earlier device (I did) to the 4th Gen. Bottom-line: It's not perfect, and the response to issues is slower than I might like, and they don't appear to perform thorough testing. But it fills a major hole for those who want to stream, want their local channels and digital sub channels, and would like to attach to a central antenna. Despite some flaws, it's been a very solid performer and very useful for antenna-based viewing. And there is an app for the major streaming devices. For those reasons, it's really worth having.