Tablo - QUAD OTA DVR - Black
User rating, 4.2 out of 5 stars with 65 reviews.
4.2(65 Reviews)- 8 Answered Questions
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Description
Features
The DVR for Free Live TV
Catch your favorite network TV shows without the cost or commitment of cable or satellite contracts. Browse upcoming shows, schedule and manage recordings by episode or series. (TV antenna required, sold separately)
Four OTA TV Tuners
Watch, pause, and record up to four live broadcast TV channels (like ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, the CW and PBS) simultaneously. (TV antenna required, sold separately)
Automatic Commercial Skip
Tablo DVRs automatically skip commercials for you on completed recordings. No more annoying commercial breaks or using the remote to fast forward. (Subscription required, sold separately)
Flexible USB/SATA storage options
Connect as much recording capacity as you want, up to 8TB (SATA or USB hard drive required to store recordings and play multiple live streams simultaneously. Sold separately)
Whole-Home & Out-of-Home Live TV Streaming
Watch your favorite live and recorded TV shows on to up to six internet-connected devices including iOS and Android mobile devices, computers, Smart TVs, streaming media players and gaming systems.
Dual-band AC WiFi included
Built-in 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi connects to your wireless home network allowing you to place the antenna where you get the best TV reception.
Web-based services and content require high-speed Internet service. Some services may require a subscription.
What's Included
- Ethernet cable
- Power adapter
- Quick start guide
- Tablo QUAD OTA DVR
Key Specs
- Maximum Supported Resolution1080p
- Operating System CompatibilityNot Applicable
- Storage TypeInternal
- Storage Capacity0 gigabytes
General
- Product NameQUAD OTA DVR
- BrandTablo
- Model NumberTQNS4B-02-CN
- ColorBlack
- Color CategoryBlack
Compatibility
- Compatible Wireless Standard(s)Wireless AC
- Playable FormatsH.264
- Interface(s)USB 2.0, USB Type A
Warranty
- Manufacturer's Warranty - Parts1 year
- Manufacturer's Warranty - Labor1 year
Other
- UPC696106000084
Customer rating
Rating 4.2 out of 5 stars with 65 reviews
(65 Reviews)Customer images
Search
Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Pros mentioned:Ease of useCons mentioned:Channels, Speed, StreamingRating 5 out of 5 stars with 1 review
Nice, easy to use device for Cord Cutting.
|Posted .Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Pros mentioned:Ease of useCons mentioned:Channels, Speed, StreamingThis is a review from a regular, non technical person. We cut the cord. My husband still has quite a few OTA TV shows he records and watches. After reading dozens of reviews we selected this. We purchased this over the Lite as it can do more. We read that there were connectivity issues with external drives so we installed a 1TB laptop hard drive inside it. Also purchased a little fan for it to sit on to stay cool. Out of the box, put in hard drive, 1 minute, plug in Antenna and Ethernet (app will guide you through Wi-Fi if needed, power it on. We used an iPad app, PC, Mac and Android apps available. Once on it populates stations, and recommends only 720 or higher stations but you are free to pick the rest if desired. You can redo this anytime if you have to move the antenna. It comes with a months worth of free guide and commercial skip, we plan to buy the year service when its over, Changing channels is a bit slow while it loads and takes a minute for picture to come in clear. Picture is good and it saves having an antenna in every room. You can set shows to record on you tablet easily. The price of all the equipment and guide is what or Satellite provider was going to charge us in 2.5 months for very basic service when they jumped the rates on everyone. This only streams OTA stations in your area, picture quality will be what station broadcast in, (We have 38 in our area and selected 14 that are 720/1080 and 2 that are 480) it does not stream cable channels. (the only improvement would be to allow the guide to integrate with premium channel streamers you subscribe to so you have it all together.) I feel it is a good one time investment.
Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Pros mentioned:Ease of use, Recording, Set upRating 5 out of 5 stars with 1 review
Tablo brings me closer to cutting the cord
|Posted .Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Pros mentioned:Ease of use, Recording, Set upI love it!! Easy to set up and use. Just shy of 5 stars but too good to give it 4; lost a little because sometimes the automatic commercial skip does not activate. It is very easy to fast forward through because once the recording is finished thumbnails are displayed as you fast forward. The web app @ Tablo.com is great, it makes programming recordings a little easier than doing it through my Roku mostly because of again, thumbnails. Finding more programs than I am used to. I am hard-wired to my router for the main TV and other locations are using WIFI with no problem. In the picture, Tablo is to the left, router in the center, and cable modem to the right.
Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality4 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Pros mentioned:Features, Over the air, RecordingCons mentioned:Price, Speed, StreamingRating 4 out of 5 stars with 1 review
Really good with clean OTA signals & good network
|Posted .Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.Features
Quality4 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Pros mentioned:Features, Over the air, RecordingCons mentioned:Price, Speed, StreamingMost of the reviews for this product on BestBuy are pretty good, but that is not the case elsewhere. Having now used my Tablo QUAD for several weeks, I want to give you the information you will need to get the best experience. With the right setup, this is a really good product! (I will discuss below why I rated it 4 rather than 5 stars.) In my opinion, I was a perfect candidate for the Tablo QUAD: [1] Coming from Verizon FiOS TV which I watched using Windows Media Center (WMC) and networked cable tuners from another vendor. Prices kept increasing, even with a slimmed-down bundle. [2] To support this, I wired my house with gigabit Ethernet. (I am a retired computer professional.) [3] Have used wired Roku 3 streaming players for years. [4] Had installed a rooftop antenna with mast-mounted amplifier about 8 years ago for a couple of "light usage" TVs. [5] I am only 7 miles away from most local broadcasters and get strong, mostly clean signals. So, I was familiar with the concept of a whole-house networked DVR, I already had fast wired networking, I already had Rokus running, and I was occasionally watching OTA TV on a couple of TVs. This is significant - especially the wired v. wireless networking and strong, clean OTA broadcast signals - because, from what I have read in other reviews, I am pretty sure the problems many people have seen are mostly due to weak/poor broadcast TV transmissions and/or slow, poor or overloaded WiFi. INSTALLATION: I purchased a 2.5" 1TB disk drive (type recommended on Tablo web site) - enough for about 250 hours of HD recording, much more than I will need - and installed it as specified in the provided slot. It is VERY IMPORTANT to follow the installation instructions EXACTLY and NOT power-up the Tablo until the instructions tell you to do that. After powering the device, I used a nearby PC on the same network to go to the specified my.tablotv.com web site which found my Tablo and began the initial configuration, including a channel scan. I also set up an account at tablotv.com so I could subscribe to the 14-day electronic program guide and automatic commercial skip features. First 30 days free; various pricing thereafter, but works out to about $6-$7/month. Very reasonable compared to my Verizon bill, even if I only had local channels. Most local stations looked as good on my large main-room TVs as I was used to with FiOS TV. There were occasional but pretty rare brief pixelations, but I saw that from time to time even with FiOS. Unfortunately, the exception was my local CBS affiliate. It had major pixelation and even blanking of the screen. Long story short, I was not the only person seeing this problem. Tablo Support was very responsive, including looking at signal quality via a remote access feature which can be initiated by the customer. (Allows them to look at the Tablo, nothing else.) It turns out the CBS station's signal was strong but had a large amount of interference. The most likely explanation of the poor picture, in my opinion, is the transcoding the Tablo does to reduce the size of the data stream. The original signal's interference is probably degrading that. The good news is that around late April or early May, the FCC "repack" will force my local channels to different radio frequencies (keeping their same virtual channel numbers). This should result in the CBS station being on a much cleaner RF channel which hopefully with fix the pixelation issue. I reduced my rating from 5 to 4 stars in anticipation a better CBS signal will fix the pixelation. If it does, the Tablo will earn 5 stars. The FCC repack brings up a good point: As with any OTA reception, if the broadcast channels change frequencies, you will need to do a rescan. This is required on TVs and also on the Tablo. The process is very easy and these changes don't typically happen very often. The Tablo DVR has worked very well. It is easy to set up recordings - although I had one PBS show that appeared in the guide 2 different ways and had to set up both - and easy to watch them using a Roku. I also tried my smartphone, which worked fine. Note that the user interface can be slightly different depending on whether you use smartphone app, Roku app, browser, etc. According to the vendor, about 1/2 of Tablo owners use a Roku, so it's not surprising that is a mature and polished interface, in my opinion. The DVR has typical features for series like "Record Only New" v. "Record All". It supports pre- and post-padding, such as to extend recording times for live shows. But it also has a nice feature to auto-extend live shows by 50% of the show's scheduled broadcast duration. A check-box sets that option globally. You can also create "VCR-style" recordings: start and stop time on a particular channel. The biggest thing it is missing compared to what I was used to (Windows Media Center) is the ability to create keyword-search recordings. For example, I like beach volleyball and could set up a series recording for any show on any channel which had "Beach Volleyball" in the title or description. Can't do that with Tablo. The 14-day grid-style program guide is pretty much what you would expect, but it may be slower than what you may be used to. The Windows Media Center grid I had been using was VERY fast, but that product is no longer supported by Microsoft. Some people seem to have had bad experiences with the automatic commercial skip feature. For me, it has been close to perfect. The feature requires a good quality recording, so poor quality broadcast signals (for whatever reason) can cause it to fail. Occasionally, a commercial is not skipped, but that has been pretty uncommon in my experience. When it works - which for me has been most of the time - it is WONDERFUL. It's almost like viewing a show on a service like Netflix, with no commercial interruptions, but just a couple of seconds of blank screen where the commercials used to be. If you really want to see a commercial, you can use the fast-forward and fast-reverse to do so. The commercials are still in the recording, they are just skipped. One small surprise is that previews of next week's show are usually skipped. Not a big deal to me. I have NOT used the remote viewing feature, where you can view DVR recordings outside your house, because I am not comfortable "punching a hole" (so to speak) in my network firewall. I only need to watch DVR'd shows at home. If you turn that on, you may need to know more about your router than you care to. In addition, remember that the quality of the streaming to your phone or tablet will depend on the end-to-end network quality and speed between your home and wherever you are. If you have trouble viewing remotely, the problem may NOT be with the Tablo! BOTTOM LINE: In the right environment and depending on what you are looking for, this can be a GREAT product. Just be sure to understand the specifics before commiting.
I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality4 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Features
Quality5 out of 5Value3 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Rating 5 out of 5 stars with 1 review
Great user experience
|Posted .Features
Quality5 out of 5Value3 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Post office sent it on a trip from Ohio to Alaska and finally to me in Minnesota. It was worth the extra week. Product is fantastic and has worked flawlessly for two weeks. I have it connected to the router via Ethernet cable and use usb hard drive. App is easy and intuitive to use. Works great with Roku as well as fire tv.
I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality5 out of 5Value3 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Features
Quality5 out of 5Value4 out of 5Ease of Use4 out of 5Rating 5 out of 5 stars with 1 review
Love our Tablo Quad
|Posted .Owned for 1 month when reviewed.Features
Quality5 out of 5Value4 out of 5Ease of Use4 out of 5I love our Tablo Quad, We canceled our cable and are saving a lot of money. The picture and sound are excellant. I will, however, upgrade my antenna at some point but now I can actually recored my OTA channels and I think it's great !
I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality5 out of 5Value4 out of 5Ease of Use4 out of 5Features
Quality4 out of 5Value4 out of 5Ease of Use4 out of 5Rating 5 out of 5 stars with 1 review
Stunning picture quality.
|Posted .Features
Quality4 out of 5Value4 out of 5Ease of Use4 out of 5Finally cut the cord on cable and needed something to deliver ota antenna though out the house as well as a dvr. I was also looking at the hdhomerun but chose the Tablo because it seems to have a better system to stream via wifi. The picture to me looks just as good as the antenna even while watching football in both 1980i and 720p local signals. I should point out that all my settings are set to the highest quality with the Tablo plugged directly into the modem. I did have a problem with my second generation firestick which would buffer the signal but the latest 4kfire stick has better wifi capabilities and works perfect. I would suggest a robust wifi setup and the latest steaming devices.
I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality4 out of 5Value4 out of 5Ease of Use4 out of 5Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Rating 5 out of 5 stars with 1 review
Tablo
|Posted .Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Great product -,easy install - any questions were answered by the maker of the product
I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5Rating 5 out of 5 stars with 1 review
So easy
|Posted .Features
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5This does everything you need for an OTA DVR. I called Tablo support for clarifying a couple of things and they were very helpful. You only need to add an ext. usb hdd to record.
I would recommend this to a friendFeatures
Quality5 out of 5Value5 out of 5Ease of Use5 out of 5
Q: Questionwhat is the internal storage capacity?
Asked by Rick.
- A:Answer The detailed answer to this question is available on Tablo's web site. In brief: The QUAD does not have any built-in storage for recordings. You need to add a hard disk, either an external USB drive or an internal 2.5" SATA drive. The maximum capacity supported by the Tablo is 8TB, but height restrictions for an internal drive limits the maximum is 4TB when an internal drive is installed. Each 1TB is enough for 250-300 hours of recording storage. Personally, I use my Tablo QUAD mostly for time shifting, not for retaining many movies or full seasons of TV series. I use the 1TB internal SATA drive recommended by Tablo. It has plenty of storage for me.
Answered by OwenW
Q: QuestionWhy do I need WI-FI, is it for the guide only?
Asked by LuckyLJ.
- A:Answer You need WI-FI to download the Tablo app. The Tablo app is the software that runs the Tablo QUAD OTA DVR. Without the software, the equipment will not work. Once the Tablo software is downloaded you can then use the TABLO QUAD OTA DVR to view local Over The Air channels. Of course, that means you need an over the air antenna to pick up the local channels. Also, the WI-FI is needed to download upgrades to the Tablo app. The Tablo app is like YouTube. Of course, you need a router to pick up the WI-FI. I hope this answers your questions. I love my Tablo Quad OTA DVR and the app. The DVR allows you to download channels, save them, and watch them later.
Answered by Blount65
Q: QuestionOk I know that the Tablo Quad OTA DVR will record all channels but I also use Spectrum Streaming will it record all of those channels?
Asked by chuck57.
- A:Answer My understanding is that the Tablo Quad OTA DVR is for recording Over The Air channels, not streaming movies, etc.
Answered by Blount65
Q: QuestionDoes the installation and use of this device require an ethernet cable connection? Can I use this device wirelessly? Can this device be set it up and used it with a Wi-Fi signal from my router?
Asked by classicmoviebuff.
- A:Answer I do not have my tablo quad directly wired to my router. As you have noticed it seems to be the preferred method. Mine is setup over wifi and it has been working without issue. I can only guess that if you have an old slow wifi router you will have issues. So in order to avoid having to educate customers about wifi routers they chose to tell you you need to wire it directly for best results. I have a Netgear Dual Band AC1900 wifi router in my basement which is connected to my tablo upstairs. Only the wife and I, so not many people using bandwidth. As I said I have had no issues.
Answered by neverbeenatechie
Q: QuestionI have a Tablo 4 tuner DVR that I purchase around 2016 I paid for a lifetime subscription for the guide. If I purchase the new Tablo - QUAD OTA DVR will I be able to still use that lifetime subscription?
Asked by Frank.
- A:Answer Yes you can, I just went through the same thing
Answered by Anonymous
Q: QuestionWill this item be restocked or is Best Buy planning on not carrying this item.
Asked by Daniel.
Q: Questionwhen will this be available and back in stock
Asked by Richards.
- A:Answer Can't tell you. Contact Best Buy
Answered by Franklin82