Cable and TV2 Combination

[chicagonettech]

We have dumped AT&T and Vonage for voice services in our house. We have also dumped AT&T for their DSL because it crashed every day, the modem had to be reset on a regular basis, and the passwords were always loosing sync with the AT&T servers and we had to endure a couple of hours a week getting them reset with a non-English as a primary language individual from somewhere in the Pacific rim.

Today we got rid of AT&T and installed Comcast HS digital internet, at 20 meg, with two voice lines. First year, $78.00 per month. End of intro period, $115.00 per month - unlimited local and long distance at home and no more having to beg someone to get off the phone - worth the price and actually less than we were paying.

Now, here's the question: What is the best way to combine the TV2 output from the living room receiver to feed the kitchen HD receiver and mix the Comcast DIGITAL basic service - no set top box required - with that.

Anyone played with this? Anyone have any idea as to the best channel to use? OTA? CABLE? If there is a better selection of the two, any idea of the best channel to select?

I've dealt with lots of other RF and data stuff, but the new sets of cable frequencies, along with combining them into a single feed for a single set - not the entire house - although that would be really nice because even Comcast basic service carries the locals in HD and they are 100 times better that what Dish shoves down our throats.

OK, fellow techies, I'm open for suggestions! Combining or distribution amplifiers / separators, passive splitter combiners? While I don't want to spend a lot of money, it would be nice to make this work really well, and, if the situation speaks to a whole-house cable/TV2/OTA/DN solution, that might even make it more interesting.

I'll sweeten the pot even more: If someone can come up with a TRULY elegant solution, with the ability to do all of the above, I will give them a gift of a 2-Year subscription to this board as a thank you!

Thanks in advance . . .

 

[vash1090]

The answer from any internal tech should be: don't. Of course it has been done before. The best suggestion that you "didn't hear from me" is to run a jumper from the VHF/UHF side of your existing diplexer at the cable junction to the UHF/VHF of a new diplexer. Run your cable line into the sat port of the diplexer and connect the line to TV2/computer to the single port side. In the room, cable off the wallplate to the single side, sat port to the modem, UHF/VHF to the TV. You may have better luck also if your TV2 output is modulated to a cable channel (ch73)

 

[mrc54]

I have a similar setup, Comcast basic & digital + dish tv2 output, A simple 2 way spitter will combine the dish analog signal and the comcast digital. The trick is to find a vacant channel to set the dish modulator on. In my case, it was easy, because my Samsung 50" plasma does a scan and shows my all channels with active channels. I currently am using 79 and 105. If you don"t have a tv that tells you active channels, it would be trial and error. You are right the Comcast digital channel are of good quality and more reliable than OTA. Hope this helps.

 

[digiblur]

I have mine setup like this. Cable comes in. Splits in 2. One goes to the cable modem one goes to a 75-80 ch filter. I don't use digital cable. Analogs in my place stop at 64. Clear qam hd is above 100 so I was good. After the filter I have a 2 way backwards feeding the dish722 in to the cable. Then I have an amp then splitters from there to the 6 rooms with tvs. The tv2 remote wanders around the house.

I do have my uhf remote antenna ran up into the attic so all the rooms including my shop can control the dvr.

 

[boba]

I have mine setup like this. Cable comes in. Splits in 2. One goes to the cable modem one goes to a 75-80 ch filter. I don't use digital cable. Analogs in my place stop at 64. Clear qam hd is above 100 so I was good. After the filter I have a 2 way backwards feeding the dish722 in to the cable. Then I have an amp then splitters from there to the 6 rooms with tvs. The tv2 remote wanders around the house.

I do have my uhf remote antenna ran up into the attic so all the rooms including my shop can control the dvr.

On many cable systems a notch filter maybe necessary as digiblur has done because there is a carrier frequency even on unused cable channels. You do realize the TV2 RF output is SD not HD seeing you said the kitchen TV is HD.

 

[harshness]

Based on my experience with Comcast, Digiblur's trap solution is imperative. Even with a Comcast low-pass trap on my line there are no open frequencies.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

soon you will need a comcast box to get any other then OTA tv on cable and that comcast box with not work the TV2 out.

 

[sbsi]

Cable will be on channels 0-82, most cable companies got up to 82 channels and set Dish Network to channel 83. From channel 83 (Dish), you the Dish remote to continue enjoy Dish Network channels. If not, set Dish network to Video option on the television.

When I got Dish, I had Dish for the Top 200 programming and another sat provider for international channels. They set the 2nd option to channel 4 and Dish to channel 3.

 

[aperry]

I have mine setup like this. Cable comes in. Splits in 2. One goes to the cable modem one goes to a 75-80 ch filter. I don't use digital cable. Analogs in my place stop at 64. Clear qam hd is above 100 so I was good. After the filter I have a 2 way backwards feeding the dish722 in to the cable. Then I have an amp then splitters from there to the 6 rooms with tvs. The tv2 remote wanders around the house.

I have a similar setup to this, but can't get my TV's with the combined TV2/Cable to find digital cable channels. I have attached a sketch of my setup.

I have basic Comcast cable coming into the house (note that if I tap off of it directly, I get analog locals, digital locals, and HD locals which are also digital). When I run it into the back end of the splitter (I also use the notch filter that Digiblur described) and out through the diplexers/combiners, the TVs hooked to the TV2/Cable wire don't get all the channels. I get a couple of the HD channels, but miss some, and all the digital locals (200-250 digital) are gone.

The splitter is 5 - 2300 MHz, so that's not the issue. The TV2/Cable does feed into a 3-way splitter, but it's also rated with similar numbers.

Is it the diplexer that's causing the problem here? If so, I can always run a second wire, I just wanted to run it by you guys here to get your input.

Unless of course, there is a way to pull this off without running a second wire.

 

[brgmgb]

I tried combining the OTA antenna and TV2 with a combiner purchased from Radio Shack, a diplexer, a splitter hooked up in reverse, and finally settled on an A-B switch. It is the best solution I have come up with so far.

 

[harshness]

I have a similar setup to this, but can't get my TV's with the combined TV2/Cable to find digital cable channels. I have attached a sketch of my setup.

Your diagram leaves out the band stop filter.

Don't assume that cable channel numbers are interchangeable with digital channel numbers. They're typically all over the map just as digital TV channels are relative to the frequencies.

The diplexer is necessarily going to whack everything above 975MHz out of the cable signal. Then there's whatever gets whacked by the band stop filter.

Diplexing cable TV is an all-around bad idea as it is unpredictable and often dynamic.

 

[sbsi]

Video 1 Video 2 option from tv to sat receiver.

 

[aperry]

Your diagram leaves out the band stop filter.

Yeah, sorry about that, I have the same notch/band stop filter that Digiblur mentioned (blocks cable channels 75-80).

Don't assume that cable channel numbers are interchangeable with digital channel numbers. They're typically all over the map just as digital TV channels are relative to the frequencies.

The diplexer is necessarily going to whack everything above 975MHz out of the cable signal. Then there's whatever gets whacked by the band stop filter.

I think my next step will be checking what comes out of the reversed splitter, before the diplexer, and see what channels make it through. I'm convincing myself more and more that I'm gonna need to run a second wire and lose the diplexer.