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Watching multiple tv's in the same room

2K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  captain_video 
#1 ·
I'm a little bit of a sports nut and I was wondering how I would go about getting cable input for 3 televisions in the same room so I can watch multiple games? Kind of something like this:

http://www.houzz.com/photos/3522917/Spire-Theater-Room-contemporary-home-theater-other-metro

My current setup with one TV is using HDHomeRun Prime with an XBOX 360 and a Windows 8 PC with Media Center. I hate that I have to use Media Center, but it's the only way I could get live tv to work.

I was hoping I could use the Prime to supply the signal for the other 2 tv's since I have 2 other tuners available in the prime, but will this require a XBOX and a Media Center PC for each tuner?
 
#2 ·
I can't speak for the HDHomeRun since I have no practical experience with it, but there are a few options. I think if I were you, I would use an infinitv 6 pcie card in a centrally-located HTPC and maybe pick up ceton echo's for the TV's. They're small enough to velcro to the back of the TV's. If you've already got an xbox 360, you can use that as an extender (thereby reducing by one the number of echo's you'd need to buy).

The echo's will do live TV just fine, but they're not great for movies. Downside: the echo's are not supported under windows 8, so you'd have to step down to windows 7 on the HTPC to do this. The only other way is to do xbox 360's (more expensive).

It's your good fortune that there are a lot of echo's available cheap on ebay this close to the holidays (http://www.ebay.com/sch/?_nkw=ceton echo&clk_rvr_id=749750283804).
 
#3 ·
A few xbox 360's in the same room would do that as well. Keep your Media Center machine in the room, and you can have up to 5 Extenders running at one time(within guidelines, I think it needs 8gb or more ram to run 5 at one time). If you only have 3 tuners available, then you could always add another one with another cablecard (Tuner salad would fix the limits in MC of only 4 of each type)


Yea, you could do something like this but, the problem will be the remotes.... As changing the channel on one would change on all (don't think there is a way for different codes for changing the channels on WMC/360). You might need to go up to the Xbox 360's and change the channel with the remote right up against it...


If you can figure out a way to deal with the remote issues, you should be able to do this fine.


Cheap way out on 360's ? Go to craigslist or something, I have seen newer 360's with problems with the DVD drive for like $40 (if I am using it just for extender and TV, no worries on a bad DVD drive). All you have to watch for is a working one that has never been opened (meaning it was fixed and could have problems later)
 
#4 ·
Yeah, I agree that the remotes will be a problem. Presumably, you'd want to be able to tune each TV to a different channel. I don't think a standard IR remote would be an ideal solution for the reasons cited above. Maybe ceton's companion app would be better?

If you had the ability to install custom software on the echo, I might suggest plugging in a usb bluetooth dongle and finding something like a dinovo mini. Since they'd be paired to a specific echo, you wouldn't have the problem of changing the channel on all TV's accidentally.

Only other way might be a tablet running unified remote. That requires software, too. Really, we're banging up against the reasons why I never liked extenders to begin with.

Maybe something like this?
 
#7 ·
Another way to control extenders is with vmccontroller.
I use this with a Win7 WMC HTPC to drive 3 DMA2100s over the large screen. Built a web page/perl scripts that I access via a tablet to facilitate changing the channels through vmccontroller (independently per extender).

Don't know if vmccontroller works with Win8x though...
 

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#8 · (Edited)
Last time I checked, Echoes were IR addressable and Xboxes were not. For easy independent control of each without using smartphones, game controllers or expensive addressable IR systems, I'd go with Echoes.

Here's how to change addresses: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?p=42347#p42347

I can also post pronto hex or JP1 codes for all commands and all addresses upon request, if you need to program a universal remote (highly recommended).
 
#9 ·
I have a similar setup as well. HDHomeRun Prime with an Xbox 360 as an extender with an Xbox Media Remote on the 32" TV. A Windows 7 PC utilizing both HDMI and DVI for the two 20" displays, one with Windows Media Center and the second display with XBMC tuning through DLNA. The PC uses an RF keyboard/mouse remote to change channels, the only difficulty is the ALT-TAB between fullscreen programs.
 

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#10 ·
There was an article posted over at the Missing Remote a few years back that addressed exactly what the OP is looking for. Here's a link to a YouTube video that shows the setup in action:



The author uses three Linksys extenders plus an XBox 360, but there's no reason it couldn't be designed using Ceton Echoes instead. Basically it uses a software app to control all of the TVs and extenders over the internet instead of IR remote controls,
 
#11 ·
There was an article posted over at the Missing Remote a few years back that addressed exactly what the OP is looking for. Here's a link to a YouTube video that shows the setup in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR6rLIMhTCE

The author uses three Linksys extenders plus an XBox 360, but there's no reason it couldn't be designed using Ceton Echoes instead. Basically it uses a software app to control all of the TVs and extenders over the internet instead of IR remote controls,
Yup, that's where I got the idea for my setup. He was using vmccontroller back then, don't know if that's still the case.

Hmmm, looks like the original site that describes the software setup is gone now. All I can find is this: https://sites.google.com/a/hdhomesportsbar.com/hd-home-sports-bar-1-design/hd-home-sports-bar
 
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