Long story short, my TiVo Premiere kept giving me trouble. I can't justify the expense of buying at least one more TiVo Premiere to start doing Multi Room Streaming and without the reassurance that I was going to fix the problems I was having with some SDV channels and the Tuning Adapters. So after a tech visit that fixed one problem and caused many others, I called and was put in touch with the Loyalty Department. They had an offer I couldn't turn down right now to add Contour with a 6 Tuner DVR and 2 HD Receivers. The same tech did the second visit, and while an incredibly nice guy, not entirely sure I agree with what he did with the cabling.
He did manage to get all of the equipment working, but he made a complete mess of the coaxial part of my structured enclosure. Including a 4-way power amp, there were 4 splitters between the DEMARC and the DVR. The last splitter was only connected to the DVR with the other end empty. I'm going to guess the signal ended up too hot so he had to try to bring it back down...shrug. At one time he did get an 8-way power amp out and then took it all back out to. Anyway I ripped it all out and got a temporary solution working without the amp but it's just the 4 devices.
For reference, my incoming power level is roughly 7dBmV at the DEMARC cable in the closest. My ideal situation includes at a minimum having the Master, Living Room, Study (Cable Modem), 2 Spare Bedrooms, and a Bonus Room all with the ability to plug in a TV or STB with the simplest splitting solution as possible. I honestly won't mind 1 or 2 splitters that are easy to Velcro back into the enclosure but it was getting pretty ridiculous the way it was. There was no easy way I was going to be able to tidy it up enough. Plus some of the interconnect cables were having to bend way out of spec.
I do have a second coax at the same wall plate in the living room but I'm thinking it may end up being used for something else like in-attic antenna for OTA/FM, along with doing another this way to use in the bonus room but that's outside the scope of this.
If an 8-way splitter with or without an amp is the best solution then I could add a drop above the fireplace I believe and maybe out in the garage even though those aren't locations that I'd personally use...garage sports watching seems to be incredibly popular in my neighborhood...otherwise maybe I can live with just a 6-way splitter?
↧