From another thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sperry
The wiring is working great! Thanks again for all the help. We keep flirting with switching to satellite, but have yet to pull the trigger because we don't want tuner boxes for all the TVs we rarely watch.
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While I cannot speak for HD, I assume they haven't done something stupid in that conversion. Needing a tuner or box for each TV is not required no matter how much they would like to convince you it is.
In most cases, you only need as many tuners as you want to watch and record simultaneously and RF remotes. Almost all satellite boxes output on a specific channel kind of like VCRs had a 3/4 switch. The TVs in other rooms just need to tune to that channel to watch what that tuner is outputting.
There is nothing preventing 4 TVs from "watching" the same tuner.
It is all in the cable routing and if needed, using signal combiners to put multiple outputs from different sources on a single cable.
Doing this right also eliminates the "we can't watch that in the bedroom, it is on the living room DVR." issue.
I would guess you would want 3 or 4 tuners and the ability to record 2 of those at the same time. In either case, that means 2 boxes for as many TVs as you have.
Depending on what cable you already have in the wall, you may not need any additional except between the dish and the tuners. Not I did not say dish and your cable distribution box. The outputs from the tuners will get routed there and distributed on the existing cable.