Tablo 4th gen review: making free TV as easy as can be

Long before internet-based video, long before satellite and even cable, the only way to watch TV was to do so over the air. Your TV would have an antenna sticking out the top of it. That antenna would receive broadcasts flying through the air and then show them on the screen.

In that sense, things haven’t really changed all that much all these decades later. The broadcast networks — think ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in the U.S. — still shoot out shows over the air and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, under the auspices of the federal government (the same goes for radio, since basically all we’re talking about is radio signals). If you buy a new television today, you’ll find that it still has a “tuner” built into it that allows you to scan for over-the-air channels and watch them as you’d watch anything else.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I’ve had over-the-air TV available for years. I mostly have used it as a backup in case my streaming service has issues, or if I just want to see if the OTA signal is of better quality than streaming.

This new generation of Tablo differs from the old one in a lot of ways. Biggest is that built-in storage is now standard. It was an option before, but now it’s table stakes, which is the way it should be because it makes recording dead simple.

The other major difference is that there no longer are any added fees or subscriptions for additional feature or TV guide data. That used to be a thing, and I’m glad to see it gone. It felt like I was being pressured (or at least nickeled-and-dimed) into paying for more than I wanted — 24 hours of free data was more than OK — and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

And because the older Tablo devices were transcoding the video format on the fly, it led to a much slower live experience, where channel flipping was painful. The fourth-gen Tablo does MPEG2 natively, so things are nice and speedy this time around. No complaints of lag from my end.

I hesitate to even mention any of that in case you’re completely new to Tablo. Dragging up the bad old days doesn’t do anyone any favors. But it’s definitely worth a mention if you’ve experienced Tablo in the past and were curious about giving it another go. Things are night-and-day different now, and for the better.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the app experience. It’s not perfect in that there’s still a lot going on, but I’m pretty comfortable in saying that Tablo has one of the nicest live guides I’ve used in any streaming product, especially when it’s on a TV and not just a phone or tablet — though it’s very good on both. While it doesn’t necessarily conform to the UI of whatever platform it’s on (spare me your indignation, purists), it’s really well done. It’s busy, perhaps, but still very readable, and I’ve had zero lag in the scrolling and animations.

And that’s important because of everything else that comes next. Because the guide is so navigable, it’s extremely easy to figure out where to find live channels, and where to drill down to specific shows or recordings. It’s very self-explanatory, especially if you take my advice and pare back the number of channels you leave visible.

Show listings are nicely done, too, not that you’re going to spend a lot of time looking at them. But that only stresses the importance of a good at-a-glance-experience.

Recording shows is simple — just tell it to record. This is another time when it’s worth flipping through the settings, because there’s an option to extend recordings beyond their scheduled length. That’s important for things like sports. And playing back recorded programs was entirely intuitive, and speedy enough, with playback beginning within 5 seconds.

We mentioned previously that a second version of the fourth-generation Tablo would be available with four tuners in early December. It’s at least worth thinking about before you buy because the number of tuners on board dictates what all you’re able to do.

Two tuners means you can watch two shows on two devices at the same time. Or watch one show while recording another. If you think you’ll ever need more than that, you’ll want to go for four tuners. There’s a $40 difference between the two (when not discounted). Whether that’s worth it is your call.

At the risk of leading us all down a pretty serious rabbit hole, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that we’re talking about ATSC 1.0 in all of this. Without getting too far into the weeds, that’s a broadcast standard that allows for video at 1080p/1080i. And theoretically, it’s on the way out, to be replaced by ATSC 3.0, or Next Gen TV. Among other things, Next Gen TV allows for 4K resolution, along with support for HDR and Dolby Amos audio.

To put it simply, Next Gen TV has been a bit of a debacle. While it is actually available in a number of cities, ATSC 1.0 is going to be available until at least July 17, 2027. And it wouldn’t surprise us to see that date extended further given that most televisions being shipped today don’t include an ATSC 3.0 tuner. Complicating that even further is that Nuvyyo, the maker of Tablo, is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, which operates a bunch of broadcast stations and some networks. So you’d think that if Next Gen TV was a huge priority, we’d see it in this fourth-generation Tablo.

It’s a mess, and Tablo isn’t yet taking part in that mess. At least not yet. A PR rep told us that work on the fourth-gen Tablo began “at a time when key portions of the ATSC 3.0 standard with respect to recording and playback of DRM programs were still undefined,” and that the cost of ATSC 3.0 components also was a factor. The rep also said that “we are still actively working towards a product that is fully compliant with all ATSC 3.0 requirements through our participation in standards groups and within our labs.”

If you just have to have a product like this with ATSC 3.0, you’ll need to snag a much more expensive HDHomeRun Flex 4K. The same goes for if you want to get your local OTA TV while you’re away from home.

We mentioned at the top that the fourth-generation Tablo, at the time of this review, doesn’t work with a number of devices. It’s got the major ones covered, to be sure. But it’s still going to be a nonstarter for quite a few folks. That’s not the only hurdle you might come across if you’re looking to make the leap.

The lack of Mac or Windows apps also is a bit of a letdown. Again, while live-streaming services also are available in web browsers, it’s nice to have the option to watch on a computer if you want. We’d like to see that ability added at some point.

Again, I’ve been a longtime user of HDHomeRun, mostly because of the aforementioned lag caused by transcoding in the old Tablo boxes. This new generation of Tablo takes care of that concern. And the software is greatly improved.

That’s not to say that Tablo is some magical way to pluck free over-the-air TV from the sky and beam it onto your TV. You’re going to have to do a little work. You need an antenna (remember, outdoors and up high is better than indoors and down low). You need to know which direction to point that antenna so you can get the most channels where you live. You need to be able to get that antenna to the Tablo box. And you need to be able to get the Tablo box into your home network, either over Wi-Fi or Ethernet.

So there’s a little bit of a lift. I think it’s worth doing, even if only as a backup. But it’s one that doesn’t require additional subscription fees. Just the initial expense of hardware and time.

But do all that — and understand that the NextGen TV thing is sort of lurking in the background — and the fourth-generation Tablo box is going to serve you very well.

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