Split Pictures w/Digital Box?

scott johnson · 08-02-2004, 05:27 AM

My mitsubishi TV is capable of displaying up to 9 individual video sources at one time (be it tv, dvd, or a combo of any video source) (picture in picture). A couple of years ago I got a HDTV setup, which requires a digital box from our cable company to go in between the cable line and my TV. Ever since that, I've been unable to figure out how to rig it to allow me to be able to use the PiP features once more. Any thoughts as to how to do that, or does the cable box effectively make those picutre in picture features non-usable?

Jeff Gatie · 08-02-2004, 08:45 AM

You must get a cable from the wall to the set. If the box has composite/s-video/component outs, use those and split off the cable before the box and hook that up to the tv's coax input. Some tv's also have two coax inputs, you can use the splitter and connect that to the second coax input. The reason you are not seeing the pip is because the box effectively bypasses the tv's tuner, which usually is used to generate the pip pictures.

Note, some televisions do not allow pip in HD, only SD. Some do not allow mixing of 480p and 480i pictures in a pip. Some only allow pip'ing of channels from one (usually the coax) input. All these and more may hamper the use of pip on your set. Take a look at your set's manual, they sometimes have detailed instructions for pip hookup.

Wayne A. Pflughaupt · 08-02-2004, 02:47 PM

Nine PIP’s? Wow.

Does this mean your TV has nine inputs? That would be pretty amazing.

It’s possible that some of the PIPs are internally-generated. For instance, a TV that does PIP with no any external sources (connected via the input jacks) can only do that if it has additional tuners built in. If this is the case, then you have a problem, since your cable box has replaced the internal tuner(s); it’s merely another external source now.

Still, you noted that external sources like DVD is available for PIP, so you should be able to at least get the cable box and any other external source connected directly to the TV as a PIP display. However, you won’t be able to get additional HDTV channels on PIP without additional cable boxes.

You might do what Jeff suggested and send a CATV feed from the wall directly to the TV’s RF input (use a splitter to get a signal to the cable box as well). This would allow you to get regular cable channels as PIP – again assuming that the TV has multiple built-in tuners.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt



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