This is a legacy article. 4th Generation Tablo DVRs only stream and record at full MPEG-2 quality. As such, you'll have the best picture quality your compatible device can provide. This also removes the need to lock out the 4th tuner in our 4th-Gen models, as mentioned below.
When the original legacy network-connected Tablo units launched, they supported 30 frames per second (fps) on all recording qualities. The HD1080 – 10 Mbps, 720@60fps recording quality was added via the 2.2.6 firmware update.
With this recording quality selected, legacy network-connected Tablo DVRs can record broadcasts in 720p at 60fps. The result, a crisp, clear picture, especially important with sports broadcasts.
How It Works
Since this process requires Tablo to encode twice as many frames in its video – 60fps vs. 30fps - the HD1080 – 10Mbps, 720@60fps recording quality requires considerably more processing power and bandwidth from the Tablo DVR’s internal hardware.
In some instances, this setting could negatively affect the quality of the video if four simultaneous 60fps live streams were in progress.
To preserve image quality across streams, Tablo’s fourth tuner will be temporarily disabled if any 720p stations are being recorded at 60fps. This is true only for 4-tuner, Tablo QUAD and Tablo QUAD 1TB DVRs using the HD1080 – 10Mbps, 720@60fps recording quality.
If a tuner cannot be reserved, (i.e, if four recordings are occurring at once), Tablo will automatically record the last scheduled airing at 30fps instead of 60fps.
This failsafe is only put into action on the 4th active recording, which is why this is not seen on 2-tuner Tablo DVRs.
To avoid locking the 4th tuner and still use the 1080 quality, simply change your Tablo DVR's recording quality to 1080 @ 8Mbps. This will remove the 60fps capture on 720p channels.