How would you setup my house?

[csete]

Hello,

I'm a newbie to the forums, so please be gentle with me! We are currently cable customers and I'm getting tired enough of the cable company to be interested in moving to satellite. The problem that I'm having is that I don't know how to structure the television distribution in our house. Let me explain...

We currently have standard (not RG-6) television cable throughout the house. We have not had any televisions die, so we have a bunch of them hooked up to the cable. Most of them are on rarely and that is primarily to watch a few local channels. We have two primary televisions in the house with digital tuners (and one DVR). Those two TV's are the important ones to get full satellite support including tuners and likely DVR's for both (one is HD). I would really like to find a way to get some small subset of channels broadcast to the other TV's but not require a tuner or new cable installations. The ideas I've had so far:

- Keep "basic" cable. This would reduce our monthly bill to the cable company, but I'd prefer not to give them *any* money.
- Install an antenna for OTA. This would require the antenna which I'm not a fan of, as well as potentially requiring tuners on the other TV's.
- Skip a bunch of the TV's altogether.
- Use some sort of television distribution/broadcasting solution along with another satellite tuner. This seems like a relatively complex and expensive solution.

Is there some other options that I'm missing that would work better for this situation?

Thanks,
Craig

 

[rad]

One thing you didn't mention that might help with your answer is what are you using for your internet connection? I know with Comcast and Time Warner, if you don't have any level of cable TV service they add around $10 or so to your internet access charge, making things work out so it's almost makes sense to keep basic/lifeline cable TV service.

Currently DirecTV requires two cable runs from the satellite inorder to have both tuners work. Also I'd recommend another cable run and an over the air antenna to pick up the HD channels that may be in your area that aren't carried by DBS (like PBS). The installer should run those for you but if you wall runs or anything fancy be prepared to pay extra for that. A lot of the cabling would depend on how the cable is installed now and where any splitters have been installed to reach all your rooms. You can't split the signal from the satellite dish, it must be home run from the dish or a multiswitch.

Frankly, unless DirecTV has some programming or something else you MUST have, you might want to check out Dish network for service. They have a couple of boxes that would help with your issue of being able to service multiple TVs/rooms without having extra boxes. The set top box has outputs for two TV's, the 2nd is connected via a coax cable and comes with an RF remote control to allow for operation in another room.

Good Luck.

 

[csete]

Thanks for your input. My internet is via Qwest DSL, so that isn't an issue. And they do have some sort of a deal with DirecTV that might help the monthly cost a bit. Can you provide any pointers to the boxes you mention so I can do some further research?

I'm a bit confused about how the cabling is usually done. Is it traditionally in-wall or outside the wall?

This is probably a dangerous question, but what are the primary differences between DirecTV and Dish? I don't know of any specific reason I would need one versus the other.

 

[rad]

I'd recommend that you post your question over at the Dish network forums and ask about their multiroom receivers to get a better answer then I can give you.

IIRC, the installer will want to run the cables the easiest (cheapest) way, which would probably mean run on the outside walls, they will do in wall I believe but for extra charge.

Currently Dish network is a leader in the number of HD channels that you can get. DirecTV can't add anymore national HD channels until a new satellite gets launched next month, rumor is that the first new channels will be available in September and once both new satellites are active they will have the CAPACITY for 150 national HD channels. Dish says they'll add 6 more national HD channels by the end of this year and has plans in the work to launch two new satellites by the end of the year and start a new service that uses only MPEG4 to allow for up to 200 national HD channels. Looks like for the next couple years who has the most HD channels will be switching back and forth a bunch.

One thing DirecTV has is some exclusive sports packages on DBS such as the NFL and Major League Baseball. Currently DirecTV also is doing more HD local into local channels in more cities then Dish, you'll need to see if either provider carries your channels.

 

[Phoenix1]

What I am doing in my new house to address TVs that don't have a satellite receiver is feeding the output of my main receiver back out to my distribution panel where it can be split out to the other TVs. Of course they can only watch what is being watched on the main TV.