“What OTA signal strength is required for the Tablo to record a particular channel? I have been told that the TIVO Bolt requires a 70% and greater strength for their DVR.”
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It will record whatever picture that your antenna provides to the Tablo tuner and whether or not the tuner is reliably decoding any particular OTA signal, so if it's dipixolating or dropping during the recording session, so too will the playback. I don't know if you can assign a percentage. How well the Tablo tuner decodes weak signals versus other t.v. turners or external tuners will be the right answer to that question. In other words, some tuners do better than others. My TCL t.v. will usually give me a relaible, perfect picture at 2 bars out of 5, but I don't know how that equates to a percentage. How Tablo rates as a tuner versus Tivo or any other, I don't know that answer, but is a very important question to be answered for those of us in deep fringe areas, because we don't want to hurt our reception via an external tuner.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Good to Very good signals are required for stable recording. No "percentage" is given by the unit, but if it scans in with 3 or 4 dots in average weather, you'll be fine. Note that in the attached picture showing only PART of my scan, most of my signals are full strength, and the red ones it found DO play sometimes "live" but would never be good for recording so I do not include them in my guide. YOU select what channels appear in your guide so you can edit out shopping channels or ones you know you'll never use. Keep in mind, too...the TV signals "repack' is not over yet and some of your locals may be changing frequencies (behind the same virtual channel) which could affect reception down the road a few months or a year. TabloTV is good at reminding through social media when to rescan. Also note there is no "additional scan" to add channels, so make sure your antenna is aimed where you get the strongest signals, or a compromise position between markets if it's got a rotor before scanning. ADDING is not a function of Tablo, but a full RESCAN can be done anytime for frequency change at the station, antenna change, or just so see "whats out there." in my case the selection on "scan' is actually better than my TV tuners hooked to the same antenna. I have the 4-tuner version. Dropouts in signal will result in either attempted recordings that fail, or no recording at all. Too many of those can make the unit unstable so you want to select the STRONGEST of sources from which your TABLO will record. Once you run a scan, the channels show up with "dots" of signal strength and indicate whether SD or HD, so you can choose the best of the channels and sub channels.
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