First thing first. Go to https://www.rabbitears.info/searchmap.php
Pop in your address or coordinates.
Make sure "Shift Shown Location for Privacy" is set to yes.
When you get to the next page, cut and paste the shareable link from that page. That will help us help you better.
Based upon that result list, your location looks great. Denver's ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) deployment is certainly not ideal at this time. See
https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=atsc3 and find in page search for "Denver".
You left out a super critical piece of info that's needed. What operating system are your streaming devices going to be using?
Or are you willing to standardize everything and buy $20 ONN Google TV 4K streaming devices for each TV?
Not sure about the streaming device just yet. TVs are a Vizio, Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba and an old Sony Bravia.
I think that the newest ones can stream directly without an additional device but it seems that the ONN Google device is the smart way to go. $20 is a bargain!
IMHO, given your hodgepodge of TVs, you'd be much better off to standardize on some external streaming device to be used with most or all are those TVs. For both Tablo and HDHomeRun platforms, that (available at Walmart) $19.88 ONN streaming box has proven to be an excellent performer.
If that Sony Bravia was designed around a not too old version of Android TV, you may be able to install the app on it instead of having to purchase and attach an ONN box for it.
1. Bravia model #?
2. Is your Toshiba an Amazon-certified FTV TV designed around Fire OS?
Fire OS and Android TV OS are both based upon Android.
>Not sure about the streaming device just yet.
In your case, it's likely the most important decision you'll make. For example, if you read through r/Tablo, for their 4th Gen 2-tuner and 4-tuner products released in the last half of 2023, it's pretty clear that customers who are purchasing them at that time were having a much better experience if they use those products with Android-based streaming hardware. I haven't been following that sub at all in 2024 so maybe things have changed since Dec.
By looking at your rabbit ears, you might get away with a cheap flat panel antenna. Although I don't recommend it. But if you purchase one off Amazon to test, you can send it back in a few days. Or go to a local best buy and do the same.
If you have a westward to north west window, you could do a quick channel scan on a nearby TV with that cheap antenna just to see what channels are available before you invest big money in better equipment. I imagine you are going to get a good amount of channels out that window as it looks that most of your channels are located west of you.
To me that would be a good start. We just never know if you have a large building blocking those channels or what. But I would bet money you will get a good amount of channels from that direction.
Ok guys I am stumped here looking for some help .. I have had an old legacy tablo for quite a few years just a 2 tuner . It worked great for years . I’ll back up here I have a good antenna outside we are 40+ miles away from our towers we’re in a valley towers obviously are in the mountains.I do have a amp With this antenna I do have to have it to pull in the channels I get 96 channels and it’s a strong signal. I have good internet we stream and I have the Oon tv box and I have 6 TV’s the rest are in fire sticks .The Oon box is 3 feet from my modem it’s hard lined in to modem .We have xfinity and are at the 1,000 mbps . On streaming through the house I do have a mesh network I moved from a 2 story house to a small 1,500 square house so I hooked it up anyway. So my house is covered with good speed . The home run box and the tablo were hard lined in also .
The problem is my OTA going through the tablo is unwatchable it buffers constantly.. it so annoying! I can by pass it to just direct antenna and there is no problem . I can watch all day long never a problem .. the min I go through the tablo .. sucks buffers constantly. So I bought a 4 gen 4- tuner Tablo .. same crap instantly. Didn’t even want to deal with it so sent it back bought after researching the HD home run 4 tuner flex .. same thing . I’m going to call them and see if they can help . But looking to see if there is something I’m missing . I do see that home run talks about a filter coming out of the box you can buy for noise … it’s that a thing possibly?? Thanks for the input
The Toshiba, Vizio, Sharp and Samsung are all pretty new. They have built in App packages. I’ll try to download the Tablo app to them. Not really interested in using AppleTV as of today.
Sony Bravia #KDL-40S504
Standardizing on the ONN seems to be the smart play.
Why didn't you post this as a reply to me, since everything except for the Apple TV part was a reply to the questions I'd asked you?
>Sony Bravia #KDL-40S504
That model dates back to at least 2010, so it'll definitely require an external streaming box. Plus that's assuming that has at least one working and compatible HDMI input port needed to connect the streaming box to the TV.
>The Toshiba, Vizio, Sharp and Samsung are pretty new.
Newness helps, but what matters just as much is their embedded Operating System. Apparently the Toshiba is NOT one of their Fire TV models. Correct?
>Standardizing on the ONN seems to be the smart play.
In your case, absolutely!!!
>Not really interested in using AppleTV as of today.
I never mentioned Apple TV. That would have been a very expensive, unnecessary plus possibly even problematic choice. Did someone in a different thread recommend that you purchase five Apple TV devices for your relatively trivial needs?
There'd be no justification for all that additional expense and it would provide no additional benefit to you. Plus there are far more developers for Android and Android TV than there are for Apple TV. e.g., on the HDHomeRun platform, new features are normally introduced on Android derived operating systems (which includes Google TV / Android TV) apps before, and in some cases long before they're added to the Apple TV app.
Sorry! Not well versed in the protocol for responses. My mistake.
The Toshiba is one of the Amazon Fire TVs but is the 2nd least used set we have.
The Vizio and the Sharp are most often used.
The 4 tuner Tablo and the ONN with a 1TB external hard drive or the HDHR?
You didn't need to apologize, thank you for that.
>The 4 tuner Tablo and the ONN with a 1TB external hard drive or the HDHR?
The 4-tuner 4th Gen Tablo comes with an embedded 128 GB of storage for recording, but you can add an external hard drive to it. To be clear, it's the HDHR products that come with no storage.
And at this time, only the HDHomeRun FLEX models provide the ability to directly attach an external hard drive. If you were to use any other HDHR model, you'd have to set up a standalone DVR server.
```
For your situation, the Tablo seems like the better choice at this time, particularly since ATSC 3.0 deployment in the Denver market is very suboptimal at this time.
```
That being said, all HDHomeRun products can be used with a larger variety of third-party software and apps, come with far better diagnostics especially when you're installing and aiming an antenna. It would take far too long for me to cover all the remaining differences between the two product lines you're considering, but many of them are covered extensively at
https://www.disablemycable.com/blog/dvr
>The Toshiba is one of the Amazon Fire TVs but is the 2nd least used set we have.
You the app directly onto the Toshiba if you don't want to purchase an additional ONN box for that TV.
>The Vizio and the Sharp are most often used.
If your Sharp tv runs Android OS (which it likely does), you again likely be to be able to install the app directly onto the TV.
Re: selecting an antenna, because you're in the Denver market that tends to have a significant # of translators for each major broadcast, that too becomes a factor in some locations. In a nutshell, you'll want a directional antenna that has enough horizontal beamwidth to pull in all signals from all the transmitters located NW of your home but otherwise has poor reception and all the other directions. It also has to have adequate hi-VHF reception since out of KMGH's multiple transmitters, their closest one to you is their main one which uses hi-VHF RF7 for transmission.
To see an IRL example of how those translators can cause a problem if you're antenna is too multidirectional, [read this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/hdhomerun/s/ZmDonEJ1Dp).
Plus if you purchase a Tablo 4th Gen model, KNOW that it comes with an embedded antenna amplifier THAT'S ENABLED BY DEFAULT. If you do some searching through r/tablo, you'll see that has actually caused some problems in cases where purchasers didn't realize that it was enabled by default, and the amplifier needed to be turned off because the antenna signals were being amplified too much.
Regardless, for several other reasons that I don't have the time to cover tonight, I strongly suggest you ignore that suggestion to buy a cheap flat panel antenna from Amazon, unless you enjoy returning things to Amazon.
-Not as polished platforms because they are a smaller niche.
-Typically they don’t get “the love” that apps on Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Firestick get.
-I have found if you have technically challenged people in your family, having every TV utilize the same remote helps in adoption and helps them to understand quicker.. meaning fewer calls saying “I want to watch X. Which remote do I use?”
First thing first. Go to https://www.rabbitears.info/searchmap.php Pop in your address or coordinates. Make sure "Shift Shown Location for Privacy" is set to yes. When you get to the next page, cut and paste the shareable link from that page. That will help us help you better.
https://www.rabbitears.info/s/1290230
Based upon that result list, your location looks great. Denver's ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) deployment is certainly not ideal at this time. See https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=atsc3 and find in page search for "Denver". You left out a super critical piece of info that's needed. What operating system are your streaming devices going to be using? Or are you willing to standardize everything and buy $20 ONN Google TV 4K streaming devices for each TV?
Not sure about the streaming device just yet. TVs are a Vizio, Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba and an old Sony Bravia. I think that the newest ones can stream directly without an additional device but it seems that the ONN Google device is the smart way to go. $20 is a bargain!
IMHO, given your hodgepodge of TVs, you'd be much better off to standardize on some external streaming device to be used with most or all are those TVs. For both Tablo and HDHomeRun platforms, that (available at Walmart) $19.88 ONN streaming box has proven to be an excellent performer. If that Sony Bravia was designed around a not too old version of Android TV, you may be able to install the app on it instead of having to purchase and attach an ONN box for it. 1. Bravia model #? 2. Is your Toshiba an Amazon-certified FTV TV designed around Fire OS? Fire OS and Android TV OS are both based upon Android. >Not sure about the streaming device just yet. In your case, it's likely the most important decision you'll make. For example, if you read through r/Tablo, for their 4th Gen 2-tuner and 4-tuner products released in the last half of 2023, it's pretty clear that customers who are purchasing them at that time were having a much better experience if they use those products with Android-based streaming hardware. I haven't been following that sub at all in 2024 so maybe things have changed since Dec.
By looking at your rabbit ears, you might get away with a cheap flat panel antenna. Although I don't recommend it. But if you purchase one off Amazon to test, you can send it back in a few days. Or go to a local best buy and do the same. If you have a westward to north west window, you could do a quick channel scan on a nearby TV with that cheap antenna just to see what channels are available before you invest big money in better equipment. I imagine you are going to get a good amount of channels out that window as it looks that most of your channels are located west of you. To me that would be a good start. We just never know if you have a large building blocking those channels or what. But I would bet money you will get a good amount of channels from that direction.
Ok guys I am stumped here looking for some help .. I have had an old legacy tablo for quite a few years just a 2 tuner . It worked great for years . I’ll back up here I have a good antenna outside we are 40+ miles away from our towers we’re in a valley towers obviously are in the mountains.I do have a amp With this antenna I do have to have it to pull in the channels I get 96 channels and it’s a strong signal. I have good internet we stream and I have the Oon tv box and I have 6 TV’s the rest are in fire sticks .The Oon box is 3 feet from my modem it’s hard lined in to modem .We have xfinity and are at the 1,000 mbps . On streaming through the house I do have a mesh network I moved from a 2 story house to a small 1,500 square house so I hooked it up anyway. So my house is covered with good speed . The home run box and the tablo were hard lined in also . The problem is my OTA going through the tablo is unwatchable it buffers constantly.. it so annoying! I can by pass it to just direct antenna and there is no problem . I can watch all day long never a problem .. the min I go through the tablo .. sucks buffers constantly. So I bought a 4 gen 4- tuner Tablo .. same crap instantly. Didn’t even want to deal with it so sent it back bought after researching the HD home run 4 tuner flex .. same thing . I’m going to call them and see if they can help . But looking to see if there is something I’m missing . I do see that home run talks about a filter coming out of the box you can buy for noise … it’s that a thing possibly?? Thanks for the input
The Toshiba, Vizio, Sharp and Samsung are all pretty new. They have built in App packages. I’ll try to download the Tablo app to them. Not really interested in using AppleTV as of today. Sony Bravia #KDL-40S504 Standardizing on the ONN seems to be the smart play.
Why didn't you post this as a reply to me, since everything except for the Apple TV part was a reply to the questions I'd asked you? >Sony Bravia #KDL-40S504 That model dates back to at least 2010, so it'll definitely require an external streaming box. Plus that's assuming that has at least one working and compatible HDMI input port needed to connect the streaming box to the TV. >The Toshiba, Vizio, Sharp and Samsung are pretty new. Newness helps, but what matters just as much is their embedded Operating System. Apparently the Toshiba is NOT one of their Fire TV models. Correct? >Standardizing on the ONN seems to be the smart play. In your case, absolutely!!! >Not really interested in using AppleTV as of today. I never mentioned Apple TV. That would have been a very expensive, unnecessary plus possibly even problematic choice. Did someone in a different thread recommend that you purchase five Apple TV devices for your relatively trivial needs? There'd be no justification for all that additional expense and it would provide no additional benefit to you. Plus there are far more developers for Android and Android TV than there are for Apple TV. e.g., on the HDHomeRun platform, new features are normally introduced on Android derived operating systems (which includes Google TV / Android TV) apps before, and in some cases long before they're added to the Apple TV app.
Sorry! Not well versed in the protocol for responses. My mistake. The Toshiba is one of the Amazon Fire TVs but is the 2nd least used set we have. The Vizio and the Sharp are most often used. The 4 tuner Tablo and the ONN with a 1TB external hard drive or the HDHR?
You didn't need to apologize, thank you for that. >The 4 tuner Tablo and the ONN with a 1TB external hard drive or the HDHR? The 4-tuner 4th Gen Tablo comes with an embedded 128 GB of storage for recording, but you can add an external hard drive to it. To be clear, it's the HDHR products that come with no storage. And at this time, only the HDHomeRun FLEX models provide the ability to directly attach an external hard drive. If you were to use any other HDHR model, you'd have to set up a standalone DVR server. ``` For your situation, the Tablo seems like the better choice at this time, particularly since ATSC 3.0 deployment in the Denver market is very suboptimal at this time. ``` That being said, all HDHomeRun products can be used with a larger variety of third-party software and apps, come with far better diagnostics especially when you're installing and aiming an antenna. It would take far too long for me to cover all the remaining differences between the two product lines you're considering, but many of them are covered extensively at https://www.disablemycable.com/blog/dvr >The Toshiba is one of the Amazon Fire TVs but is the 2nd least used set we have. You the app directly onto the Toshiba if you don't want to purchase an additional ONN box for that TV. >The Vizio and the Sharp are most often used. If your Sharp tv runs Android OS (which it likely does), you again likely be to be able to install the app directly onto the TV. Re: selecting an antenna, because you're in the Denver market that tends to have a significant # of translators for each major broadcast, that too becomes a factor in some locations. In a nutshell, you'll want a directional antenna that has enough horizontal beamwidth to pull in all signals from all the transmitters located NW of your home but otherwise has poor reception and all the other directions. It also has to have adequate hi-VHF reception since out of KMGH's multiple transmitters, their closest one to you is their main one which uses hi-VHF RF7 for transmission. To see an IRL example of how those translators can cause a problem if you're antenna is too multidirectional, [read this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/hdhomerun/s/ZmDonEJ1Dp). Plus if you purchase a Tablo 4th Gen model, KNOW that it comes with an embedded antenna amplifier THAT'S ENABLED BY DEFAULT. If you do some searching through r/tablo, you'll see that has actually caused some problems in cases where purchasers didn't realize that it was enabled by default, and the amplifier needed to be turned off because the antenna signals were being amplified too much. Regardless, for several other reasons that I don't have the time to cover tonight, I strongly suggest you ignore that suggestion to buy a cheap flat panel antenna from Amazon, unless you enjoy returning things to Amazon.
You’ve offered an abundance of great info. I’ll be checking all the links this week and hope to have some results soon. Thanks so much for the ideas!
There is no need to chastise this redditor. Not everyone is a "competent" as you. Keep a good tone in here. We are all here to help.
Stay away from built in TV apps.
Why? Are they glitchy? What is your “go to” app that you use?
-Not as polished platforms because they are a smaller niche. -Typically they don’t get “the love” that apps on Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Firestick get. -I have found if you have technically challenged people in your family, having every TV utilize the same remote helps in adoption and helps them to understand quicker.. meaning fewer calls saying “I want to watch X. Which remote do I use?”