Shifting a Campground cable system to Digital

[Shellback X 23]

I am the maintenance guy in a large campground where we have a cable system serving 455 RV sites and also 80 cabins/fixed locations with SD TV's. Currently everything is Standard Definition. Line-up is 16 Direct receivers/channels, 4 OTA and 2 in house channels. The current equipment is one Eagle Aspin S-2060 LNB Voltage Controlled switch for the 16 D* receivers of various vintage, mostly Sony SAT-B-1 & B-50's with a few Unidens. Output to the cable head are Pico HB-3 or Blonder Tongue Audio Video Modulators. The in-house channels are a surveillance in the game room for parents to watch their kids and a slide show of news and happenings around the campground.

We are looking ahead to 2009 and trying to find the most economical way to shift to digital, preferably over a period of years.

1. Can we continue to use the D* receivers and SD transmission for a period of time in order to spread out the replacement of the existing 80 TV's or do we need to upgrade to MPEG-4 Receivers?

2. Can we install 4 set top boxes in front of the Modulators for the OTA channels?

3.Can we transmit both SD and DT signals on the existing coax???? I ask this because many guests RV's will have DTV's and want a digital stream during our hoped for transition to DTV, yet many others will still be in the SD world.

TIA Shellback-X24

[dishrich]

We are looking ahead to 2009 and trying to find the most economical way to shift to digital, preferably over a period of years.

The 2/17/09 analog cut-off date is not really going to affect you all that much, as I will tell you below.

1. Can we continue to use the D* receivers and SD transmission for a period of time in order to spread out the replacement of the existing 80 TV's or do we need to upgrade to MPEG-4 Receivers?

D* is NOT going to be switching their SD channels to MPEG4 anytime soon, so you really don't need to worry about this now. Because of this, there really is no need to replace all your analog TV's now.

2. Can we install 4 set top boxes in front of the Modulators for the OTA channels?

Yes, that's exactly what many headend installers are doing now. It's economical & many guys are doing this now, because they can pull in a pristine OTA picture from the digital channels & running them through a set top, instead of the current analog OTA channels. Again, because of this, no need to replace those analog TV's.

3.Can we transmit both SD and DT signals on the existing coax???? I ask this because many guests RV's will have DTV's and want a digital stream during our hoped for transition to DTV, yet many others will still be in the SD world.

To tell you the truth, I frankly can't see THAT many guest worrying about getting a "digital stream" in a camper. (what happened to roughing it a little :confused: :eek2: ) Also, I should tell you that right now, digital modulators are VERY expensive (several hundred $$$) - you probably should hold off on worry about this part until later, when the price on them should start coming down drastically. But to answer your question, depending on your line-up, yes you can send out both SD & DT signals on one wire - but you'll have to have the bandwidth in your distribution system to handle both.