Single Cable Distribution

cormacl

Folks,
I've been lookup up "Single Cable Distribution".. its apparently a new solution, serving up to 8 satellite receiver feeds from a single cable run. Its definitely not the existing multi-switch technology.

Ref:
http://www.ses-astra.com/corpSite/site_en/02_solutions/01_media/01_Broadcast/SingleCable/index.php

My father in law in Germany is contemplating switching from cable to Satellite and heard about this option (he has to feed 8 tvs in a 3-appartment house) and obviously the lower cabling needs seemed intriguing. He already has the house cabled to the three apartments with cable running from the cellar to all points in the house. So its possible he may be able to avoid running lots of cable everywhere and just leverage off what he already has

Anyone hear about this new technology?

Zaphod

There was a review last year I think in Tele-Sat mag of Lemon boxes which have Unicable/SCR implemented. They looped 8 boxes in a daisy chain fashion via the IF out port and using a Unicable LNBF. It worked fine. Presumably you could follow the diagram in the SES leaflet and use a single backbone cable with splitters to allow links to each receiver, rather than doing it via the IF out route which would be messier.

AFAIK both Lemon and Manhattan receivers support Unicable LNBFs.

I'll post a scan of the TS review if I can find it.

watty

You need special LNB and special receivers. There is a limit (8? 12? 16?) on how many reciever can hookup. The receiver basically says "hello" to the LNB which has up 6, 12 or 16 single channel output IFs on different frequencies.

The LNB tells receiver which channel to use for IF.
The reciever when channel changed send the Sat frequency, H/V to LNB as a command which then sets that on the pre-arranged IF channel.

So no use to add a SkyDigibox or Dreambox or anything later. A convertor for existing receivers would not know which channel the receiver was tuned to, so no converter box is possible.

Splitters do indeed work with it.

For larger systems (16 to 1000 outlets) a conventional Multiswitch is a better solution (only solution).

For up to 2 PVRs a Quad LNB will be cheaper.

It is really a concept for 3 to 8 PVRs in a single house, though some of these may not do as many as 16 channels.

I imagine the LNBF must be very expensive as it essentially has a Quattro LNBF, 16 way multiswitch equivalent, CPU and up to 16 IF modulator/converts like in a CATV head end all in one box.

A yuppie solution to satellite reception that is very limited in compatible receivers, expensive and only saves a little on cable installation.

I have a single 16 way multiswitch and doubling to 32 is not expensive. I doubt the single cable system can be expanded till they bring out a newer LNBF with 32 channels.

Limit is likely to be technically close to 64 ever, for this technology compared with about 1000 receivers or more for Multiswitch technology.

Zaphod

Tele-sat review of Lemon Unicable system: 4 boxes on 1 cable

cormacl

Thanks Zaphod.. great detail in that article

Zaphod

Zaphod

byte

Interesting posts, Zaphod.