Splitting digital cable question...

Would it be okay for me to split a single digital cable signal (coax, RG6, whatever it's called) into 2 sources?

Some info: There is a big cable that comes out of the ground, and feeds a gray box on my house. This gray box has 2 cables that come out that go to my panel. Inside my panel, one of those cables feeds an 8-way splitter that feeds 8 areas of my house. The other cable goes directly to my cable modem for internet. My internet is essentially completely seperate from my TV cables, all the way out to that gray box.
I'm wanting to split one of those 8 cables off the splitter in the panel, into two.

Basically, run two TV's, two Cable boxes, off one of those lines. Using one of the other 7 sources is not possible.

The line that I am wanting to split, has only been split once before (the 8-way). So essentially, it would have been split twice before it hits both my TV's.

Will I be okay doing this?

I am not, and don't really ever plan on running sattellite service. I have Charter now. I have the HD DVR boxes.

Thank you.

Okay, that's what I was thinking. I was telling myself that splitting it only twice should be okay.

For the record, the cable guy said the cabling in my neighborhood was very good. It's a brand new subdivision. It's the first time in my life I've ever actually got the full download speed they advertise I should get..... not sure if it's related to TV signal strength or not.

I'm also pretty much convinced the HD picture is better with the cable that in was with DirecTV. Same exact TV.

Well, I'm not even really sure what I'm looking at here, but here is some info.

Edit: Also like I mentioned, my cable modem has it's own source from the gray cable box on the side of my house, as does my main 8-way splitter. The tech said this will essentially keep my internet and TV seperate increasing the quality of both.
Edited by D4C8 - 7/24/12 at 9:39pm

I can't split the modem leg...

Here is the scoup on what happened. I had (1) Cat-5e and (1) coax ran to every room in my house, and a couple more in other places as well.

Eventhough every room is wired, we only planned on running (3) total TV's. Upstairs bonus room, downstairs family room, and master bed.

When the cable tech was here, he confirmed that the one coax run to my master bedroom is toast. Either the cable was bad, or it broke when they pulled/routed it. (Yes, I've complained already about them not testing conductivity prior to hanging drywall and enclosing everything, but either way it's too late). I don't want them to run a new cable on the outside of my house.

The downstairs family room coax/Cat5 outlet is litterally just on the other side of the wall from my master bedroom. 6" apart, back to back.

Since the original master bed coax is toast, I was simply just going to split the family room line, right there in the wall. One leg to the family room, the other leg through the wall, through the back of the master bed outlet box, and into the socket.

TV in both rooms, no need for a new cable run.

So that's the scoup.

Sam: I may have quoted the tech wrong, but he did say it was a good thing that I had (2) cables from my panel, to the outside of my house. He said something along the lines of it would be better since he wouldn't have to split one line to feed my TV splitter, and my modem.

The other thing I've been thinking about doing.... not splitting that line, and only using one TV receiver with some sort of HDMI switch that will allow me to feed (2) TV's with one source.

I would have to get some sort of IR repeater for the other side of the wall. I have a Harmony One remote I could use for one room, and the regular Charter remote for the other room.

The part I'm not sure of is if there is any sort of HDMI switch that can be ran (switched) via IR remote signal. I'm sure there is?

My wife is actually leaning this way because I told her that if I could figure out all the components correctly (HDMI switch, and IR repeater) that we could technically hang a TV on the wall with no cords, no cable boxes, no nothing. Just a TV haning on a blank wall with a little IR sensor. No TV stand below with components on it... She kinda liked that idea. We would never need to watch both TV's at once. Not having a 3rd $5/mo charge for a cable box would be nice too.

So... that is an option as well. I was still thinking about running the splitter to get me by until I figured out all of the above, but we're already going on 2 weeks now without a TV in the master and it's no big deal.

Edit: A quick search shows that there are about a hundred different remote operated HDMI switches. So I would need one of those, along with a simple IR repeater.

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Edited by D4C8 - 7/25/12 at 9:35am

I understand they have to split it at some point given there is only one cable coming out of the ground, but that cable was not a standard RG6/coax. It was a much larger, multi wire, cable.

So they convert that large cable into a single coax, and then split that? Essentially bottle necking it down prior to the split?

Maybe the sole reason he did that was to avoid having to put another splitter in my panel?

Not that it really matters, but I am curious about this stuff.

Maybe I'll pop that box open tonight?

Okay, interesting.

So he probably used both my source cables to avoid cluttering up my panel more than it was.

I've done the media closet thing the in past, I prefer to keep the components local to the TV's this go around.

At least one TV will be on a TV stand no matter what. Basically wherever I decide to put the components. I've never really understood the reasoning behind hanging TV's on a wall with a TV stand directly under them with components on it. Really the question is if I want to try and split the signal, and run two sets of components, or instead split the HDMI feed off one box to feed both TV's.

Even if I decide to split the signal, I could put all the components in one room, keeping clutter out of the other, and hang that TV on the wall, but then I'd still have two DVR boxes in one room and have to deal with IR repeating.

Whole house DVR'ing is more of a pain that it's worth if you ask me. Mainly because the Charter DVR's only have 2 tuners.

We are not the type of family that goes from room to room watching TV. Kids upstairs, us downstairs. 2 TV's, that's it. We're not big on putting TV's in bedrooms, especially for the kids. It's only been recently that we've decided to stick one in the master. So I could potentially have DVR location issues.... but I could solve that by going with the one DVR to 2 TV's with an HDMI switch scenario.
Edited by D4C8 - 7/25/12 at 3:36pm

You think I would be better off with 2 DVR's rather than just using one, and splitting the HDMI out?

If I just use one DVR, then I'd be able to watch recorded shows on either TV in either room, and I would save $5 a month.