sky HD to 2 rooms

T

Truecelt

Guest
I am hoping to upgrade to skyhd soon. My question is, I would like a HD feed to my soon to arrive HD ready lcd in the bedroom as well as the main tv in the living room. Is it possible to get 2 HD feeds from the new HD skybox to serve 2 different tvs, and if not, how could this be achieved. Many thanks
 
You could connect one television via HDMI and another via component. Obviously they would both watch the same channel! There should not be a problem extending either lead by 10m or so. Longer than this could be a problem.
 
Alternatively, you could buy a splitter for the HDMI output, so it could send an identical HDMI HD signal to 2 (or more TVs). A 1:2 distribution amplifier can be got for c£150 I believe.
I'm moving soon and when I do I'm going to feed my SkyHD to all rooms by HDMI using a 1:6 HDMI distribution amplifier.
 
To PhilB1234 : Won't you still be hampered by the 10m HDMI cable limit coming off the distribution amp ?
 
That you would need two of these units ...

Other than that it would do what you require as I plan on buying two to feed the HD signal from my soon to be installed Sky HD box into my Plasma in my lounge and also upto my loft room where I have a Samsung HD LCD using this product with digital audio ..

Job done and at about £140 for two boxes pretty cheap.
 
bytesize said:
That you would need two of these units ...

Other than that it would do what you require as I plan on buying two to feed the HD signal from my soon to be installed Sky HD box into my Plasma in my lounge and also upto my loft room where I have a Samsung HD LCD using this product with digital audio ..

Job done and at about £140 for two boxes pretty cheap.
Can only send the digital audio to one of the rooms though, loft in your case (unless you have 1:2 toslink splitter box).
 
Had another look at the Lektropacks balun http://www.lektropacks.com/view_item.php?product=1000551&&category=30

They seem to be supplied by Muxlab in the USA, who sell direct via mailorder worldwide. 2 Baluns (send and receive) are $160 delivered to UK, thats £84!! cant be bad.
That was the one thing that was holding me back from ordering Sky HD. I wasnt going to go to all the trouble just to have HD on the main tv, while my newly ordered 32" HD ready Tosh LCD languished with SD in the bedroom. Now I have the solution!!
BTW, is standard cat5 cable the same as the ethernet cable as I have loads of this lying around in our office at work after a major PC upgrade.
 
Truecelt said:
BTW, is standard cat5 cable the same as the ethernet cable as I have loads of this lying around in our office at work after a major PC upgrade.
Should be mate, it should say Cat5 on it. Nice price for the baluns bye the way :smashin:
 
Looking at this thread with interest as contemplating similar...

Obviously have to watch the same channel but any way of changing channels on the "slave" tv? Can't think of a way of doing this..

Regs
S
 
-- As an eBay Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases --
Hi There, this is what I am doing:-

Sky HD to Tosh LCD via HDMI in living room

Sky HD to Samy LCD via component into bedroom - Magic eye for remote.

I am running the component feed over a cat5 cable using baluns and the stereo audio over a cat5 using baluns.

The picture quality is stunning, I was quite sceptical about the picture quality over unshielded cat 5, but the pictures are amazing, I am VERY pleased!!

The muxlab product, also available from the uk www.madnat.co.uk (who were very helpful! - I am not connected to them, apart from being a happy customer) uses component and a digital audio feed over a single cat 5 run.

I doubt you can use the digital input in the second room, so you will need a second cat5 run to send the stereo signal.

This looked a little expensive using the muxlab products due to the way they are packaged.

I chatted to madnat and they also sell another product that is not in the web site yet. it is aimed more at installers. this is a component feed over a standard cat5 and then you buy two audio kits to make up the stereo feed over the other cat5.

this worked out a lot cheaper than the mux lab option.

I have a muxlab scart kit and it is good, but the cheaper installer component balun is very well made.

I did the HD feed to the bedroom for around £115 (for the Baluns)

I know the muxlab product mentioned up the thread looks cheaper, but that is only true if you can feed coax digital audio into the muxlab balun (SkyHD is optical) so you need a converter. then you must convert it at the remote end if your tv accepts optical. but I do not know of any tv's ( aim sure there are) that accept digital audio IN. so you are now looking for a digital audio to analauge stereo converter......

so by the time you add on the agro and costs of the converters it costs a lot more.

email madnat ... there is a contact us part on the website and tell him that you are after the same as martin miller was after (the installer component and stereo audio over two cat 5 runs) and I am sure he will hep.

If you are going down the muxlab route, madnat was the cheapest I have found for them int he UK. the US options were a little cheaper but I was concerned about import tax as the would have made the US option a LOT more expensive.

Let me know how you get on

Cheers

Mart
 
martmiller said:
I doubt you can use the digital input in the second room, so you will need a second cat5 run to send the stereo signal.

This looked a little expensive using the muxlab products due to the way they are packaged.

I chatted to madnat and they also sell another product that is not in the web site yet. it is aimed more at installers. this is a component feed over a standard cat5 and then you buy two audio kits to make up the stereo feed over the other cat5.

this worked out a lot cheaper than the mux lab option.

What are the two audio kits, are they basically a 2 phono balun?
 
Truecelt said:
What are the two audio kits, are they basically a 2 phono balun?

Yes, they are just screw terminals on one end to connect a pair within the cat5 and phone female the other end (they come with a gender changer, but I used a separate cable.
 
Guys Sky HD box coming next week want to run this to my Plasma in lounge via component and also to my LCD in loft room via component or HDMI, have a network setup in my loft and one cat 5 feed down to lounge ...

what hardware will I need to buy so that I can run Sky HD on the HD set in loft room in HD ??

Thanks
 
TimmyH said:
To PhilB1234 : Won't you still be hampered by the 10m HDMI cable limit coming off the distribution amp ?

Yes, but I'm planning a workaround!
I'll be running the SkyHD output to a more central point in the house <10m and then I reckon I can get to all other rooms from there (in-wall/ceiling) in under 12.5m from the dist.amp.
If there's one room a little further I might just fork out for one of Meridian's (or other's) extenders....

That's my dream, just need to get t off the ground!!!
 
bytesize said:
Guys Sky HD box coming next week want to run this to my Plasma in lounge via component and also to my LCD in loft room via component or HDMI, have a network setup in my loft and one cat 5 feed down to lounge ...

what hardware will I need to buy so that I can run Sky HD on the HD set in loft room in HD ??

Thanks

con you do hdmi in the living room? as I have ot seen baluns for hdmi.

if you say you have a single cat5 between the rooms and hubs at either end, then it will not work. the baluns just use the cat5 cable, they are no IP or ethernet devices.

you need dedicated point to point cat 5 runs.
 
Bump - I've just gone for this package from Madnat; could you advise me how I connect the phone baluns to a CAT5 cable? Not sure how to seperate the CAT5 wires to positive and negative!

Thanks in advance
 
Guys

Is there anyway to do this without wires ? I dont mind losing the HD quality to another room, but cant drill or cable my house....

Any suggestions ?

Thanks !
 
This is all very interesting. I have my SkyHD box in the lounge connected via HDMI to my 50inch Pio Plasma. I also have a 37inch Samsung LCD in the front room, some 10metres away.

Currently I feed the Samsung via the RF2 out on the SkyHD box, but the signal is poor, despite being fed through an RF amplifier.

I had been looking at video senders until locating this thread,...

Fortuitously, I have a Cat5 wallsocket located by the SkyHD box, the other end of which is in my front room not far from the Samsung. I installed this prior to some building work for 'future use', but haven't got around to using it yet.

Questions:

Will this single Cat5 be sufficient to carry to picture and the sound to the front room?

The Cat5 is already wired up to ethernet wallplates. Are the wiring requirements for the Baluns different to networking requirements?
 
I connect via component to my sagem HD-D56 and via HDMI-DVI to my projector in the conservatory which is a 20M (2 x 10M cables linked via a connector) run with no problems, however if I connect my Samsung HD950 via HDMI along the same 20M of cable I get sparklies leading me to think that the Sky HD box puts out a much stronger signal. This may be the reason why I can't connect my Sagem via the HDMI - DVI without problems

Dave
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom