Digital TV in multi-room setup ?

joebre

At present I have Sky multi-room and a couple of old Sky boxes sending FTV to my bedrooms. All are connected to an 8 way multi-switch. I have no aerial at the moment.

I would like to be able to view the Irish channels in the bedrooms where I have no Sky subscription. If I install an aerial and new tuner, can I send the output into the multi-switch and tune into the TV's in the bedrooms ?

stiofanD

Hi joebre - I've used Triax multiswitches in the past and in addition to the 4 satellite inputs, they all have a fifth 'terrestrial' input. I've never used it myself, but I'd reckon you can connect your ariel to that input and it will be distributed to the bedrooms on the same cable as the satellite signal.

joebre

My multi-switch is Triax and it has an extra input for "terrestrial" as you say.
I presume that the same cable to the bedrooms will do?
However can one person watch RTE1 and another RTE2 at the same time?

joebre

watty

You need 950MHZ TV/Sat splitters in the rooms.

joebre

Hi watty,

Tried to google more !
Can you give me more info please ?
Splitters in each of the rooms?
Will the single cable to each room be enough?

stiofanD

In each room you would need something like this: http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?main_cat=02&PROD=SSEW120F
to split the VHF/UHF frequencies from the satellite frequencies. Then the cable with the satellite signal is connected to the lnb input on the Sky box and the other cable is connected direct to the TV (or possibly to the RF input on the Sky box, depending on how you connect your Sky box to the TV)

joebre

My setup is I have a quatro lnd feeding into a multiswitch. The multiswitch and the three Sky boxes are all stacked on top of each other in a cabinet. I want to put the new tuner there as well. There is just a single coax leading to each TV. The TV's are all wall mounted and I do not want to have any other equipment, other than a splitter in the room.

joebre

Watty or stiofanD,

I have read both your replies but am still confused.
I have only one cable coming to the back of each TV from my cabinet with all the boxes & multiswitch.

Please help me decide.

Joe

maxg

It depends what you want. The irish channels in analogue or digital format.
It looks like you distribute the analogue output of RF2 around your house.
How do you combine the output of the sky boxes or is every bedroom TV connected to a single Sky box.

joebre

I have Sky multi-room for downstairs and three separate Sky boxes on the top floor. As I have no subscription for these boxes, I want to be able to run RTE and TV3 to these rooms as well. I would prefer to buy one digital tuner if it could be combined, through the multi-switch, to the three rooms.

maxg

You didn't answer the question how the bedroom TV's are connected to the sky boxes. I guess via RF2 and every bedroom TV got his own sky box.

joebre

Thats right.
3 boxes,
RF2 out.
One coax to each room.
Magic eye to control each box.

maxg

You could split the output of a aerial and feed the aerial input at the sky boxes with the signal from the aerial. After that you could watch the irish channels in analogue format via the tuner of the bedroom TV's. TV's with DVB-t tuner and mpeg4 decoder could also use the irish dtt test channels. Beside that you could also feed the terrestrial input at your multiswitch for the living room.
How to split depends on the circumstances.

joebre

maxg,

Three different solution proposed by you !
1.Splitting aerial signal and running feed to aerial input of sat. box. This would involve running a new feed to each box?
2. None of my TV's have built-in MPEG4 tuner.
3. Running the aerial feed into the aerial input of the multi-switch.
The last is my preferrred option. Just wondering if I can see different channels on separate TV's at the same time if I only use one box?



Many thanks

Joe

maxg

For instance you could use a distribution amp with one input for the aerial and 4 outputs.
You connect 3 outputs to the aerial inputs of the 3 sky boxes and after that you can receive the irish channels in analogue format at the old TV's in the 3 rooms.
The fourth output you can connect to the aerial input of your multiswitch and after that every room which is directly connected to the multiswitch has the irish channels on the line and you can use TV/Sat splitting wall plates to seperate the signals if you want.
After analogue switch off in 2012 or later you have to overthink your installation.

maxg

A other idea would be to use only the multiswitch for distribution and to use three Sat/TV splitters before the sky boxes.
The problem is to supply the right signal strength. You have to calculate the distribution loss of your multiswitch, the loss through the splitters and the loss through the cables.
Maybe you need a additional amp for the aerial.