My Sky in multirooms and different channels possible?

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3lunches

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#31311 12-Mar-2009 16:46

Hi all, I am shortly undertaking a major renovation of my house and are looking for some advice on suggested tv set-up. Currently I just have standard sky but in our "new house" I am looking to upgrade to 'My Sky' as I hear the benefits of HD, live pause, recording aetc re well worth it. So assuming I am going to get My Sky, here's my problem....

I love watching sky sport, my wife loves watching the cooking channel (and hates watching sport)! Also as I love watching sport I want a number of tvs in the house so i don't miss any action. Namely aside from a tv in the lounge and bedroom, I am looking to install a tv in the bathroom (so I don't miss Liverpool spank Man U in the Champions League in the morning while I am shaving) and also one outside on our deck (so can watch Super 15 outside when it starts in January shortly). Alas my wife would also like a tv in the kitchen. So thats 5 tvs in the house and 2 different channels potentially being watched at the same time.

What is the cheapest way to go about this? I would prefer not to have to pay for a My Sky box next to every tv. However I anticipate that I will need at least one multi-room.

What I would ideally like is the ability to route a signal from say the main tv (in the lounge) to any of other tvs. This means any of the 5 tvs can pick up the "main channel". Then if either myself or my wife wants to watch a second channel we can do that on either of the other tvs.

So would someone tell me if the following would work...or if there is a better/cheaper way.

a) have the main My Sky in the lounge
b) have the second Multi Room My Sky box in the say the bedroom
c) have cables (I don't know what type) taking the channel being watched in the lounge to the other 3 tvs in the house
d) have another set of cables taking the channel being watched in the bedroom to the other 3 tvs in the house
e) then if say sitting in front of any of the other 3 tvs in the house, you can simply plug/unplug either of the 2 cables that are routed to that tv (explained in c and d) to watch either the lounge channel or the bedroom channel.

Hopefully you understand what I mean.

Any advice much appreciated. Cheers

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SepticSceptic

1974 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#201046 13-Mar-2009 15:45

it all depends on how much you want to spend, and what video quality / sound quality you are after.

Buy a couple of AV senders / receivers, and get more than one matching receiver. Perhaps a couple of brands so the frequencies dont overlap.

Plug the O/P of one or both sky box into the AV transmitter. Setup receiver on appropriate TV - you may end up with two receivers for a couple of TV's.

There is no reason why you cannot use the RF output of one of the Sky units to route to the TVs using a diplexer (splitter). Or both , but I suspect that there maybe interference between channels if you combine the outputs of both sky RF outs onto one RF cable.

Unless you can specify what channel the RF is output on. Channel 2/3 maybe selectable. Remember RF is the LOWEST quality. HD it aint. !!! not even SD !!!! and Mono audio.

But then you dont get the facility to remote control the box from the other side of the house, short of IR to RF repeaters.

Urk....

So we are now back to bi-directional AV senders .... which generally use AV composite (yellow video cable), and stereo audio (usually)

Honestly, if you are doing major renos, yank a couple of Cat5E/Cat 6 cables to every room, and if possible a RG6 to each location.

It will not be cheap, but if you are doing major reno, then it is just a drop in the bottomless renovation bucket, and will futureproof for most foreseable things.

Cheap doesnt come into it, and you will be shortchanging yourself otherwise. But it will probbaly cost you the same as a couple of AV senders and 3 each video receivers.

A couple of rolls of 100metre Cat 6 $100 each

One 100m roll RG6 $100 each

And start around here:

http://www.hometoys.com/learn/planning.htm

My thoughts are no longer my own and is probably representative of our media-controlled government

Brunzy

1291 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#201065 13-Mar-2009 16:28

You will need a modulator for the Sky HD.
The output of that goes to the 2nd decoder,and from there you split it 4 ways to the other tv's.
With all due respect to mr sceptic,an AV sender is the last thing I'd use,ann IR blaster to change channels yes,AV sender no.too unreliable,and poor quality.

If you were concerned about quality,you could try and find a 2 in 4 out component video distribution, may be costly though,
and you would obviously need to run more cable.

hamisht

389 posts

Ultimate Geek

#201122 13-Mar-2009 21:59

3lunches:

I want a number of tvs in the house so i don't miss any action. Namely aside from a tv in the lounge and bedroom, I am looking to install a tv in the bathroom and also one outside on our deck Alas my wife would also like a tv in the kitchen. So thats 5 tvs in the house and 2 different channels potentially being watched at the same time.

What is the cheapest way to go about this?

and then you ask for the cheapest way? dude you got five tvs in a new house.

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