Cable or Satellite on more than one TV!

atko · 14-04-2004, 20:21

Hi guys, Just a quick question regarding viewing different channels on more than one TV. I have been asked the question how do you get different channels, say on 5 TV's. My response would be you need a receiver/set top box on each TV. I told him this but he said he was in a hotel at the weekend which had Sky in every room (I think he said 16 rooms). How does a hotel do it? There is no set top box in the room and as opposed to you selecting the AV channel or spare channel to get your Sky or whatever channel on then using your digtal remote to select the digital channel you want you just use the one TV remote which has the Sky or whatever tuned in to the TV. For example; Sky Sports 1 on channel 6, Sky Sports 2 on channel 7, Sky Sports 3 on Channel 8, Sky News on channel 9, etc. I hope I have explained it clearly enough, if anyone can help I would appreciate it. The guy who asked me has his own Pub and would like to know as he has 5 TV's and when Euro 2004 is on in June he would also like to put on say the Golf or Cricket or whatever. Cheers.

magpie · 14-04-2004, 20:31

You DO need a separate decoder for each digital channel.

The hotel is probably doing one of the following two things:

1. These channels are coming off analogue cable, and each TV set is cable ready.

2. (more likely) They have x cable or satellite decoders decoding the x available channels (somewhere where guests can't see them). These are then piped into each room on an rf cable at different frequencies for each station, so any TV can then tune to them.

atko · 14-04-2004, 20:32

Sorry for the reference to Sat, guys, I know this is a cable forum! I myself have NTL on TV, Phone & Broadband, I just guessed the principal would be the same on both. Also sorry for posting in the wrong category I went to delete it but it had already been moved. Thanks.

14-04-2004, 20:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by atko

Hi guys, Just a quick question regarding viewing different channels on more than one TV. I have been asked the question how do you get different channels, say on 5 TV's. My response would be you need a receiver/set top box on each TV. I told him this but he said he was in a hotel at the weekend which had Sky in every room (I think he said 16 rooms). How does a hotel do it? There is no set top box in the room and as opposed to you selecting the AV channel or spare channel to get your Sky or whatever channel on then using your digtal remote to select the digital channel you want you just use the one TV remote which has the Sky or whatever tuned in to the TV. For example; Sky Sports 1 on channel 6, Sky Sports 2 on channel 7, Sky Sports 3 on Channel 8, Sky News on channel 9, etc. I hope I have explained it clearly enough, if anyone can help I would appreciate it. The guy who asked me has his own Pub and would like to know as he has 5 TV's and when Euro 2004 is on in June he would also like to put on say the Golf or Cricket or whatever. Cheers.

We did this for a certain Rugby ground here in the north west. We had 8 channels so we had 8 settop boxes connected to a teleste amp system that allowed us to put each settop on each channel. You then only had to tune each channel in on the TV's in the Directors Boxes and Bar. The kit we installed would allow up to 16 channels.

We also did this in a hotel and even had the cctv that coverd the car park on it so the customers could see there cars

.

atko · 14-04-2004, 20:42

Thanks for the quick reply, magpie. So if I'm reading your reply correctly, say they were to set their guests TVs up for, lets say 5 channels. So to do this they would need 5 boxes. The 5 channels would then be tuned in to channel 6,7,8,9 and 10 on each of the 16 TV's in the hotel.

atko · 14-04-2004, 20:49

Thanks Bill too. I guess I was right in my reading of magpies reply. Thanks again this has really helped.

magpie · 14-04-2004, 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by atko

Thanks for the quick reply, magpie. So if I'm reading your reply correctly, say they were to set their guests TVs up for, lets say 5 channels. So to do this they would need 5 boxes. The 5 channels would then be tuned in to channel 6,7,8,9 and 10 on each of the 16 TV's in the hotel.

Bang on

Sipowicz · 14-04-2004, 21:27

A question slightly off from the main thrust of this thread (oooer missus!) but does anyone make a "cable ready" TV card? That is a card that can de-code a cable signal? I have been looking at a pinnacle TV card, that describes itself as having a "hyper band-cable tuner" !!

I have heard differing views on the digital "Freeview" tv cards and do not want to take the leap into that market just yet!

cheers

atko · 14-04-2004, 22:20

Assuming I have understood your question right, as I understand it there is no such thing as a cable ready card as the cable companies use the same encryption as Sky do with satellite. In a nut shell, this means the card the engineer brings with him has a special number, like a serial number, which matches a number on the cable box. The card will not work in any other box. If you have cable and want to try your card in a mates box I think you will find you get an error message on the TV screen advising incorrect card inserted.

Sipowicz · 14-04-2004, 22:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by atko

Assuming I have understood your question right, as I understand it there is no such thing as a cable ready card as the cable companies use the same encryption as Sky do with satellite. In a nut shell, this means the card the engineer brings with him has a special number, like a serial number, which matches a number on the cable box. The card will not work in any other box. If you have cable and want to try your card in a mates box I think you will find you get an error message on the TV screen advising incorrect card inserted.

Sorry, I may have mislead you! I was referring to a TV PCI card that has a TV tuner in it. I had an old card that could "see" the cable channels after it had been through an old analogue box, (in cable to box, cable output from box to tv card - using the PC instead of the TV!) but this did not give all of the channels that I had subscribed to at the time! The PCI Card that I have seen has, what it describes, as a "Hyper band-cable tuner". Does this mean that it can decode a cable signal (analogue)?

I may be a bit thick here, but it has been a long week!

14-04-2004, 22:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by atko

Assuming I have understood your question right, as I understand it there is no such thing as a cable ready card as the cable companies use the same encryption as Sky do with satellite. In a nut shell, this means the card the engineer brings with him has a special number, like a serial number, which matches a number on the cable box. The card will not work in any other box. If you have cable and want to try your card in a mates box I think you will find you get an error message on the TV screen advising incorrect card inserted.

Cable use Nagravision, Sky use Videoguard. Completely different encryption systems.
The card and box are paired together as you say tho.

atko · 14-04-2004, 22:51

Sorry for the confusion. I am not sure to answer your question. I do know for sure that freeview is available as an external set top box which plugs into a USB slot. The device has its own built in TV card which enables you to watch the channels on your PC. I think it was available from Hauppauge. In fact a quick look on their UK site, (won't give out the url in case I'm not supposed to but it's not too difficult to guess what it is) shows they have several including the PCI and external USB one. As far as I know though, that's the best you are going to get. One of them even has a slot for Pay TV and has teletext and remote. They also do a satellite one but can't see any mention of cable sadly.

atko · 14-04-2004, 22:53

Thanks for the correction proppinupthebar. You learn something new every day.

14-04-2004, 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sipowicz

Sorry, I may have mislead you! I was referring to a TV PCI card that has a TV tuner in it. I had an old card that could "see" the cable channels after it had been through an old analogue box, (in cable to box, cable output from box to tv card - using the PC instead of the TV!) but this did not give all of the channels that I had subscribed to at the time! The PCI Card that I have seen has, what it describes, as a "Hyper band-cable tuner". Does this mean that it can decode a cable signal (analogue)?

I may be a bit thick here, but it has been a long week!

I could be wrong but if you want a tv card to decode the analogue signal then no there is not a cable ready card. All the tv cards can see the signals but they cannot decode them. Think thats what you wanted.

altis · 16-04-2004, 14:28

Sorry, I missed this one - why didn't someone wake me up?

Am I correct in thinking that the original question is how to display the same channel on more than one TV? If so, that's easy to solve - you just need a distribution amplifier set up like this:

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If he wants to display two encrypted channels at the same time then he'll need another STB with its output set to a different frequency. Use three STBs for three channels at the same time etc. He'll need to daisy-chain all the RF inputs and outputs.