After spending a couple of years investigating the best approach for cutting cable, I learned that keeping local channels seems to be the hard part. This is kind of critical, since I live in Tornado Alley and local weather is an ABSOLUTE MUST, pretty much year round.

I wanted an antenna system, but wasn't sure how to route the antenna feed to all of the various devices in the house (3 TVs, 2 cell phones, 1 desktop PC, 3 laptops, and 2 tablets). Since routing antenna cable wasn't feasible, I started looking at network distribution. With this, two names quickly rose to the surface: Tablo and SiliconDust. I'd had some less than enriching experiences with the SiliconDust people a couple of years ago (which subsequently sent an HDHomeRun Prime into the garbage), so I focused on the Tablo.

After a bit of research, I decided on the Tablo Dual Lite OTA DVR. For an antenna, I paired the Tablo with an Antennas Direct ClearStream 2V TV antenna (currently sitting in my living room until I can get on the roof to mount it). For DVR storage, I used a 1 TB Western Digital 'Elements' HDD. Hookup was very easy. I used antennaweb.com and a compass app on my phone to eyeball the looking angle of the antenna. Next, I downloaded the Tablo app to my Roku Ultra (my go-to for streaming), logged into Tablo, made my option selections, performed a channel scan, and we were on the air.

The initial channel scan showed only about a dozen channels, but I'd seen that it had detected almost 50 channels. That's when I realized that the Tablo selects only the HD channels by default. After rescanning, I was able to manually select which channels I wanted to keep, and wound up with almost 40 channels. Reception is generally pretty good through the ClearStream/Tablo combo (we're about 12 miles away from the local TV antenna farm), although inclement weather will occasionally throw some pixelation. Picture quality on my 4K Samsung is generally very good with upscaling of the lower def channels.

With the Tablo, we can stream local broadcast television channels to just about any device in the house that has a wi-fi capability (which is ALL of them). Tablo also features a local channel guide, which is pretty cool.

Overall, we're very pleased with the Tablo. The only caveat centers on local weather broadcasts. During a tornado, often seconds can be the difference between life and loss of limb. I've noticed that the Tablo/network processing introduces several seconds of delay between signal reception and display on the device. To offset this, I'm going to add an antenna line to the Master bedroom antenna, so we can watch local broadcasts off the air, potentially giving ourselves several seconds to respond that we might not have had, otherwise. While I don't think that we'll every actually be hit by a tornado, I grew up here (Oklahoma), and I know enough to respect the possibility...

As for the Tablo, it works great, it helped me cut my cable bill by $100/month, and it lets me stream local TV throughout my house. It's even a DVR (which we don't really use, but it's still nice to have.)

Overall: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This is a great way to cut the cable cord. The best part is it is connected to your system wirelessly as opposed to a system like the HD HomeRun and others which has to be tied with an ethernet cable to your router or modem. In addition it works well with a Roku system, no issue there. Again the HD HomeRun system does not work well with Roku at all, I tried and had to send it back. Anyhow, the install/setup software is quirky and you have to power through it thinking it isn't working but then voila, it is setup. I have it setup in my garage where the antenna is close and I can hook a short easy run from the antenna to it. It communicates well through my home internet, wirelessly, to all my Roku devices and phones. Make sure you have a good antenna if you live outside a major market. I am about 50 miles away and bought one on Amazon for about $100 that is doing the trick. Depending on your network speed will dictate your image quality. Luckily I have a good network and can watch 1080p without issue. This coupled with a couple of subscriptions is saving me about $120 a month over using Comcast. You can't get all the cable channels like FoxNews, CNN, Discovery, TNT, etc but in all honesty I'm fine with local news via Tablo and paid subscriptions (Netflix, Paramount +, Peacock, etc). Tablo keeps me attached to some good old programming MeTV, CW, some How To channels, and a bunch of others when I can tolerate the comercials. LOL. They used to do commercial skip. That would be nice if they kept that feature. It's not a big deal since you can fast forward through recordings like an old DVD/VCR but it still would be nice. They hit you with a charge if you want detail descriptions on shows. The free grid is ok for me. It's not much for the subscription but it doesn't matter much to me and the free grid gives you enough info to tell what you are watching. You will have to buy a hard drive to record which is about $80-150 depending on how many terra bytes you want to record on. I bought 1 TB, works fine for me. Certainly is saving us some $$ just know there are some limitations and services you will not get or you will have to pay a subscription for, the system basically paid for itself in 3 months.

I purchased both the Tablo Dual, and the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex Duo.
I like them both for different reasons and will use both.
The Tablo is a bit more expensive, but the setup was easy, it can be used with wifi. On Windows you can access it see the Channel Guide and watch/record shows via a web browser. The layout is great, and easy to use. You have more options using the Tablo. The app for Roku works well, and also has a great layout and many options. While it can be used for free you will probably want to pay the $50 a year for the advanced Guide and recording. You will need a local USB drive plugged into the device to record.

The HDHomeRun is cheaper, the setup is even easier than the Tablo, so would be great for non-tech users. However, on Windows you must go to the Microsoft store and install an app. The layout for the Channel Guide is more modern but not as easy to see what is on. The Roku app works but is also clunky. The device does not have Wi-Fi, so it must be plugged in directly to your router/switch, which may not be the location where your antenna connection is. You will probably want to pay the $35 a year for the advanced guide and DVR recording.
*Here is the kicker for HDHomeRun. If you have a Plex server, you can easily connect it to the HDHomeRun device. Then you get a great channel guide, DVR recording, and the ability to watch your shows inside of Plex without needing to pay the $35. Also in Plex, you will have everything organized by season and episode number.

I didn't check phone or Firestick apps, as I don't use them very often for watching shows.

Conclusion, if you want simple and cheap get HDHomeRun, it works well if you want to just watch local TV. If you want to be more complex but have a great setup using Plex also get HDHomeRun.

If you want easy to setup, great interface in both Windows and Roku, add in your own USB drive for recording, then get the Tablo. Quite frankly they both work well.

This is my 2nd Tablo Dual. I've had the Tablo Dual 64 (with built-in 64GB storage) for about three years in my primary residence. I recently bought this Tablo Dual Lite (requires external hard drive) for my winter home in Florida. For a cord cutter who gets television over the air, these are the best DVRs that I've found. Here are some of the strong points:

* Connects to your TV antenna and router (wired or wireless.) I use the wired connection to the router for simplicity. I can then watch live and recorded TV programs on every smart-equipped TV in my house. My TV's are either Roku TV's or have a Fire Stick, all with Wi-Fi connections. There's no need to run an antenna cable to each TV. With the Tablos, the TVs don't need to be near the unit. This greatly simplifies moving TV's around because there are no boxes or wiring except to plug into AC power.

* Program guide is very well laid out with logical navigation. For channel surfing, ignoring the guide, I can press the up arrow on the Fire or Roku remote and scroll by channel number, easily jumping between programs.

* Automatic Commercial Skip function is fantastic. It's not available on all shows, but when the show qualifies, a timeline is presented that shows where the commercials have been detected (by the Tablo server) and the player knows to automatically jump past them when viewing.

* Manual program scanning is fast and facilitated by show icons large enough to rapidly jump to particular parts of a show, skip commercials, etc.

* I can remotely view live and recorded programs on my smart phone or laptop from anywhere. You must first use these devices to connect with your Tablo in the same local network. Once this is done, then they are "paired" with your unit so that remote viewing is available. When setting up remote viewing, you can specify the bit rate for this feature. If you want to conserve your cell bandwidth and don't care that much about picture quality, you can go as low as 500kbps. For better remote HD quality, you can set it higher.

* You can also adjust recording and live viewing bandwidth in your local network. I find that 3 mbs produces fine quality HD, but you can go higher if you want. The bitrate for recording will affect the number of hours of recordings on your hard disk. Picture quality is very good for my needs. Yes, the units compress the video. A purist might want to split the antenna signal and watch the OTA directly with the TV's tuner if that's an issue.

* Dual tuners let you watch or record two different channels (on different TVs) or watch one channel while recording another, etc. In our household, there's only 2 of us, so the dual tuner model is fine. A larger family might want the 4 tuner model. Actually, in our set-up, we have a dual tuner in Florida and a dual tuner in our primary residence, and can access either Tablo from the other location so technically we have four tuners!

* You can watch a recorded program while recording two other programs with the DVR.

* I prefer the Tablo Preview app to the standard Tablo app. On the Fire Stick, it loads instantly and there's no waiting for "sync." The standard app takes a while to sync up if you've just started up.

Some other things you should know. We pay $49.99/year for the program guide. I think this is a pretty good deal since this also activates the automatic commercial skip feature, remote access, and 14-day guide. It's possible to operate without the paid service, but you can only schedule 24 hours in advance, or record via tuner/timer settings. I don't mind paying for the guide, especially since it helps keep Tablo profitable and around. (My previous DVR was a "Simple TV" brand that was similar to the Tablo. However, when that company closed its doors, my unit became useless. My recommendation is to buy from a company that's going to be around and provide ongoing support. A modest payment doesn't hurt.)

The tuners in my two Tablo Dual devices are pretty good. They pick up channels that, in some cases, don't scan on my TVs. A minor complaint is that they only show the virtual channel number, not the actual RF channel. So when WNBC-4 is transmitting on RF channel 36, it's cataloged as CH4. The geek in me would prefer to show both the actual channel and virtual channel. Without that information you don't really know if you are receiving VHF or UHF frequencies, which require different types of antennas. This unit does not support cable QAM channels. Strictly over the air television.

As far as I can tell, the main difference between the Dual 64 and Dual Lite is the 64GB internal storage. You can always increase the storage on the 64 by adding a hard disk, but I've never come close to filling it up since I regularly delete the programs I've watched. I would have purchased a 2nd 64, but the price on the Lite was much more attractive. I also noticed that my Dual 64 is manufactured in Canada while the Dual Lite is from China. The units appear physically the same but the Dual Lite requires a 1.5 amp power supply, while the 64 requires a 1.0 amp supply. Each unit is shipped with an AC adapter.

I first tried an antenna with my TV to get a feel for what local channels were available and the quality of reception before trying the Tablo Dual Lite. I live in a large metro area with many stations nearby. It's best to buy a good antenna. The antenna man on YouTube has good recommendations.
I have an indoor antenna upstairs connected to the Tablo. It scanned and found about 70 channels. Not all had a strong signal and some were duplicates or channels I wasn't interested in. I still got 44 usable channels that recorded well.
The Tablo is attached by ethernet cable to my router, so I can't speak about its WiFi capabilities. I use Roku devices with my TVs to watch the Tablo recordings. The guide service with 14 days of upcoming shows has good graphics and is pretty easy to navigate. I would say that my cable dvr was more responsive but I'm happy with the Tablo's speed.
I've been using it since February 2023 and don't regret dumping cable. I'm saving about $90/month. The Tablo and a hard drive are paid off in only a couple of months.
I'm using the ClearStream 1MAX antenna by Antennas Direct. Their antennas and Channel Master let you swap out the cable so that you can choose the length and quality. A lot of the cheaper antennas have thin built in cables. I'm using an RG6 quad shielded coaxial cable with my antenna.