[harrybarracuda]

Not sure if this is the right place, so apologies if it is not.


Thanks to the Middle East's penchant for fighting over sports rights, I have a multitude of HDMI Outputs and not enough ports to show them.


In Room 1 I have a Samsung 8 Series TV with a Samsung HT-E5550K Home entertainment system.


Plus:


Bein Sports Sat decoder

Abu Dhabi Sat decoder

OSN Sat decoder

Dune Media Player

No-name IPTV Box

No-name FTA Sat Box


All of which are HDMI Out.


In Room 2 I have a Pioneer Surround Sound system plus - to complicate things - an American (i.e. NTSC) Toshiba LCD.


I only want to run one cable between the main setup and the second room (max 75ft).


Forgetting the NTSC bit for a minute....


(1) Is there a way I can convert six HDMI signals into a single cable, and tune the Samsung TV Channels, one for each box? If so how?


(2) Can I split that cable into two, one for each TV?


(3) Can I convert one of the cable to NTSC for the other TV?


If the NTSC issue is insurmountable, I can always get another Samsung at a push.


I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to how I can do this, along with recommendations for kit to buy.


I hope that makes sense; I want a TV channel for each Box, rather than selecting "Source". I don't mind if the Room 2 setup is SD not HD.


Many thanks for taking the time to read.

 

[ctdish]

For question number 1 see this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1503554/hdtv-distribution-on-a-budget-any-suggestions/0_100

Number 2 Yes

Number 3 Yes with a tuner box for the type of modulation you settle for.

This won't be cheap though.

John

 

[sneals2000]

Couple of options to do what you want.


You should now be able to set-up a home DVB-T distribution system, and modulate the 6 HDMI outputs of your various boxes so that they appear as 6 different 'channels' on your TV (assuming your TV has a DVB-T tuner capable of HD H264 decoding - most recent ones do) You'd still need to find a separate solution for IR distribution from the second room. This would mean you could change channel on your second room TV to chose which HDMI source you watch. It would allow you to add more TVs in other rooms as well.


You'd need something like one of these for each HDMI source : http://www.antiference.co.uk/conexer-hdmi-modulator http://www.promax.es/ing/products/hd-encoders/EN-206/high-definition-digital-dvb-t-modulator They're not cheap though. You're potentially talking thousands of dollars to do this.


You also will only get stereo audio - the modulators don't do multichannel sound.


However if you can run a Cat 6 cable between rooms, you could avoid DVB-T modulation (and the quality loss of re-encoding) by using a matrix feeding an HDBaseT system? You could have a 6 x 2 HDMI switch (or one that has more capacity than this - again not likely to be cheap though) - one feeding your Samsung in your main room, and one feeding the HDBaseT feed to your second room? This is likely to be lower cost.


The RF distribution system is more expandable though - as you could add TVs in other rooms just by distributing the RF.


Does your Samsung have DVB-T (or T2) and H264 as well as MPEG2? I'm guessing it will - as I think similar models are sold in Europe and the Middle East.


If you use DVB-T for distribution - you'll need to find a DVB-T STB with fixed NTSC output to feed your NTSC TV (many switch between PAL and NTSC based on whether they are tuned to 50 or 60Hz content). This may be a bit tricky - though I'm sure it is doable. However it is probably cheaper to buy a new TV. The RF ring main is not going to be at all cheap to set-up.


You may also need to remove HDCP (doable very easily if you know what to buy on ebay these days)...


If you only want SD to be fed to the other room - then there might be a cheaper solution using HDMI downconverters and analogue modulators - and you'd probably be better off buying a PAL TV for this?