One Cable box, two TVs

So you have a dish AND cable? I also don't understand how you have a splitter after the cable box

If you are using the coaxial out from the cable box you will not get HD. Is the splitter also connected to the cable from the street. If not what is the splitter for?

I also don't see the reason for the splitter!
If the Cable STB is feeding the downstairs TV with HDMI and the upstairs TV with coax (and as stated tou won't get HD doing this) what is the other leg of the splitter doing?

Makes more sense now.

As stated above, you will ONLY get HD if you use HDMI or Component, not coaxial. You could try running HDMI to one tv, and Component to the second, but usually cable boxes will only output one or the other at one time.

Help what? A power amplifier will not make the signal HD. You gave no indication that the signal is weak. The first thing you need to do is remove the splitter.

If you use an HDMI splitter you will need to get an HDMI cable from the cable box to the upstairs TV. How long is that run and can that be accomplished?

If you are wanting to be able to watch either catv or sat. from either tv, you need the proper equipment. That means using a a/b switch along with rf remote, that either tv can choose the input from their location. That would mean that both would go into the switching device, then you would have runs going to both locations.

It really depends on your budget and how much you are willing to spend, to do it correctly.

I already did for part of the solution. There are a couple of solutions out there for a/v distribution, for whole house, but depends on how much you are willing to spend to make it work.

You need something similar to what we have, a PC running cable decryption, and then we distribute the decrypted cable TV to 5 TV's in the house. Each TV has the ability to view all of the channels and independently from other TV's. Visit the HTPC forum for ideas.

You are looking at a $200 quad CableCard tuner, and $300 PC to do this, plus, you can connect your dish feed via component to the HTPC, and integrate it into the whole house TV distribution system.

Add $100 for a Media Center extender for each additional TV.

Why not just add a second Cable box?

Ebay is the place.

Look for Linksys DMA 2100, DMA 2200, HP X280N, D-Link G-750, or XBOX with a broken DVD drive.

All of the extenders listed above have HDMI output.

I prefer Linksys, since their remotes can learn TV functions, but you can always use a cheap Harmony 200 remote and achieve the same.

If there are free cable boxes, yeah, it would have been easier. But, alas, cable companies are not in the business to give out free cable boxes. They usually charge close to $10/month ($120/year) to get a crippled cable box.

With a CableCard and a tuner, one can have up to 6 channels unlocked for either free, or minimal fee (under $4/month) and stream the unlocked content to other TV's in the house.

CableCard at $2.50/month = $30/year for up to 6 simultaneous channels.
To achieve the same with cable boxes, one would have to rent 6 cable boxes at $720/year.

Add the ability to DVR, and cable company solution becomes even more expensive.

To achieve the same with cable boxes, one would have to rent 6 cable boxes at $720/year. Why would he need 6 cable boxes for two TV's. Just put a cable box near each TV. About $120 per year.

First of all, consider your self lucky if your provider offers cable boxes for $5/month, most are $10/month to rent which with 2 TV's comes out to $240/year.

Does the equipment that costs $240/year allow for time shift, recording, and scheduled recordings?

The answer is: NO

To get the ability to record, one would have to rent a DVR ($20/month) and a box ($10/month) and only have the ability to record 2 channels at once, and watch another on the Box for $360/year.

A quad tuner is $199, triple tuner is $170, and dual tuner is $130. A computer that has the horsepower to do this is about $300.

For $600 investment, one can have ability to record 4 channels at once, and ability to stream decrypted content to other TV's with no additional monthly fee.

Once you consider that typical life of a PC is 5-10 years, the $600 initial investment pays off in less than 1.5 years ($360/year to rent DVR and a Box from provider).

In addition, HTPC allows one to use free HULU service (no need for HULU+ since it is a PC after all), as well as a myriad of internet TV station, all with a click or a remote. And not to mention unlimited storage, and user gets to keep the recordings if they switch service providers.