Only one coax feed - what can I do?

[Darichard]

Guys,

I just moved into an older house that has only one coax feed per room. My main TV room has only 1 coax feed, and no good way to get another one to the TV.

I have both a DirecTivo and an HD DirecTiVo. My priority is TiVo over HD. It appears that the only viable option is to get a TSAT242 dish and a stacker router. Is this correct? If so, it means paying about $900 for a solution to get full use from my DirecTiVo, but I won't be able to use my HD TiVo.

[flame on]
btw, I sometimes find it hard to believe that it's 2006 - this all seems unreasonably complicated. I can't get an HD DVR from a cable company where I live. In fact, I can't even get a DVR from them. But I would probably hate the interface anyway. So my choices are DirecTiVo as described above or a regular TiVo and a cable box.
[flame off]

[Darichard]

I just read some of the other replies, and it's still not clear to me what it will and won't do. It appears that I can use a standard 3 LNB dish and feed 1 DTiVo and get full functionality. Is that correct? It also appears to work with multiple DTiVos? Will it work with an HD Tivo?

The price includes one stacker and one de-stacker, correct?

It would be great if we could get a little more info from your web site.

[seedcar]

Solid Signal also carries this product and has some good information on it:


Swidendist has the best price.

[Darichard]

One more question on this: it appears to require power on the stacker side. This is more than a little inconveniant for most of us, as the stacker will typically need to go outside. So I would need to find a way to run power to a stacker on the side of my house or at the dish. Is there an easier way to provide power to the stacker?

[JimSpence]

Are you sure that there is no way to run additional cables? For the price of those solutions you could hire a team to install the cables. I've known people that run a cable behind the baseboard. Or hidden in some other kind of moulding. Think outside the box.

[Darichard]

No way to do it, Jim. It's a very old basement with plaster walls. Once we start putting nails in them or pulling off moulding I'll be into plaster repair work. The only place to have wires enter the room without tearing up plaster is to have them come in above eye level. And the outside of the house is all stone. I'm not about to risk my beautiful original stone work to get a piece of coax in there.

The coax in there now was installed when they had some water damage many years ago and had to do some masonry and plaster repair work. Trust me, paying the $300 to stack the signal is far cheaper than my other options.

[ADent]

If you can get all the cables to a reasoble location you can hook up for SD DTiVos there then use modulators and IR over coax to get those signals distributed.

[Want1394]

Originally Posted by Darichard

No way to do it, Jim. ...... Trust me, paying the $300 to stack the signal is far cheaper than my other options.

I also encourage you to consider what Jim proposed. Your above question about the power solution needs to be solved also, and there isn't any easier solution. Also this equipment solution doesn't solve the problems you are going to have next time you need another cable for sound, some other video, ethernet, whatever. A reasonable A/V center needs access for new cables. So, I recommend you pay a one-time cost to have that one cable run turned into a 4" pipe that can free you from this problem in the future - I'm assuming you plan on staying/investing in that house for some time to come.

Also, you can read the other thread and realize that the SS212 solution is only good for two tuners (one dual-tuner recorder.) Great solution for apartments, etc. but not for any place you are making a major commitment to. Just my 2 cents

[swidendist]

Every house is differnent but, if you have a multi LNB dish they have a built in multiswitch. Run two of those wires to the smart stacker located where you have access to the coax where you want you want the signal to end up. There are power inserters that you can inject power into your coax and voltage blocking couplers to stop the voltage. I would think that you could get power there threw the coax to inject into the smart stacker.

[vertigo235]

Why the heck wouldn't they design that thing to be powered over the Coax so you could power it at the dmux side, that's just dumb!

[Stanley Rohner]

Originally Posted by vertigo235

Why the heck wouldn't they design that thing to be powered over the Coax so you could power it at the dmux side, that's just dumb!

It probably requires more current to run the stacker thing than what's on the coax line.