I have been using Tablo as a DVR for local broadcasts combined with Amazon Fire Sticks to run that app on my TVs for a year now. And I just renewed the Tablo program guide fee ($5/month) for another year and renewed my internet for another year ($30/month). The cord cutting has gone pretty well and I don’t really miss cable since I still have plenty to watch on TV between broadcast, Netflix and other streaming services, and my Blu-ray collection.
But one thing that has kind of bothered me with my setup on my main TV is the Fire Stick is only HD, not 4K. It doesn’t matter that much since broadcast and therefore Tablo is only HD anyway and I still get 4K Netflix via the TV’s own app plus a few of my Blu-rays are 4K via the 4K Blu-ray player (though only a handful since 4K Blu-rays are much more expensive than the discounted Blu-rays I usually buy). There are also online services like Vudu, Movies Anywhere, Amazon, and Google Play where I have a few additional movies, some of which are 4K. The Vudu app on my 4K TV and my 4K Blu-ray player are only HD, but the Roku will actually play the handful of 4K titles I have on Vudu in 4K (if the wifi signal is good enough anyway).
The Fire stick also uses a radio signal remote control instead of infrared like all of my other components. That works out well for a stick since it is hidden behind the TV with no line of site to an infrared signal, but not as good for me since my universal remote is infrared only. So then I have to use the Amazon remote *and* the universal remote which defeats the purpose of the universal remote (though the radio remote adds the feature of voice commands, which can be helpful when searching for a title).
Anyway, Fry’s had a 4K Roku “box” (pretty tiny for a box since it is about the same size as a stick) on sale, so I went ahead and got it, figuring I am saving so much on cutting the cord that I can afford to try it out. Plus, I can actually keep the Fire Stick connected as well as the Roku if I want, but between apps on the Blu-ray player, TV, and Roku, there is already a lot of overlap.
The box is very small and since it has to be seen by the remote (this is the Roku Premiere, but the Premiere Plus is basically the same thing with a radio remote for a little more money) it comes with an adhesive strip so you could stick it to the edge of your TV if the TV is mounted to a wall. Like the Blu-ray player and Fire Stick, I plugged this device into my Denon AV receiver so that the receiver switches between inputs and plays the sound from that content while the TV is just for output of the picture. It was easy to add the Roku to the Harmony remote via the Harmony app on my notebook and it works pretty well except I’m not 100% used to the Roku’s navigation (home, back, and star) and it seems a little different on the Harmony. I did have to set up logins for the different services I use and some are easier than others. The ones that use an authorization code that you enter on your phone or computer instead of entering your email address and password on the onscreen keyboard are easier, but honestly either way it only takes a minute or two. I also wound up downloading the Roku app on my phone which allows me to use the phone as a remote and type in stuff faster than with the remote. The appearance and navigation of the Roku apps, particularly Tablo, are different than on the Fire Stick, so that is a little bit of a pain since I am still using a Fire Stick on the other (non 4k) TV.
One problem I noticed is the wifi signal strength on the tiny Roku is listed as “good” but is only 10-15 Mbps whereas the Netflix app running on the TV and Blu-ray player both report 27-30 Mbps. This Roku only works on the 2.4 GHz band of my wifi router instead of including the 5 GHz band which could potentially have a weaker signal but faster connection. I played around with different locations, but the HDMI cord is very short and it reported no signal with a longer HDMI cord I had. That’s disappointing and sometimes the signal goes down as low as 1 Mbps (still says “good” even though that’s terrible). Maybe it is just too small to get a good signal (more on this below). I may see if I can move the router into the same room rather than having it in the back of the house. Even at 10-15 Mbps some of the 4K videos on YouTube that show off the resolution still look very good, so I am assuming the 4K is working. While the TV gets better Wifi reception, I don’t think all of its apps are capable of 4k.
After writing, I decided that to be consistent, I should use the download speed on the Roku via the Netflix app like I was doing on the TV and Blu-ray player. Doing that, the Netflix speed check (under Get Help) showed a speed of 22 Mbps, not much below the 28-29 Mbps the other two were getting, but still below the magic number of 25 Mbps for 4K downloads.
Tablo rolled out its latest version to me yesterday. This new version includes a feature that automatically skips commercials in most shows. But Tablo is an app on smart TV’s, Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV, and all of the apps are a little different. So for some reason the Fire TV app is not enabled for the new commercial skip feature, but Roku is. So another plus for Roku. Well, sort of. For Fire TV they make another app called Tablo Preview which works almost exactly the same but has commercial skip.
I enabled skip by default yesterday and tested it out with last night’s Stephen Colbert (it won’t go back and skip commercials of shows recorded before the update) and it does work pretty well though there are maybe 10 or 15 seconds of stuff after he says we will be back and the show actually goes to a commercial that I would skip on my own that are not skipped. Eventually Tablo wants to charge extra for this service, which maybe means they will make it harder to manually skip commercials, but it is all included in the guide price for now.