Sky + 'piping' question

[UrbanT]

We currently have Sky+ in our living room. The garage is about to be converted into a HC room. I would like to pipe an RGB signal into a HCPC (and then into a PJ) so as I see it, I have 2 options

1) Move Sky+ box to garage, and pipe back to living room
2) Pipe from living room to garage

The question is, can I pipe an RGB signal from the living room into the garage? If so, this would be the best solution as the box is quite noisy and would be irritating in the garage.

If not, can a signal be piped directly into the PJ, a Z2, and if so what is the best connection? I'm a bit so any other suggestions are welcome

 

[Starburst]

Why not buy a second SKY+ for the garage and use a mirror card (£10 a month), it will give you maximum flexibilty and apart from the LNB cables a neater install. Mind you building a room for a HC means you won't have cables trailing everywhere

Personally I would locate the SKY+ as close to the main display and amp as possible, piping the best possible connections to another room is going to be far more difficult then having an RGB/S-video and optical connection running a few feet.
The second display can then be hooked via a TVlink for remote access and use a s-video and rca phonos to get good quality pictures/sound into another room, RF is fine but you should always try for better.

Surprised that you find SKY+ to be noisy, is it the hard drive or the fan that is generating the noise? If it's the fan then perhaps the current location is little warm and a custom location in the new HC room will offer a more comfortable ambient temperature.

The SKY+ s-video connection should be able to feed a projector directly however from what I have read converting the RGB output to s-video provides a better image source.

 

[UrbanT]

Thanks for the reply

I already pay Sky £50 pm (full sub plus extra box in conservatory). Interesting you mention the noise, currently the box is in a cabinet which would change in the garage, with far more air and freedom.

It would seem best then to move Sky+ to the garage, and route the signal back to the front room for the TV.

My only question then is, how good will the picture be in the front room, and is there a 'best way' of achieving the best picture? Currently the main TV is fed by RGB and gives a very good picture

Chris

 

[BrianC]

Keene do a RGB/YUV and optical sound distribution system based on a single cat 5 cable. This would sound ideal for what you want as a cat 5 cable is even easier to lay than a pair of coax cables for the sky box and a RGB cable back again. Quality is excellent, it does cost a couple of hundred but I can't see that you would need to upgrade it for a very long time. Bung a scart switcher on the back end and you could have all of your sources in one room. Obviously it has a remote extender (goes over the cat 5) as well.

 

[miniman]

Must agree with brianC there, cat 5 is the way to go, for now anyway.

 

[sparkybun]

Hi Chris,

Yes I have to agree that Cat5 seems to be the way to go Especially if you can make this the 'wireless variety'. I believe you can because it's basically a Cat 5 network.

Cheers

Mel

 

[BrianC]

you can't use the Keene solution with wireless and it can't share an existing cat5 network (be it Token ring or ethernet) - the Keene system isn't ethernet based, they just use the wires in the cable.

 

[UrbanT]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

This is a touch more complicated (read expensive) than I had envisaged. I'll investigate the Cat5 option for a bit more info