Customer Ratings & Reviews

I am super pleased with the Dual Lite DVR. It was simple to install and great to use. I coupled it with a 4 terrabite hard disk which gives me more room for storage than I will need for some time. Be sure to wait until after the program is recorded to play it as doing so will enable the Tablo to process the recording for easier navigation through the program and skip commercials etc. It sure is nice to save football games for a time when my schedule allows me to see them.

As long as you have a good antenna and get a good unit, it works perfectly. Crystal clear picture and sound. This is my second unit. First one bought elsewhere was spotty at best. This one has been working solidly without issue. The recording option works fine with a simple USB drive attached to the unit. Don’t pay for channels that are out there free.

I recently bought this device to send my local tv to all my devices around the house, it have an excellent video quality and almost no buffering problems, only problem I have see so far is the temperature of the equipment, it feels very hot. the other drawback is that you need to subscribe to tablo to get the guide of your local channels, maybe for others zones that may received 30 something channels it is worth it pay the $5 month for this service, but for me that receives only 5 channels it s not.

This work really well, was easy to set up. The only issue is that the guide can be slow to load but other than that it's great

We cut the cord in August 2019 and initially looked at the Tablo for OTA DVR (after a lot of research), but then we subscribed to PlayStation Vue which had our local channels with DVR. Once we heard PSVue was shutting down, we looked again at the Tablo and purchased the Dual Lite as a complement to our Philo subscription which doesn’t offer local channels. We have every room hard-wired to the attic antenna, so we knew we could get by with just the dual tuner to record two shows at once even if we have more than two TV's on OTA broadcast. Set up was fairly easy. Had a little trouble initially formatting the external hard drive, but went through the steps again and got the Tablo to recognize it. After the 30-day enhanced subscription free trial, we toyed with the basic subscription for about a week. It was fairly easy to program (if anyone has programmed an old VCR, you can do this), but we ended up purchasing the lifetime enhanced subscription (cheaper in the long run) which adds cover art for shows and also makes it much easier to set recordings with just a couple of clicks, along with other features not offered with the free basic subscription. It also gives it more of a “streaming app” feel to compliment all the other apps we use with our Roku devices and Fire TV. Initial up-front cost of the Tablo, external hard drive plus optional lifetime subscription paid for itself vs. about two months of our previous cable subscription. Highly recommend Tablo as an OTA DVR!

Tablo is a great and inexpensive way to record OTA broadcasts. It works well with Firesticks and Roku devices, allowing us to access programming from multiple TVs using only one small internal antenna. Price point is great for the Lite and an external HD will provide as much storage as needed.

Very happy with the purchase of the Tablo over the air recorder. We can still program to record our favorite shows and watch later to zip through commercials. Can even pause live TV so we won't lose anything. Can fast forward through commercials after live pausing for a while! We purchased a 2TB external hard drive to save all the recordings. Over all very happy! No more cable tv bill! Saving us over $100.00/mo!

I had been a TIVO user for many years, but before renewing the yearly fee I decided to see what alternatives were available. The Tablo offered a much better and more economical solution for me. The Tablo has many advantages over the TIVO. With just a single Tablo device I’m able to watch and manage recordings from multiple TVs in different rooms as well as my iPad. Unlike the TIVO, the Tablo isn’t hard-wired to the TV. This means I can put my antenna in the window, where I get much better reception. Also, the subscription to the guide is more economical, although it lacks some of the more sophisticated features of the TIVO guide. In retrospect, I wish I had bought the 4-tuner version instead of the 2-tuner one. I seldom need to record more than two programs at once, but I find it necessary to check the schedule periodically for conflicts and resolve them or I may miss a program I want. Since I mostly watch PBS programs that are often repeated, I can usually catch everything I want, but the 4-tuner Tablo would have made it much easier.

First of all, take the bad reviews with a grain of salt. It appears these people have issues with their OTA signal, internet, or both. I have the Tablo connected by Ethernet and watch on 4 TV's via Roku Ultra and a wired network. I also watch TV on my old laptop via WiFi in the garage, on the deck or when traveling. And it's playing on my desktop PC as I type this review. One click in the settings allows you to connect and watch remotely anywhere with WiFi ! Is there another device that can do all this? Even after purchasing the lifetime guide subscription, my total cost is less than 3 or 4 months of pay TV. Good riddance cable/satellite.

Excellent product for cord cutting. I have an attached 500 GB hard drive and have only used 100 GB for over 30 hrs of recordings. I guess I would get about 160 hrs total with recording quality set to max. Skipping over commercials is easy, when fast forwarding there are thumbnails to let you know where are are. Can't wait for auto commercial skip, that should be out any day now.

I've wanted to cut cable and cut the bill for quite some time. After doing some research I decided on the Tablo Lite OTA DVR over other brands. So far I am very impressed with how it works. There is very little difference from what I was using with the cable company DVR... Except the price of rental, programing guide and "device" fees. For months of cable fees, pays for the Tablo. OTA programing has come a long way and I've not given up much programing. With the service provided by Tablo I have everything in the way of DVR recording and program guide I had with the cable company.... for $6 a month. There is a delay in changing channels, but it's acceptable for the price and what I'm saving. I'm am in most impressed with the search for shows and movies from OTA, and saving for later viewing. I purchased a portable HD and have tons of storage. I spent $160 with the HD and am saving $60 a month. Should have done this a long time ago.

Threw a spare 1TB laptop drive onto this and attached an outdoor antenna. Mostly using AppleTV as client, the picture quality is better than expected (I have it maxed out at 10mbps). If you're looking for a great OTA DVR, this thing seems to fit the bill.

Cable bills became ridiculous and forced us to go Antennae TV. The picture was fine but my wife missed the DVR aspect, so I purchased this as an inexpensive means of recording. It was necessary for me to also purchase a Firestick because my SmartTV was 5 years old and didn't recognize Tablo. The setup was quick and painless, but the speed may be considered a wee bit sluggish for millennials. All in all it will work as a functional alternative to the high price of cable.

The Tablo is a strange bird. It does not have a video output of any sort. The only output is via ethernet. You then need another device on your network that is compatible with the Table, such as a Roku. I got this because when I switched to Roku, I lost the ability to view over-the-air HD channels, which is the only way I have to see live sports and events. I needed a digital tuner. Having the DVR capability was a plus and I had a number of old USB Hard Drives at home to choose from. So this worked out great. It does however, create a very complex chain of devices that are required to get signals from your OTA HD antenna to your TV. You need all sorts of things to work properly and there is a lot of places things can go wrong. In addition to the Table, you need a hard drive, a router, and a Roku (or the like). If any of it is weak, you will not be happy.

I am using it as a back up to my Amazon Recast that can only cast two streams. I need to stream 4 tvs. It was easy to setup up. First few days it kept dropping the Internet connection. That has resolved itself. Be aware that you have to buy a external hard drive and if you want more than a day of schedule there is an extra cost. I do like the schedule grid and the picture quality is good.

Great tuner picks up a fair amount of OTA stations ...a few more then Homerunner and Fire recast models in same location. Interface is very good and operations reliable. Ocassional buffering due to signal strength but otherwise a good buy to have ability to get TV on tablet or on other devices used on the fly.

The Tablo is only as good as your signal, so if you don't have good OTA TV, then it won't work for you. That said, the experience watching TV has been overall good. I have had some buffering which I could attribute to my WIFI but I have not experienced this with any other streaming. I also added a hard drive to use the DVR. Overall experience with the DVR has been good. I prefer the interface to the Hulu Live that it replaced.

I bought the base Tablo to use for watching long events like awards shows or a day of football. (I sometimes brush up against my Comcast data-cap). Here are a few things to consider: 1) Use a wired connection. I thought I was going to us WiFi - it’s kind of flakey to set up, and just doesn’t have enough bandwidth. I’m going to have to move my antenna to a place where I can attach both the lead and a network cable. 2) Even though I wasn’t going to record any shows, it didn’t seem to work without attaching some external storage device (not included). I’m getting by with a 1Tb thumb drive. 3) You need to pay monthly or a lifetime fee to get the guide. All in all, I got pretty much what I expected and would buy it again.

I bought the Tablo so that I could watch the tv signal from the antenna on my IPad. This little device connects there the WiFi and does a great job doing. It can be used as a dvr if you add a solid state hard drive. If you want to know more about this item, there are videos on YouTube about it.

This is a very nice compact over the air recorder. All you need is an antenna and a storage device. Nice easy to use app interface. I does offer a subscription option for easier recording of programs. But I use the manual day/time recording that allows you to name each recording.