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Splitting Digital Cable?
multimoog
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Registered User regular
Welp, I didn't see this topic anywhere, so I thought I'd ask, as this seems to be where most of the techknowlege is.
I just got Comcast digital cable, and am thinking about having it be on more than one TV in my house. The problem is, the two TVs are literally at opposite ends of the house - one's on the North side of the living room on the firsy floor, and the second one I want cable on is in my room, on the South wall of the third floor. It seems like stringing coaxial cable up three flights of stairs and across the house might get inconvenient, not to mention expensive.
Does anyone know of an alternative? More of like a one-time thing, maybe wireless? I could get another cable box but that would create an install fee of forty bucks plus ten bucks a month to rent a second box. Since it's digital cable, is there something I can plug into the cable box on the first floor and transmit to my TV upstairs?
I just got Comcast digital cable, and am thinking about having it be on more than one TV in my house. The problem is, the two TVs are literally at opposite ends of the house - one's on the North side of the living room on the firsy floor, and the second one I want cable on is in my room, on the South wall of the third floor. It seems like stringing coaxial cable up three flights of stairs and across the house might get inconvenient, not to mention expensive.
Does anyone know of an alternative? More of like a one-time thing, maybe wireless? I could get another cable box but that would create an install fee of forty bucks plus ten bucks a month to rent a second box. Since it's digital cable, is there something I can plug into the cable box on the first floor and transmit to my TV upstairs?
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AC:CF - 1032 4742 8889
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Now if you meant basic cable on the second TV, then you'd need a second jack anyway with a different source because once they activate digital cable on a connection that connection no longer sends a basic cable signal.
So, either way you have to call the cable company.
AC:CF - 1032 4742 8889
PM me if you add any of my codes
Most cable companies encrypt their digital cable signal - its digital after all and very easy to do, so you can't watch it on a TV unless you have a box decrypting the signal as it comes in.
If you only get channels up to 200 or so, thats not digital cable its just basic cable :P
Actually, looks like you can: http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=digital+cable+box&category0=
AC:CF - 1032 4742 8889
PM me if you add any of my codes
He might have CableCARD. No box, full digital cable.
Hmm. I've got a slightly absurd idea.
Route audio/video cables from the cable box at TV 1 to connect to TV 2. Get a second remote and an RF remote repeater. Use the RF repeater to send remote control signals from TV 2 to the cable box.
You'd have the same channel on both TVs at the same time, but how many TVs can you watch at once anyway?
We do that for all our TVs - Digital High Def with DVR on one TV, and basic cable on the other 4. Only cost $20 to have the cable guy come out and activate all of the other cable outlets and it doesn't cost anything per month (every cable company I've ever talked to gives free basic cable on unlimited TVs with any digital cable subscription.
You'll only get 70 channels or so but really its enough for a "non-main" TV, such as one in a bedroom or something.
Not true, digital cable signal is just another signal piggybacked on your basic cable signal. If you take that digital cable feed and put it straight to your TV, you'd get raw cable. Also, if someone has a QAM Tuner on their TV, they will get some digital cable from, a raw feed. It won't be the full lineup as you get from the converter (generally the HD channels, and occasionally a few pay per views if a neighbor is watching them), but it is digital cable.
To OP: Depending on your living situation, if there's an outlet at the second TV it might actually be activated for raw cable (2-78). As I said in your H/A thread, If you really want digital at that second site, you can use wireless thingies (http://www.nextag.com/Audiovox-Wireless-2-4GHz-77091879/prices-html?nxtg=22a660a1c0536-1679691592500671), but they're not the greatest things in the world.
AC:CF - 1032 4742 8889
PM me if you add any of my codes
That might be true for some cable companies (or maybe even most) but I had a cable company in Orlando and I had a digital cable box hooked up to a wall jack, and I moved my rooms around and put a regular TV directly into the line, and didn't get any cable signal at all until I had the cable company come out and move the digital cable to the port that I moved the cable box to. They told me that when they activate a jack for digital cable it only gets the digital cable signal and no basic cable signal at all - could be something special they were doing in the box on the outside of the house, not sure.
AVSForums are a good source of more information than anyone could ever possibly want on all of this type of stuff.