Digital cable distribution

[os1kne]

I have digital cable in my home with 1 digital cable set-top box. I have 2 other tv's that I'd like to have the digital cable features (channels over 99, movies on-demand, etc.) - but I'm too cheap to pay the monthly fee for the additional boxes. I don't need to have the digital features available on more than one tv at the same time.

I'm pretty sure that I could feed the output of the digital cable box to all of the televisions, but it seems that would make all of the tv's be tuned to the same thing. It seems like it would be possible to have an A/B box at each tv with the A side being standard cable and the B side being the digital cable box output, and this would require running another run of coax to each tv - not a big problem, just not ideal.

Has anyone else had this problem and found a good solution?
How would I go about changing channels on the digital cable box from the various locations?

Thanks.

[radhak]

not an expert, not even experienced - never tried anything like that myself, but at first thought seems like running all that coaxial cables to other rooms would be quite a bit of hassle...no?

you have already hit the biggest problem - changing channels. i find it difficult to do that from the kitchen counter (ie, at a sharp angle), let alone trying it from other rooms .

you be able to watch different non-digital channels tho, am pretty sure. don't have a second tv else would have tested that...

[Tequila]

Here's how I did it.

I took the output of the digital cable box and fed it into an RF modulator. That converts the signal from RCA line to a coax cable channel (It's channel 125 in my house.) Then that cable goes back down to the basement and gets injected back into the coax lines. Now I can tune any TV in my house to channel 125 and watch what's tuned in on the digital box. I can also watch any non-digital channel just like I used to.

Here's the modulator box I used. If you're interested in going this route, I can write up some more details on how to do it.

http://www.hometech.com/video/mod.html#CE-1001ST

[os1kne]

Thanks for the replies. I currently have no problem with non-digital cable (up to ch. 99) at the other locations. The suggestion by Tequila looks do-able, but I'm nut sure that I can tune in ch. 125 on my cable ready tv/vcr tuner at the other location, I'll check into that. Any other suggestions? Thanks.

[headhunter636]

While I was in Germany we wanted to expand our satellite to other tvs in the house but since it wasn't our house we didn't want to put holes in the place. We ended up getting a wireless A/V system that allowed us to watch our satellite upstairs while the actual reciever was downstairs. It was also a nice system because it came with a remote sending unit that would allow us to change stations from upstairs as well.

Hope this helps,
Dave

[KenBurris]

remote

I use an I/R repeater from Radio Shack ($30?) to change the living room digital box from my bedroom- about 20 feet line-of-sight. A/B coax switches etc.