When we started talking about building our house, I started asking around some coworkers about what kinds of specializations they recommend--things they would do with their house if they had it to do over again. One suggestion was to have 2 coax cables run to every TV, because this particular coworker's satellite setup needed that and he had to run an extra. That made me think about other possible uses for that second piece of coax.
At the time we had cable and a DVR. The DVR had just about every output you could think of, including component, HDMI, and channel 3. I decided that I could take that channel 3 output and run it to all of the TVs in the house, then use the HDMI output for my HDTV in the TV room. This worked remarkably well.
When they built the house I had them run phone and cable wires to a box in the coat closet downstairs. I also ran all of the speaker wires and network cables there. It's kind of a rat's nest, but it gives me a lot of flexibility. The cable signal comes in on one wire, gets split to the cable modem and a cable amplifier, when then feeds all of the TVs in the house. The second coax cable that runs the to TV room is a return path from the DVR, which then is split out to every TV in the house on the other extra cables. Believe it or not, I didn't have to amplify the channel 3 signal from the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD box that we had. On top of that, it automatically handled the widescreen/4:3 difference between the channel 3 output and the HDMI output. It added bars to everything widescreen that went out on channel 3, and played in native widescreen on our HDTV. I added an old fashioned A/B switch to each TV, and when we wanted to watch the DVR we flipped the switch. Remote switches exist, but we found that we generally watched the DVR on nearly every TV in the house, so the ability to switch remotely wasn't an issue.
The setup only had one hiccup: HDMI has handshaking. That means there is communication back and forth between your TV and your HDMI device. That also means that when you turn your TV off, the HDMI device knows it. In my case, this meant the DVR stopped putting out a video signal if the HDTV was off. For most people this wouldn't be a problem, but obviously I couldn't leave the HDTV on all of the time just to continue to get a channel 3 signal from the DVR. The simplest solution was to use the component output instead. That box would only do 1080i on any output, so I wasn't giving up quality to do so.
Next up is controlling the DVR from another room. I ran 3 cat5e cables to every cable location in the house, so I used one of them to connect up a wired infrared repeater. If you're counting, that means, yes, every single-gang cable box in the house has two coax and three cat5e cables in it. They're all kind of crowded. Anyway, back to the IR repeater. I have tried the wireless type with little/no success, so I wanted a wired setup. I ended up getting a setup from Buffalo Electronics, which has worked remarkably well:
This is smaller than it looks--maybe 2" x 3". I used two pairs out of the cat5e cable (doubled up on ground) to connect everything. Connections are very simple--you just connect everything together in parallel. You can also chain many of these modules together on the same wires and they will work together and even extend your range. I needed two of these modules, because the IR flashers (the things that stick on to your devices) connect to it, and I wanted to be able to control both my whole house audio in the coat closet and the DVR in the TV room. They offer two different DC adapters--I recommend the beefier one. Then again I ran this signal to 5-6 different places, so you might be fine with the lower power adapter. Anyway, they offer a couple of receiver options, but I went with these:
You'll note that this one has no housing. It's made so you can drill a hole in your entertainment center and install it there. I don't have an entertainment center, and I don't like drilling holes in nice wood. So I went to the hardware store and got a 2" x 2" piece of poplar, and cut it a little longer than this device. I drilled a large (1") hole through most of it, then for the last 1/2" or so a hole the size of the device. I mounted the device in the smaller hole, with only the lens showing on the outside of the wood.I then connected some short wires between the back of the device and an ethernet jack, like this:
I basically crammed this into the hole. I then added little rubber feet to the block, and I ended up with a sturdy, portable block that could be connected cleanly to a cable anywhere in the house. This was important to me because the receivers above are the most expensive part of the system, so I only bought 3 of them. I wired up an ethernet jack in each room, and all I have to do is plug a receiver into the wall and it works immediately. And it works with a regular old network cable, so I can move things around and change lengths as needed. One note: I read the hint somewhere to attach the ground wire to the body of the receiver. I can testify that this was the difference in working and not for me. In fact, that's one reason I ran two ground wires--made it easier to loop them around the body of the receiver. I was afraid to solder them on because I didn't know how sensitive the electronics inside that tube are.
I set all of this up over 4 years ago and we use it constantly. In fact we watch the DVR in the living room (on an old tube TV) more often than we go to the TV room. It truly is seamless--it doesn't even occur to us that the DVR is in another room.
We have since canceled cable, and I had to make some slight changes to the system, but this particular setup served us very well for years. I recommend it!
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