How does the dual tuner talk to my second TV?

Spazmo

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Original poster
Jun 13, 2008
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Hi, I know nothing about how these boxes work, but I'd like to get the basics down on how they work mechanically.

Basically what I see is a little antenna on the back of the receiver, I'm certain it's for the second remote. However, I don't see how the TV talks to the receiver, there's a coax going from the wall directly to the TV, and I'm guessing then directly to the satellite. The reason I say this is the guy who installed it took maybe 45 minutes to install this thing, and never went into the attic or on the roof (from what I saw, I wasn't stalking him but he was usually in the house).

I have 3 TV's total, one on the box, one set on the second tuner, and one without DVR. I guess the main reason I'm asking all this is because I thought it might be cool to set up both TVs to be able to use that second tuner, but only on occasion. Lets say the second tuner is not in use, but we would like to watch something that's been recorded in the room without DVR. If I could get the tuner to talk to the third TV to watch that recorded bit, then that would be perfect (we don't often use the 3rd TV, only when we have company, it's more of a den I would call it)....is that even remotely possible or am I not seeing how these things work?

Edit, I seem to have overlooked the techincal forum for Dish. I wonder if I could get this moved to the proper forum or deleted.
 
The antenna on the back of the receiver is for the remote. Remote 1 (the one in the same room as the box) is IR (infrared remote...AKA line of site)...remote 2 is UHF (ultra high frequency) which uses radio waves to send the signal to the box. It usually has a distance of 100 feet or so (some more, some less). So thats how TV2 "talks" to the box. If you took the remote from the main room (TV1) and went into the other room and tried it, it wont turn the TV (either of them) due to the line of site issue

so the box in the den is hooked up to a Dish receiver or not? I'm confused on that
 
The antenna on the back of the receiver is for the remote. Remote 1 (the one in the same room as the box) is IR (infrared remote...AKA line of site)...remote 2 is UHF (ultra high frequency) which uses radio waves to send the signal to the box. It usually has a distance of 100 feet or so (some more, some less). So thats how TV2 "talks" to the box. If you took the remote from the main room (TV1) and went into the other room and tried it, it wont turn the TV (either of them) due to the line of site issue

so the box in the den is hooked up to a Dish receiver or not? I'm confused on that

I figured that's how the remote worked, but how does the TV get signal from the box, if it's not connected to it? (Unless it is, but I thought I only saw two wires coming from the box, one to the dish and one to the TV)

Here's how my house is laid out, even though I didn't draw in the hallways :p

fd562w.jpg




Basically what I want to know is how hard would it be to occasionally divert the DVR's signal going to TV II to TV III to watch recorded programs? Note that TV III does have dish, just not the DVR, it has a normal reciever (#301 or something like that). The DVR model is a 522
 
It would take a *LOT* of work. Not to mention you would lose independent viewing on TV 3 (TV 3 would be mirrored/slaved to TV2).

I see. I figured it might be just swapping two cables or something.


And yes I know it would mirror what's on TV2, which would have been fine.

Thanks for your responses.

P.S. - what's up with sylvania TV's not working with the remote :( I wonder if there's a universal one out there that I could use. Hmm.
 
Is your home "pre-wired" with cable for TVs ? If so, he tied into the line going to the 2nd room (without you realizing it). As quickly as he did this, I have to believe it's pre-wired too. Otherwise he would have had to run a line, typically outside, up the wall, and back into the house.
 
Since everyone is dancing around your question and not giving a full explanation, here it is...

(ok, I am going on the assumption that your house was prewired and all TV cables go to a central location)

If you look on the back of your box you will see a TV2 port with a coax running out of it, and into what looks like a splitter (in reality this is a diplexer. This allows a standard OTA/Cable signal run over the same coax as a Sat signal), and from that splitter it runs into your wall. That cable should run to your local cable termination spot where there is another diplexer with a cable from your sat dish, the cable from your TV1, and a cable from your TV2 all running into it. This is where you would use a standard cable splitter to split from the port your TV2 is plugged into (should say ANT or UHF on the port for your TV2) to split that signal to go to your TV2 and your other TV that you wanted to hook up.

NOW, here is the fun part. Since your other TV already has a Sat cable running to it, you can use another set of diplexers (they always work in pairs) to run the TV2 signal to your other TV.

I hope this helps you understand it a little better.
 
I see. I figured it might be just swapping two cables or something.

And yes I know it would mirror what's on TV2, which would have been fine.

Thanks for your responses.

We have two TVs working on the TV2 output. We just put a splitter in the coax line. We had to lower the channel used, though. It was set for channel 60, and we got some snow in the picture. We changed it to channel 35, and the signal from the DVR was strong enough on that lower channel so that it didn't introduce any snow.

Now our only problem is that the remote always seems to be in the the room with the other TV... no matter which one we want to watch. :)

Oh... a little "secret" that our installer hooked up for us: The DVR was quite a distance from the two TVs using TV2, so the remote wasn't always reliable. He put a backward splitter on the output of the DVR. The output of TV2 when into one side, the remote antenna connector was tied to the other. At the other end of the coax he put another splitter, connecting one output to our second splitter, mentioned above, and on the second output he connected the antenna for the remote.

The remote signal and TV signal share the same coax and don't seem to interfere with each other at all. Having three splitters in the line might be the reason we had to use a lower channel to get the signal without snow. It's been working fine this way for a year and a half... no problems!

Larry
SF
 
First, don't confuse tuners with outputs.

Actually, what you'd like to do is easy. There are wireless devices that you can plug in to the output of your DVR and TV3. Yes, you'll be watching the same thing as is being shown on TV1 or TV2, depending upon which you plug into. But I gather this is not a problem. Here is one such device. It is not the one I own, nor do I particularly recommend this unit. But it's a start for you to look for others.
 
I'm a little surprised that no one mentioned that there is also composite output from the receiver for TV2. Since my house wasn't pre-wired, I ordered a 50' composite set from Monoprice and ran that to my second TV. My installer said it was the first time he had seen that done, but liked the PQ. Since both TV2 outputs are live, it is another option, but of course, requires running the cable to the other location.
 
Some of those wireless video devices connect to composite. Mine does. Some use S-video.
 
Wow, so many replies!


Yes, the house was prewired, and I looked at the back of the box again (in daylight) and saw that there were more than a few wires coming from the box.

The splitter idea could work well I think, since it's not very far to the third TV from the two other ones.


Thanks for your help everyone! :D
 
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