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Distributing Tivo through House

post #1 of 8
8/12/10 at 11:40am
Thread Starter 
Imagine that I have a Tivo in the family room but I would like to watch recorded programs in the office on a digital HDTV. Oh, and in the bedroom, too (also digital HDTV).

Is there a way to take the component output and pipe it over either cat-5e or rg-6?

Ideally, I'd like to 'rebroadcast' the output of my Tivo over my rg6 using an unused digital channel so that these other TVs can continue to see the Clear QAM channels I'm getting from my cable service.

Mike
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post #2 of 8
8/13/10 at 6:53am
1) Over component, you can use component to Cat-5e baluns.

Something like this - http://www.hdtvsupply.com/component-to-cat5-balun.html

Those can support component video and an coax digital audio feed, if you want to use analog audio you'll need to hunt around and see if you can find a set that support it also or run a second cat-5e cable to carry audio.

2) RG-6 - It's more complicated because you need something that can re-encode the video to MPEG2 and put it in the right transport. There is a device on the market that can do this now, not sure if it can be combined with the existing cable feed though. The name escapes me but I'm sure someone will know and post it.
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post #3 of 8
8/13/10 at 7:59am
Of course, keep in mind you will also need to run an ir extender into whatever room you want, to change the channels and load programs. Unless you run to the other room and start a program, then run to the other to hurry and watch it. And of course, you will only be able to watch wht the tivo outputs, so if someone else wants to watch something, they are stuck with what you are watching.
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post #4 of 8
8/13/10 at 8:45am
Thread Starter 
The balun looks like it would work nicely for point-to-point (though I'm concerned about loss through my patch panel probably unnecessarily worried and they're inexpensive enough that an experiment might be worth it).

I'd still prefer some kind of one-to-many solution. There are some other, much more expensive, solutions (such as a combination of the Xantech multi-zone video matrix with Cat-5 support and their receiver modules) but they require multiples of Cat-5 cabling (which I actually have and people thought I was nuts to run two Cat-5 and two RG6 to every port throughout the house!) but it's just so doggone complicated.

What I'd really like is a box that takes component or hdmi and outputs that to a (selectable) digital channel that I then feed back into my in-house RG6 distribution. (I don't want to pirate, I don't want to rebroadcast to my neighbors I just don't want to have to buy a Tivo or rent an HDTV box for each of my 6 HDTVs: I can only watch one of them at a time!)
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post #5 of 8
8/18/10 at 10:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrossetti View Post

The balun looks like it would work nicely for point-to-point (though I'm concerned about loss through my patch panel — probably unnecessarily worried and they're inexpensive enough that an experiment might be worth it).

I'd still prefer some kind of one-to-many solution. There are some other, much more expensive, solutions (such as a combination of the Xantech multi-zone video matrix with Cat-5 support and their receiver modules) but they require multiples of Cat-5 cabling (which I actually have — and people thought I was nuts to run two Cat-5 and two RG6 to every port throughout the house!) but it's just so doggone complicated.

What I'd really like is a box that takes component or hdmi and outputs that to a (selectable) digital channel that I then feed back into my in-house RG6 distribution. (I don't want to pirate, I don't want to rebroadcast to my neighbors — I just don't want to have to buy a Tivo or rent an HDTV box for each of my 6 HDTVs: I can only watch one of them at a time!)


You are in the land of a Media Center PC with cable card tuners and Media Center extenders attached to Media Center Extenders like XBOX 360 slim 4 gig arcade. I think you can have up to five extenders per PC. You can insall a boat load of tuners in the PC using TunerSalad, eight of each kind. So you could have analog tuners, cable tuners, clear cable tuners and terrestrial OTA tuners... Not inexpensive but you would get full blown DVR capability at each TV with the Skinny XBOX arcade as acces and inteface device, only an cat 5 connection for each XBOX. No monthly lease payments or gear and no fee for the guide like Tivo.
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post #6 of 8
8/19/10 at 8:20am
Thread Starter 
Thanks gtgray! That's the kind of advice I was hoping for. Off to research my Media PC options...
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post #7 of 8
8/24/10 at 8:01pm
Check this out. I haven't used one yet so I can't vouch for it, but I suspect you'll find some posts here and elsewhere with some reviews.

http://www.zeevee.com/residential
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post #8 of 8
8/25/10 at 8:59am
Thread Starter 
Yes! Now that's what's I'm talking about!

Thanks Interactive! Mucho thanks!
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