Satellite Distribution System (1 Viewer)

[Jon_S]

I've been holding off getting a satellite system because I currently have 9 TVs in my house and don't want to have to get receivers for all of them. I've been considering getting a system with a RF Modulator to send the audio and video to the TVs. Since the coax quality won't be as good, I was thinking about having one or two directly hooked up to key sets. The modulators I have seen are from Channel Vision (http://www.channelvision.com) and Channel Plus (http://www.channelplus.com/). This would enable me to have two "channels" of satellite that could be viewed on channels on all TVs (i.e. Ch. 70 & 72). There are a few issues with this however:
1. I need to have the ability to control the receiver(s) from any room. I'm trying no keep the costs not too high, and since I'm using an existing house I don't really have the ability of running new bundles of cable for this control. So, I'm looking at using an RF remote. I've been told that RCA's UltimateTV receiver has the ability to have an RF remote, but I can't find any information on this. Even if it can, I'm wondering what the range will be. Can I put the receiver in one end of the basement and access it on the top (2 floors up) floor?
2. I assume that the best place to install the receiver is at the distribution point for cable (my basement).
3. Has anyone seen the quality that can be passed through a system such as this? Is it worth it?
4. I was thinking of the UltimateTV system because I believe that both have the ability to output two different channels over two different S-Video/Composite video connections. As such, it seems that this would allow me to only install one receiver to have the ability to view 2 independant channels on any TV. Is this allowed on all UltimateTV receivers?
5. Do you know of any other DSS receivers that allow an RF remote control?
6. Is there another control system that will work wirelessly for the application? I was thinking that an RF to IR system wouldn't work well enough.
7. Has anyone done this sort of installation? If so, are there any pros/cons/issues that I haven't listed here?
Thanks a lot.

 

[Jim Brown]

1. I don't believe the UTV unit has an RF remote. However, you could get a third-party RF remote of some type or you could put IR sensors in each room and deliver the IR back over the same coax you are using for video distribution. Be aware that 9 sensors may very well be too many on one system since each one adds noise to the IR signal. See http://www.smarthome.com
4. No. UTV does not do this. It is a persistent myth.
5. Last I checked RCA made the least expensive DirecTV receivers with RF remotes.
6. If you mean something like the IR pyramids/cones, you're right. I think you'd have far too much noise with more than two receivers on that system. I had to get rid of mine because of noise with only one receiver.
7. How do you plan on controlling both central receivers from each room? To make this work you need to either (a) two different types of receivers that respond to different IR codes, (b) receivers with addressable remotes so that you can set each receiver to respond to different IR codes, or (c) resign yourself to having only one of the receivers controllable from each room.
Personally, if you want a PVR (and I won't watch TV without one), I'd get the DirecTV/TiVo. I like its feature set much more than the UTV. However, it doesn't have an RF remote either. If having a system with an RF remote is of paramount importance, and other methods of IR distribution don't seem feasible, I'd go with a standard RF controlled DirecTV receiver for the central locations and DirecTV/TiVos for the prime locations.
---Jim