Beginner in need of HELP!

[rebuckley]

I finally moved out of the stix and got "The Dish". I am looking to grab a big screen for the great room - however - I think I have a problem. The sat. comes into a single DVR/receiver on my main floor. From there the signal goes (via coax) from the satellite receiver, through the walls back up to the great room (where I want the big screen). Is there any way - aside from rebuilding my walls) to use the existing coax and ""boost"" the signal prior to going into the new big screen? (is this what a home theater receiver can do? like change from coax to s-Video??) Or do I need to re-think how the signal is coming into the house?

 

[Spiffyfast]

I finally moved out of the stix and got "The Dish". I am looking to grab a big screen for the great room - however - I think I have a problem. The sat. comes into a single DVR/receiver on my main floor. From there the signal goes (via coax) from the satellite receiver, through the walls back up to the great room (where I want the big screen). Is there any way - aside from rebuilding my walls) to use the existing coax and ""boost"" the signal prior to going into the new big screen? (is this what a home theater receiver can do? like change from coax to s-Video??) Or do I need to re-think how the signal is coming into the house?

Just trying to figure this out, do you have a remote system set up so you can operate ur sat. receiver from upstairs, why not just move the receiver upstairs and use the outputs off it straight into the receiver or tv?

 

[rebuckley]

Just trying to figure this out, do you have a remote system set up so you can operate ur sat. receiver from upstairs, why not just move the receiver upstairs and use the outputs off it straight into the receiver or tv?

The problem with moving the receiver is that the current set up is - - two wires (coax) from the dish to receiver at TV #1 - from receiver - a single wire then goes through the walls to TV #2. If I move the satellite receiver, I would need to do some creative re-wiring....just looking for a way to avoid that.

 

[breaks911]

Here's my interpretation of what you've posted, let me know if I'm confused... Coax runs from Dish to SatReceiver on your main floor. Then you're outputting from the satreceiver to the receiver/tv on the main floor. Then, there's a 2nd coax output running from the satreceiver up the wall into your great room for the big screen.

I'm still not following what you're trying to accomplish here, or what isn't working. You mentioned you want to boost signal strength on the coax...Are you not getting a strong enough signal to the big screen?

 

[rebuckley]

Help -

I have not purchased the big screen yet - but my concern (and maybe it is not worth being concerned) is that I will not get the image quality in the big screen thah I would get if it was connected directly to the SatReceiver with something like S-Video....but if the coax signal will not lose any quality - then this is a moot point.

 

[jaxvon]

Well, the single coax run to upstairs will give the worst sound and picture quality possible. It'd be a big waste of a bigscreen to feed it with such a low quality signal.

 

[breaks911]

Ok, I'm making the assumption that the Coax run from the satreceiver to the dish is a dedicated run, outside of the coax loop running to the rest of the rooms. I guess I see a couple of things you could maybe do, but let me preface this with the statement that I'm an intermediate beginner at best.

1.) Move the receiver to the great room. Run yourself a new coax wire from your dish, through the attic, and into the great room. It would be your choice whether you try to mount a jack in the wall and go fishing or simply run the wire down through the sheetrock and down the wall inside paintable, plastic conduit. I've done the latter several times with speaker cable. So then you could attach your bigscreen to the Sat Receiver via S-vid or better. Then make the coax connection to the wall jack that feeds down the wall into the TV on the main floor.

2.) Attempt to hijak (splice) your dish coax wire into the existing coax wiring loop. Did you have CATV before? If so, just find the entry point for that prior coax connection into your home from the cable company, do a little cable cutting and splicing, and run that into your dish. That's the way the DirecTV boys do it when they're being lazy. At that point, all coax jacks in the house should be receiving the satellite signal...I think...

3.) Do nothing except buy the big screen and plug it in to what you already have. Your obviously going to be much better off than you are today. Probably 90% of households in the US connect their satellites their TV's in this manner. Will it give you best audio and best sound? No. But do you have high end Denon 7.1 equipment and all high end monster audio fiber optic cable and super speakers? I'm guessing no (but it would be cool if you did). So who cares? Do it a step at a time. You can purchase the big screen today and be ready to watch the Series and be good to go. You can later start changing your wiring around to make it better if you so desire.

Of course, this is all coming from a cheap-arse!

 

[rebuckley]

3.) Do nothing except buy the big screen and plug it in to what you already have. Your obviously going to be much better off than you are today. Probably 90% of households in the US connect their satellites their TV's in this manner. Will it give you best audio and best sound? No. But do you have high end Denon 7.1 equipment and all high end monster audio fiber optic cable and super speakers? I'm guessing no (but it would be cool if you did). So who cares? Do it a step at a time. You can purchase the big screen today and be ready to watch the Series and be good to go. You can later start changing your wiring around to make it better if you so desire.

Of course, this is all coming from a cheap-arse!

I think I am with you on #3 - figure it will be a good start just to get the damn thing running - then plug the cash away to get the "best of the best" for it - - and as I do - then make the switches to the cables that I need. Thanks to all for the help !!