I want to get a cable signal from the upstairs bedroom where the HD/digital box is, to the family room downstairs. Most of the stuff I found says the main box and the downstairs set have to be on the same channel and obviously the remote won't word. Anyway (short of getting another box) to get the signal from upstairs to downstairs and still be able to have different channels and/or remote capability (I can live without that if needed).
Does the box have dual tuner? Otherwise you can watch one channel at a time.
I can watch one and record one, does that count?
Not unless you have another output. On my Dish boxes the second tuner outputs a regular RF channel that you can transport on coax cable and they supply an RF remote that will work just about anywhere in the house if you use the external antenna.
You can buy "remote extenders" that transmit the Ir signal wirelessly.
And you don't want to just split the *feed* to those two places?
If the TV in the family room has a QAM tuner, your cable provider continues to provide unencrypted local channels, and you would be satisfied receiving only your local area TV stations (and maybe a few others), you could plug the RF cable from the digital box directly into the antenna jack on the back, run a scan on the antenna input, and then wean out the redundant and unwanted channels that the scan selected.
I did that for our 22" TV in the dinette (our main TV, with the digital box, is in the den). In addition to the local broadcast channels and subchannels, I can view ARTS on a community service channel, and a 24 hr local area cable news channel. Neither of those two can be received over the air. It took a while to edit out all the scan detected channels that either were SD, redundant, or encrypted, but I save more than $8/mo and what we receive is fine for watching while preparing and/or eating meals.
Of course, if your cable provider encrypts even local, over the air station signals (an FCC ruling recently changed longstanding policy and now allows that at the cable provider's discretion), your family room TV doesn't have a QAM tuner, or you need to watch cable specific channels in the family room, this solution won't work for you.
Our cable company allowed that up to about a year ago. Then they made it so that every TV had to have a box of some kind to receive any stations. I switched to Direct TV.
If you have a good internet connection, you might want to look into the Roku type devices . That is a box that can be connected to the TV set and allow some TV watching on a set that is not connected to the cable. You only have to buy that box one time for about $ 50 to $ 100 depending on the box you get.
While you probably don't want to do it, you might also want to look into the smart TVs that do some of the same things.
Depends on the cable company. Most require a box to decode the signal. Used to be a cable ready TV could get the basic channels with no box.
I'd look for a used compatible box and be done with it. I assume your cable company wants a monthly rental
This place seems to have them for sale.
Two options, both of which I use:
For the non-HD TV's in the garage, the shop, the shed, etc. I settled for whatever is available on Basic cable by just splitting the cable at the source and using some amplifiers. The digital HD versions of our local channels (x.1, etc.) are available on the Basic cable, so I can watch some shows in HD on the HD TV in my office, which works fine for sports, etc.
For my basement TV, I opted to go with TWC Whole House DVR service. This gets you one set-top box with a DVR and one set-top box without a DVR. I get the full suite of channels on both sets, but I do not have pause, rewind, etc. on the basement TV - well at least not directly. With the main DVR box, I can record up to 2 shows at the same time and also watch a DVR'd program while the other 2 shows are recording. What I will often do is begin a recording on the DVR and then access that recording on the basement TV by using the Whole House DVR service. In other words, while the main DVR box is recording the show, I am playing it back via the basement set-top box. This gives me the pause and rewind capabilities I like, especially for sports where I might want to watch a play more than once.
The Whole House DVR system is cheaper than 2 DVR's by about $15/month and for now, it suits my needs. While it would certainly be more convenient to be able to use pause and rewind without having to start the recording upstairs, I don't do it enough to warrant the extra $15/month.
Ourts can watch one and record up to 8 at the same time (Rogers NextBox3). I have the NextBox on the TV in the livingroom that my wife usually uses, an HDBox on mine downstairs, and a simple converter box on the one in my wife's exercise room. We get the full load on the 2, and only basic cable plus on the other one .
Requires a double header dish too?
You might want to try something like this combined with a device that allows you to use RF to get the remote signal back to the receiver.
AVUE HDMI-EC200 is an HDMI extender using a single CAT5e/6/7 cable for up to 200 feet between the Sender TX and Receiver RX unit. It supports a wide spectrum of HDMI input formats that include 1080p, 1080i, 720p,
576p, 576i, 480p, and 480i at 24, 50, or 60 frames; and it also supports variety of audio formats that include DTS-HD, Dolby-trueHD, LPCM 7.1, DTS, Dolby-AC3, and DSD. Additionally, it is 3D content ready.plus something like this:
The LRRX from NextGen is the easiest and least expensive way to add RF to any remote. The secret RF transmitter is hidden in the battery compartment and takes the place of one battery while continuing to power the remote. Ultimately you will then able to use your existing remote through walls, doors, cabinets, etc.
Obviously what I suggested will not allow you to watch two different channels at the same time on two different TV's. If your receiver can output two different channels at the same time then you would be set to go.
That gives me another idea for the OP. Call the cable company and tell them you are considering an offer from Dish or DirecTv. Tell them they will give you a better setup for the two TVs you have and see what they offer.
When they raised my price I called DirecTv and got $30 off instead.
Government corporate welfare at it again!
It sounds like you need a box even for basic cable, correct?
I don't. I have 10 cable outlets in and around the house that get basic cable directly from the cable without the need for set-top boxes. Man, it would suck to need boxes for every outlet.
They just changed about a month ago - and they provide up to 3 basic boxes free. Still a bumber, because now I can't use the old simple PVR any more - without another box.
The boxes started around here just over a year ago. They were 3 or 4 for free, but now they are going to start charging about 5 or 6 dollars per box. I had 2 TV sets on just the regular stations and when they went to the boxes, I went to direct TV. I did not get it at the time, but wish that I had gotten one of the wireless boxes when they installed the system .
The FCC is taking about letting third parties make and sell the boxes. Not sure how long they are into that. At least I can buy my own cable modem for the internet and save those charges.
I do a lot of this. I don't have cable but I have an antenna and tuner in my upstairs bedroom and I have tvs in that room and 7 other rooms. The will all show the same thing at the same time**. (I really only use 4 of the 8 and only one at a time.)
If you're willing to drill a little hole in the corner of the room in the floor of the bedroom, and run some co-ax to the second tv, all you need is a little co-ax and a splitter. $2-5 or so. Almost any box has a signal big enough to make it through one splitter. (I found that if I had two splitters in a row (for a 3rd tv) I needed a signal amplifer between the first and second splitter.)
As to the remote, there is almost always a device for sale that will make your remote work in other rooms. I used to have Cricket, that stuck on to the front of the remote control and used RF to a receiver in the bedroom, where it turned it back into IR, but that didn't work so well later for some reason (now I have a duplicate remote for each floor of the house, so I would need three of the Crickets )
Then I went to Powermid. I guess those are still for sale new at X-10. It's excellent. It has a transmitter that sits on a shelf in the room with the remote tv, and a receiver that sits on a shelf where the tuner is. It has to face the IR window, and if that's not practical, they sell a little thing that plugs into the receiver with red plastic teardrop that sticks to the front of the IR window. Get the one with 3 teardrops in case you want to control 2 other things later. It's only a dollar or two more.
The remote control as I've described it is unrelated to the remote tv signal. They have a device that is bidirectional and will transmit the signal in one direction and the remote controls in the other, but it's expensive. This is more versatile also.
**I actually had a party one time and showed a rare movie with 20 people in the living room, 6 in the kitchen and 7 or 8 in the basement.You're not going to be able to have more in two rooms than in one. But you'll still be able to record one show and watch another
What I said before assumed that your downstairs tv isn't "cable-ready" for the channels you want to watch, because they're encrypted and the tv tuner isn't enough. And that a box is needed.
But if you only want to watch what few and iiuc getting fewer stations are not encrypted, you can split the cable before it goes into the box upstairs and run that to the second tv, and then if there are any such channels, you'll be able to watch two different shows at the same time.
You could do both, run two cables to the downstairs, in a slightly bigger hole, with an A-B switch just before it goes into the TV,
OR
You could just run the two cables to a remote controlled A-B swith that you have in the bedroom, and you could control the A-B switch from downstairs, by buying a Powermid (It's shaped like a pyramid) or something similar, and sticking the second red teardrop to the IR window of the A-B switch. Since the A-B switch only affected downstairs, you could leave that remote control downstairs.
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