New House wiring issue

[wannabeswede]

Ok, I am going to move from Dish to Direct. I live in a 2 year old house that just has single Coax cables run from each room back to a central location in the garage. Currently with Dish I just have the 3 cables I have from the satellite (4 portLNB) hooked into the 3 cables that go to the rooms where I have my receivers. Is there any way for me to hook up a dual tuner DirectTivo with just 1 cable coming out of the wall? I understand I can't just use a splitter that it has to be some sort of multi-switch.

Tack (Swedish for Thanks),
Kevin

[beejaycee]

Barring using a stacker/destacker, you could use only one cable until you come up with a better solution. Unfortunately, that only lets you use one tuner.

[wannabeswede]

Stacker/destacker? I am a pretty good "Googler" so if this is a common term no need to reply. If not any help appreciated.

thanks

Barring using a stacker/destacker, you could use only one cable until you come up with a better solution. Unfortunately, that only lets you use one tuner.

[TerryC]

You can use one tuner with no problem other than not being able to record two shows or watch one channel while recording another, etc. In the setup screen you have the options of one or two tuner activation.

[wannabeswede]

My bad I should have been clear, I REALLY want to use the dual tuner. And being in a new house I just don't think I can pull another wire to the current TV location. I'm sure the crummy builder just tacked the Coax to studs along the way instead of running through a conduit.

thanks for your reply

You can use one tuner with no problem other than not being able to record two shows or watch one channel while recording another, etc. In the setup screen you have the options of one or two tuner activation.

[TerryC]

I see. Like you said, you can't use a simple splitter. You could go with a stacker and destacker as beejaycee suggested, but it's expensive. Something like $300. Also, this setup will only allow you to watch channels on the 101 satellite. If your locals or anything else are on another sat then you're out of luck going this route, unfortunately. Those channels won't be accessable to you.

[beejaycee]

My bad I should have been clear, I REALLY want to use the dual tuner. And being in a new house I just don't think I can pull another wire to the current TV location. I'm sure the crummy builder just tacked the Coax to studs along the way instead of running through a conduit.

This is where we satellite junkies tend to get creative because most of us have been there! :D With thanks to an older post from geneb11 for the links, you might check out:
Stacker Info (http://www.satcure.co.uk/accs/stacker.htm) and Solid Signal (http://www.solidsignal.com/search_results.asp?main_cat=02&search_crit=stacker).

[Chris Blount]

Ok, I am going to move from Dish to Direct. I live in a 2 year old house that just has single Coax cables run from each room back to a central location in the garage. Currently with Dish I just have the 3 cables I have from the satellite (4 portLNB) hooked into the 3 cables that go to the rooms where I have my receivers. Is there any way for me to hook up a dual tuner DirectTivo with just 1 cable coming out of the wall? I understand I can't just use a splitter that it has to be some sort of multi-switch.

Tack (Swedish for Thanks),
KevinI feel for you. We just built a house and the builder only wanted to put in 3 RG-6 cable runs. I told him NO NO NO! I want 12! He looked at me funny but they ran all twelve. Now I have plenty of cable to handle my DTIVOS and Dish Network DVR plus an antenna run for HDTV with room to grow.

I don't know what to tell you. You will need those extra runs of RG-6. You might want to consider having a professional installer do the work. They may find a neat and tidy way to run the cable.

[wannabeswede]

Did he just tack the cable to studs or did he run some sort of conduit to each room?

Tack (Swedish for Thanks),
Kevin

I feel for you. We just built a house and the builder only wanted to put in 3 RG-6 cable runs. I told him NO NO NO! I want 12! He looked at me funny but they ran all twelve. Now I have plenty of cable to handle my DTIVOS and Dish Network DVR plus an antenna run for HDTV with room to grow.

I don't know what to tell you. You will need those extra runs of RG-6. You might want to consider having a professional installer do the work. They may find a neat and tidy way to run the cable.

[TerryC]

He thanked the cable to the studs??? Strange man. :grin:

[wannabeswede]

For a second there I thought you spoke Swedish, then I reread my post :lol:


He thanked the cable to the studs??? Strange man. :grin:

[fultech]

Ok, I am going to move from Dish to Direct. I live in a 2 year old house that just has single Coax cables run from each room back to a central location in the garage. Currently with Dish I just have the 3 cables I have from the satellite (4 portLNB) hooked into the 3 cables that go to the rooms where I have my receivers. Is there any way for me to hook up a dual tuner DirectTivo with just 1 cable coming out of the wall? I understand I can't just use a splitter that it has to be some sort of multi-switch.

Tack (Swedish for Thanks),
Kevin

Ok,
my company, FulTech Solutions, does home wiring and has been doing so for about 10 years now.
First, you're are lucky your builder let someone wire with home runs and at least the one cable and a satellite feed. Some still do the old school looped cable method and no sat provisions. Anyway, I recommend running an additional RG6 cable and maybe even 1 or 2 Cat5s (for networking the TIVO) to the location. A good retrofit cabling guy should be able to do this for less than $100 per run, new house or old. We do it all the time. This will give you more capabilities than any other option here and the full benefits of TIVO, even networking it. For $100 or so, you could have all this and get ALL of the channels in question.

In addition, with the two cable setup, you could even use a "diplexor" and send the TIVO signal back to your video distribution panel, via a "modulator", allowing any TV in the home to view the TIVo, by going to a selected channel. We set this up in every home we wire (mine too), in addition to the home networking for TIVO. Works nicely. NOw only one Tivo can feed whole house.
BTW- few install wiring in conduit, as it is just as time consuming and expensive as running the cable. Plus, conduit with cable in it, is nearly impossible to add another cable to it. Conduit is used when you may want to run cable later, between floors, under concrete, to unfinished rooms, stub outside for future pools or dock, etc. So that is a non issue. No one does this AND wiring as it would double the cost of something builders all ready want to cheapen.

One major issue is that builders want to do things for the least amount of $$ possible, and unfortunately, there are companys that offer cabling and will wire for as little as you like. I sit on the CEA (www.ce.org) TecHome Board who establishes guidelines and standards for the home wiring/automation industry, the min for todays home is 1 cat5 and 1 RG6 to each room, so actually do less. OUr company has a minimum of 2Cat5 and 2RG6 to each room. This allows you to do just about anything you can think of. Networking, phone, video in/video out, dual tuner TIVO, and more. In addition in most of the homes we do, we add wiring for audio, audio distribution and control (infrared and keypad control), lighting control, home automation and more. It cost about $1-$2 per sq foot and we have never had anyone complain they wired for too much. I am not selling anything here, just informing, since there was so much about wiring in this thread. Our website is our company name, one word, .com. Check out some of the homes we have done and some of our awards pages to check out what many homeonwers are getting out of their wiring. Don't let your builder talk you into anything less than the most wirng you can get. It will pay off.
Sorry for the long winded-ness, I'm passionate about my work.
Later