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Sky RF out through a splitter
I recently fitted a 4-way splitter for my dad so he could use a TV in the kitchen and bedroom as well as the living room. This works absolutely fine for Freeview, good quality on all the multiplex including COM7. But he also wants to view Sky in the other rooms, so I thought the easiest way would be to feed the cable from the aerial to the box (yes it does have coax sockets at the back) and run another cable from the RF out back to the splitter. Can anyone tell me if the analogue output from the Sky box will be enough to split 4 ways, or will it be necessary to buy an amplifier? As I say digital is quite good strength and quality even at the splitter outputs. The cable I installed is the good quality copper-copper double shielded type and the run from the sky box to the splitter to the other set is no longer than 15m.
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With the new boxes it's an optional extra by means of a dongle you plug into a special socket on the back of the box. Which means Sky can easily tell what proportion of their customer base are using the RF OUT capability simply by comparing the number of boxes to dongles.
If the ratio of dongles to boxes starts to get smaller and smaller I can see a time when they seriously consider removing the facility altogether.
And it is not inconceivable that a time will come when more TVs are sold without analogue tuners than with. Though can't think of any all digital TVs at the moment.
That's interesting-thanks !. It's when the supply of new TVs with analogue tuners dry up I guess things must change.
It is perfectly possible to do a digital modulator in a box. Though most of the one's I've seen have been rather expensive, compared to the Sky dongle certainly. But that might change if demand rises. And it also opens up the possibility of HD and surround sound via an RF cable which is not possible with the current analogue modulators. Even stereo would be an improvement on the mono sound most modulators provide.
And you could even provide outputs from both tuners in the Sky box as a sort of mini mux over RF. So you could watch two different channels in different rooms.
Mind you whether Sky would bother with any of that is another thing.
If you put a magic eye in each room, you can control playback etc , HOWEVER I run HDMi cable as well to the TV's as picture quality can be poor.
Amazon again will sell Duronic 1 In and 2 or 3 OUT splitter for HDMI and with Sky the splitter MUST be powered ! I can confirm this will work on up to 25 metre HDMI 1.4 in my house.
However if you need 4 TV's to run off the 1 Sky box, I would go for the Neet box. Its got a good name
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neet%C2%AE-SPLITTER-Distribution-Amplifier-Display/dp/B002EACW82/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1414067843&sr=8-10&keywords=hdmi+splitter+1+input+3+output
A small number of people on here keep forecasting that's going to happen - but there's no sign of it at all yet, and it's FAR too useful a function to drop.
I believe Argos sold a 'digital only' set?, but they had that specially made - for some vague and bizarre reason? - and had large numbers returned to them.
There's little point in dropping analogue tuning, it would save nothing - the tuner is the same, it's only demodulation and software that is any different (presumably the Argos set was just disabled in the software?).
But as for the OP, you don't really want 4 way passive splitters, they lose too much - active are far better, and what any professional would install.
It's HIGHLY unlikely that signal strengths would be high enough to cause problems with an active splitter, and fairly likely that a four way passive splitter would drop the signal more than you would like. Plus the other undesirable effects, such as no magic eye capability.
It should continue to be fine on digital signals (bedroom TV tuner) but may be noisy/sparkly in some rooms on the analogue signal from the Sky box (Sky box tuner).
I've had one for 20 years, 4-way splitter leading to all my 4 bedrooms on two floors via the cavity walls and loft. Works best on the Freeview digital signals but is watchable albeit sparkly on analogue. I do have long cable runs though.
2.0 "stereo" sound can be sent over either a video sender or cat cable and baluns. this is full dolby surround, which can either go into headphones, or a prologic decoder.
the question is, for how long will diode demodulators and PAL decoders continue to be built in ? costing just a few pence per item ......
sparklies are a by product of fm demodulation (defunct analogue satellite). not encountered on vsb terrestrrial analogue. as signal becomes weaker, you just get "more snow" ......
You could buy a harmony hub or similar assuming you have wifi You change channels using a smartphone/tablet app. Not that cheap but probably easier than messing around with skylink compatible splitters and magic eyes.
You could buy a harmony hub or similar assuming you have wifi You change channels using a smartphone/tablet app. Not that cheap but probably easier than messing around with skylink compatible splitters and magic eyes.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=harmony+hub&tag=googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=41771274894&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14141699393097388688&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_2lg4m8p6v6_e
Well I have an 8 way splitter in my house, which I believe is -12db (is that one quarter, can't remember) and that still provides an excellent signal from either my rooftop aerial or loft aerial. I can only assume I'm in a good area, although the transmitter (Emley Moor) is 17 miles away. I don't use any analogue signals, so I wouldn't know how that would affect it.
If you're passively splitting 8 ways it's obviously got to be at LEAST an 1/8 th
Also obviously it will be somewhat more than that, because of the losses involved in splitting.
That's strange, it definitely does say -12dB. I thought 20log(1/4) was roughly -12 unless I've got muddled somewhere.
Anyway, it still works remarkably well, even COM 7 is excellent after being split 8 ways.
A friend's brother bought a number of up to date Panasonic HD TVs for himself and the family .
The manual gave a section that said " Analogue tuner" but that section did not exist in the actual menu on the TV ...........
Regards
Was that perhaps because he selected 'digital only' during initial setup? (thus perhaps disabling that option?) - no one has ever suggested that Panasonic (or any one else) has dropped analogue tuners.
We stepped through every part of the menu including factory resets and failed to find any part of the menu that mentioned analogue .......
Regards
Seems unlikely?, particularly as the instructions mention analogue - what model number is it?.
Couldn't agree more
I'll see if I can find the model number if I see him at the week end.
Regards
Edit: This may be of interest.... same question as mine ...
Question
Does set have an analogue tuner
I have a SKY+ box and distribute the programs round the house from the RF2 (analogue) out of the SKY box.
I need a set that has an analogue tuner to do this.
Does this set have an analogue tuner.
1 answer
Thank you for your question.
After looking into your query, I am sorry to say that the Panasonic Viera L24C3B 24 Inch HD Ready Freeview HD LCD TV does not have an analogue tuner.
Thank you for using Q&A.
As does the manual available from the Panasonic website. The page describing the remote says the "TV" button selects Analogue or DVB.
The images of the Auto tune procedure show it scanning both DVB and Analogue
On the page about watching TV there is a very large label "Select DVB or Analogue" pointing to an image of the "TV" button on the remote.
And so on and so on. Sort of implies the TV will receive analogue.