I’ve had some issues with HDHR recordings via QAM recently and Nick at silicondust noticed that my signal was below acceptable limits and suggested I investigate splitters and try to improve my signal. I remember seeing a blog-like post a few months ago where someone had researched various splitters showing that not all splitters are equal or even perform as you’d expect from their cost– I can’t find that link, maybe someone knows of this or something similar.
While we’re on this subject maybe someone can also offer some help or suggestions for my situation to optimize signal without spending a boatload of money. First and foremost, I really haven’t noticed any symptoms of low signal until Nick made the suggestion after looking at output from my HDHR. I have been fine with how things have worked so far but realize that I’ve probably got things setup very inefficiently and could easily improve things to feed all my signal hungry devices.
I spent a few minutes trying to depict how I have things split now, but its probably easier to just tell you what I have and give a basic description of how I have split the cable to give you the picture and criticize my setup.
I’m in an apartment where the cable comes in by the HDTV. Here are cable connections I have
1a. HDHR input 1
1b. HDHR input 2
2. comcast POS cablebox
3. bedroom line (cable modem + analog TV)
4. pvr150 in HTPC
5. tuner in HDTV (which isn’t used much)
I currently have my input split two ways which is then split again to get me 4 lines. One line goes to the HDHR(split for two inputs there); another goes into the bedroom for cablebox/tv; the third goes into cablebox; and the last is split again for my pvr150 and HDTV. The two-way splitters are better than the cheap 3-way that I replaced this weekend and I’m getting signals above 90% on all channels with my HDHR now instead of below 80%. I’m looking at 4-way splitters, and am hoping I can get away without having to buy an amp.
If anyone has any comments of suggestions I’m listening. Thanks.
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