Best way to share Sky?

[Jam3s]

Hey all,

So I have a question for you all:

What's the best way to share a hdmi signal?

Here's the scenario, I live in a two bed apartment and have only had a TV in the living room (yeah very media center honest ) but as it's getting colder I'm spending more mornings in bed and want to watch the news in bed before I get up for work.

The problem is, as I live in an apartment I can't go drilling holes to put cables through walls, and I only have one Sky connection and aerial in my living room.

I've debated using wireless transmitters, but I had two sets of them which I threw away before I moved and I'd like the best quallity possible, the other option I've seen so far is using hdmi-cat5e balun, I'm very nerdy and haven't got a problem running two cat5e cables around the carpet

The other option I thought about was a media server, at the moment I use a NAS and an AC Ryan to store and play all my media, and as its all on the NAS can also play on the laptops and desktops in the apartment. The company I work for means I can build myself a nice media server for not such a high cost and then just purchase a digital tuner card for the sky box, and then use a media extender such as an xbox to stream from the media server to the bedroom.

I must also add that where I live we have an awful Internet exchange and I'm limited to 40GB BW a month, so streaming from online isn't an option sadly and it's not the fastest internet during the day =[

Any opinions guys? and thanks in advanced.

[Per]

(11-30-2010 11:24 PM)Jam3s Wrote:  Hey all,

So I have a question for you all:

What's the best way to share a hdmi signal?

Here's the scenario, I live in a two bed apartment and have only had a TV in the living room (yeah very media center honest ) but as it's getting colder I'm spending more mornings in bed and want to watch the news in bed before I get up for work.

The problem is, as I live in an apartment I can't go drilling holes to put cables through walls, and I only have one Sky connection and aerial in my living room.

I've debated using wireless transmitters, but I had two sets of them which I threw away before I moved and I'd like the best quallity possible, the other option I've seen so far is using hdmi-cat5e balun, I'm very nerdy and haven't got a problem running two cat5e cables around the carpet

The other option I thought about was a media server, at the moment I use a NAS and an AC Ryan to store and play all my media, and as its all on the NAS can also play on the laptops and desktops in the apartment. The company I work for means I can build myself a nice media server for not such a high cost and then just purchase a digital tuner card for the sky box, and then use a media extender such as an xbox to stream from the media server to the bedroom.

I must also add that where I live we have an awful Internet exchange and I'm limited to 40GB BW a month, so streaming from online isn't an option sadly and it's not the fastest internet during the day =[

Any opinions guys? and thanks in advanced.

Hi there

If you are OK with Cat5e, I'd use an Octava HDMI splitter - output from the HD box to the input of the splitter, and then take one out put to the TV.

http://www.tmfsolutions.co.uk/Octava_HDDA12A-UK.htm

For the other output you'd need anothe Octava product - something like HDOCAT.

http://www.tmfsolutions.co.uk/Octava_HDOCAT.htm

This has a transmitter and a reciever. You can connect the transmitter to the receiver via Cat5e, and if you want optical if you have an AVR in your bedroom.

Give these guys a shout - they know their stuff with cat5e and HDMI -http://www.tmfsolutions.co.uk/Octava.htm

At the Sky box end, you will have a little IR transmitter, so you can change channel from the bedroom.

I have a 4x2 matrix from them with the HDOCAT and have my TV room sky box downstairs and the TV in the masterbedroom upstairs fed via a pair of cat5e cables, using the HDOCAT. I have an AVR in he bedroom and the HDOCAT also gives me dolby digital 5.1.

Its not cheap stuff, but its very good - if you buy the cheaper stuff you won't necessarily get the best results.

Good luck

Cheers

Per