My dilemma, and a possible solution for Hopper

[WheelieMan711]

I am new here, but I have visited the site to learn information in the past and am very knowledgeable about technology. I just joined today so I could express my thoughts about the Hopper system and to share/get ideas about setting it up.

My family currently has a 722k Duo set up in our home theater room. We have the receiver set up to output both TV1 (downscaled to SD on channel 60) and TV2 (SD on channel 62) over coax into our home distribution. So in a way we currently have whole-home DVR, but only one of our TVs is displaying HD and we can only watch two programs at once. The Hopper/Joey system seems like a great way to get HD to other TVs and allow us to watch more programs at once, but for us it is not very cost-effective at all. Here's a rundown of what we have and what it would cost to upgrade:

722k home theater: Free
DVR: $6
Living room (distribution over coax): Free
Bedroom 1 (distribution over coax): Free
Bedroom 2 (distribution over coax): Free
Office (distribution over coax): Free
Exercise room (distribution over coax): Free
Total: $6

Hopper home theater: free
DVR: $6
Whole-house: $4
Joey living room HD: $7
Hopper Bedroom 1 SD (plan to upgrade to HDTV): $7
Joey Bedroom 2 SD: $7
Joey Office SD: $7
Joey Exercise room SD: $7
Total: $45
Upfront cost: $299


As I was thinking about this I came up with an idea. I'm not even completely sure it would work. But first, I need a question answered. Does anyone know if it is possible for OTA signals and MoCA to coexist on the same coax line?

If it can, here is my idea. If we get 1 Hopper and 2 Joeys we can have a very complex set up, but it would work for our needs. We can put the Hopper in the home theater and put a Joey in the living room to get HD. If we put the second Joey in the home theater room, we can take the SD output, take it through a modulator, and take the RF out to our home distribution.

This way it still works for our entire house and would only cost $18 extra instead of $39 extra. Since the TVs in our home theater room and living room are our two main televisions, those are really the only two that need HD. Since all the other TVs are currently SD anyway, this could potentially work very well. We would just need to get an extra Joey when we upgrade one of the current televisions to an HDTV.

Another option would be to have 1 Hopper and 1 Joey, and modulate the SD output from the Hopper and distribute that similarly. This configuration would only cost $11 more.

Well, this is what I've come up with after brainstorming. Let me know your thoughts, if it might work for you, or if you have any other suggestions. Again, I'm not completely sure this would work just yet, but is just an idea.

 

[Scherrman]

Sound like some great ideas to me. I'm think of doing a few things similar. I currently have my 922 running to the bedroom and kitchen tvs. The bedroom can view sides 1 and 2 of the receiver. Then I have a 211k in the basement.

I'm thinking of having a Hopper in the living room, Joey in the kitchen and then a Hopper in the basement that is mirrored to my bedroom. My bill only goes up $7 this way. $7 for a TV to go from SD to HD and be on it's own along with adding extra satellite tuners is worth it to me.

 

[JM42]

It's all theory and conjecture until someone tests it, but based on the bandwidth specs in the "installation document" thread, it should be doable.

Dish has Moca all the way down to 650mhz. To keep things clean I wouldn't consider trying to insert anything over 550 or so, which means any modulated output would need to be VHF or UHF up to the low 20 channel numbers. Put a filter in wherever your injecting the modulator to keep from polluting the Dish frequencies.

Note - none of this may work. Moca may be too sensitive, the solo/duo node might block things, Dish has 50-575mhz labeled "future" so may change things around and cause problems, etc, etc. If you try it consider it a hobby exercise and don't complain if its a waste of time.

Probably easiest to tell the installer your using the existing coax for OTA to the non-dish TVs and have an extra line run to the joey(s). At the joey you would have one new coax for Moca and the old existing coax to feed the modulator into.

 

[digidss]

I'm looking at the frequency chart I have download (somewere here at satguys), and it says MoCA freq will be using 650-865 MHZ spectrum. So diplexing a uhf or vhf modulated signal should work, if keep below channel 69. But also on the chart im looking at, it says 50-575 MHZ "future". So they might use that part of the spectrum in the future.....

 

[navychop]

And as an existing customer, it now seems the upfront will be more like $200, instead of $300.