My cable company is going all digital. This will require a cable box for every TV @ $6.99 a month. The other option is a cable card @ $2 a month. None of my TVs support this. Connecting a co-ax cable will do nothing. I have 5 TVs. This would cost me an extra $45 a month. Someone correct me on this because I’m probably wrong: Now that everything is going to digital, the cable boxes act pretty much like a modem. (Decreasing internet speed while viewing TV) The built-in TV tuners are now incapable of selecting a channel. TVs are essentially giant monitors. Would it be possible to make a splitter like this with a single cable card installed and not lose my wall connections? Then I could just use the built-in TV tuner? Does the cable card just decrypt the channels? Does this transition to digital make it completely impossible for the built in TV tuners to work? (Like trying to play a Sega Genesis game in a Super Nintendo) Requiring me to have a new tuner for every single TV. Now that there is no way to use the built in tuner, the TV’s IR remotes are basically useless. I know that they make receivers with multiple tuners. I would like HD but then again I don’t want to completely rewire my house to HDMI. (Wouldn’t HDMI experience a huge quality loss over 50 ft?) Here’s my best solution: A 5 or 3 tuner cable box that takes one cable card. Each of the 5 tuners has a duplicate HDMI and co-ax out-put. The unit comes with 5 RF remotes. Then I could just replace my current 8-way splitter with this box and not have to rewire my house. .Does such a product exist? What are your set-ups and ideas? Or ya know I could just watch TV in one room. hahah
They are probably already all digital but now they are just encrypting all the channels which is why you need a box at every tv. No real way around if you want a tuner at each tv. You could set up some kind distribution system with a cable card compatable tuner and some pcs running windows media center or something. Or there are tivos but everything is going to cost money.
If you do not want to watch different things on two of your tv at the same time you could just have a switch box and long ass cables running from the TV box to all your TVs, then some system to remotely switch the channels from anywhere xD
I much rather spend $200 once than let the cable company bend me over. (hahah this is one of those instances were then and than make a huge difference) I had that same idea of splitting right from the same cable box. Too much of a hassle. I want this to seem like it never happened. Are all the tuners dependent on a computer?
You need some sort of device to install the cable card into like a tivo or computer based product. Silicon dust makes something called an hdHomerun that is supposed to be good. You will have to do some research into this if it's the way you want to go. Multipule ways to set it up. Also not going to be as user friendly as a cable box from the cable company. Hdhomrun can use xbox 360s or ps3s as tuners if you have some of them around.
Why doesn't a user friendly system like this already exist? Is the concept of using one cable card outputting to 5 tuners even legal? It surprises me that there isn't a third party making cable boxes with multiple tuners/outputs.
Tivo would be what you want then, but it's not cheap. The new roameos can be networked to smaller tivo mini tuners that you have at remote TVs.
Is this IPTV (receiver connected to the internet) or digital cable broadcast (receiver plus Common Access Module + Smart Card to decrypt the signal)? In both cases you can just use a video splitter/switch from whatever the receiver outputs to whatever inputs your TVs have. Of course that would limit you to watching one channel at the same time on all TVs, just as MaxWar said. HDHomeRun also only takes unencrypted DVB-C broadcast and streams this to a (home) network. You'll maybe save on cables if you already have a setup of network-enabled devices sitting under each TV but the same limitations as above apply.
They make an hdhomerun for cable cards as well. http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun/prime/ OP has digital cable not iptv. If it was iptv then cable card would not be an option.
He seems to have some things mixed up. Recently the FCC decided to allow cable companies to encrypt all their channels as they were saying people were stealing cable tv while only paying for internet. So now most companies have decided to do this since they are allowed to now. Before they could only do some channels and not basic cable channels. Most only used to encrypt pay channels like HBO and Showtime and not bother with others like Discovery. So you could hook the cable to the tv and use it's tuner and get most channels. Now that is not going to be possible for most people so the cable tuner in their TVs is useless.
Not really on topic but I've found just lagging behind on things until I can find an alternative to TV works well for me. I guess it really depends on how much television you watch though.
Thanks, now I understand what is going on. I got into an argument with them. They claim, "They are making the 100% digital transition." I know that's false. The FCC or government forced this conversion over a year ago. I couldn't figure it out at the time.
The digital switch was for OTA (broadcast that you would pick up with an antenna) only I think. The csr may not have known what was going on. Though most cable companies switched to all digital a long time ago too (maybe not some rural cable companies). I assume yours is just now encrypting everthing so they can charge for extra boxes. The chairman of the FCC being a former cable lobiest probably has nothing to do with this.
Comcast has done this in my area. It is irritating for so many reasons (you cannot buy the boxes - only rent them, they do not support HD unless you pay extra, every TV now needs two remotes, the only way to turn them off is to unplug them, cable cuts out more, internet seems much slower, etc). Comcast say it's because the government mandate, but the cable guy said it's to stop people from stealing cable and to make money from the box rental fees. In my area there are no alternatives to comcast, so I am stuck with it.
Why on Earth do you need five televisions running at once? Use one for your cable viewing, that's best. The only thing that will make a difference is if you want to watch DIFFERENT channels simultaneously on different televisions. Then yes, you'll need two set top boxes. That's normal. In which case, if this is what you want, pay it. Otherwise, you can redistribute the same signal around the house, no problem. Once it leaves the set top box, do with it what you will.
This is what I ended up doing. I noticed the new cable boxes have a plug for IR extender. I picked up this media server IR ehome extender. (That's what it says when connected to windows over USB.) The 3.5mm jacks on the back are an input not an output. So I soldered a wire from the Signal pin of the IR module to the middle of the 3.5mm jack. Now it is an output. Plug the IR extender into the TV over USB and plug the other end of the 3.5MM into the Cable Box. All in all, I had to run two new single wires and re route some co-ax. I have two cable boxes and they are connected to 4 TVs. I can control the box that is downstairs from my room now.
