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Considering a new TV but reluctant to discard the old one. Is it possible to connect it to the existing dish in another room without diluting the signal? I would want to be able to run both sets at the same time, usually with different channels.
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your satellite dish would need a quad LNB.
Its the bit on the front of the dish, some have two wires and some have four wires.
Normally two wires go off to your front room and the other two would go to a bedroom.
If not you can buy these 'quad LNb's' online and then you have the hassle of running two cables from the dish to your bedroom of choice.
It's a bit of a flaff to do (sat dish could be in a difficult location) but once done its all in place.
alternately an arial installer would do it for a price but I have no idea of cost.
I done my myself and sited the dish just above head height on the back side of my house (height is NOT an issue unlike a TV arial but a clear path is)
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Does the dish you want to use have a single LNB or a dual / multi? Or more logically speaking, how many connectors does it have?
The difficulty with sharing a dish is that a satellite dish is "active" in that the device that is using it controls it to pick up different frequencies depending on what you are watching. Only one device can control the dish at any time unless you have a dual LNB which allows two devices independent control of the dish.
You can split a single LNB across two or more devices with a proprietary splitter box, but there are major limitations if you use the two devices at the same time.
EDIT: by devices I mean TVs or satellite boxes...
Last edited by: DP on Fri 9 Dec 16 at 12:07
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If you are a Sky subscriber you could look at Sky Q which gives you a mini receiver in each additional room, which runs over your local network (wired or WiFi), in which case you would not need to change your LNB.
If you are not then you will need to review your LNB setup as above but also remember that you will need a decoder (equivalent to Sky box - Freesat maybe, unless built into your telly) in each room in which you want to use the telly.
(I believe Sky+ uses two of your LNB ports, and also Sky would say they require a persistent phone connection for each box, though I think there are ways around the latter)
These days a much more satisfactory solution for many would be something like a Firestick or Roku, which receive the programmes over your internet (and then via your WiFi in the house). These can be run subscription free (with limitations) and you can also side-load apps which would give you stuff like BBC i-Player and ITV catchup legitimately. I think these would usually require an HD port on your telly though, so it would need to be a reasonably modern one.
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>> these would usually require an HD port on your telly
=HDMI.
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Thank you, I felt it was wrong as I was typing it but the right term wouldn't surface :-)
I have Kodi and Phoenix on my Firestick and can watch TV from virtually anywhere in the world. I don't though, as I'm not much of a TV watcher.
I also bought a Roku when they were cheap as I can stream ChiveTV, which I first saw in a bar in Texas. It's just clips of funny stuff, useful for "background" without the sound on.
Now, what to waste my money on next.... :-)
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>> These days a much more satisfactory solution for many would be something like a Firestick
>> or Roku, which receive the programmes over your internet (and then via your WiFi in
>> the house). These can be run subscription free (with limitations) and you can also side-load
>> apps which would give you stuff like BBC i-Player and ITV catchup legitimately. I think
>> these would usually require an HD port on your telly though, so it would need
>> to be a reasonably modern one.
This is a great suggestion. There are lots of options too.
My suggestion would be to use either the options above, or Kodi which is an excellent piece of free media centre software that forms the heart of most of the 'Android TV boxes' you can find all over ebay. You can also run it very happily on a £35 Raspberry Pi, which is a tiny credit card sized computer that is powered off a decent USB phone charger and can simply be stuck to the back of a TV out of the way, and connected via an HDMI port.
I'm using a Pi with Kodi on our conservatory TV and it's brilliant. My dad uses an Android box at home and that's great too (has the advantage that you can install any Android app you like on it, and it also comes with a remote control).
The Kodi software can be expanded almost infinitely to do what you want it do do, by means of free "plugins" which you download and install. It's a bit fiddly, but there are loads of guides online. There are plugins for almost every bit of TV content you could want: BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4 on Demand, YouTube and loads of others, limited only by how principled you are about paying for things. As a Sky subscriber and a Prime subscriber, I have no need to resort to such things, but it is almost ridiculously easy to find whatever you like.
The internet is full of help and instruction on how to tweak Kodi to your personal requirements.
Last edited by: DP on Fri 9 Dec 16 at 13:00
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You can install Kodi on the Amazon FireTV stick. These are neater/cheaper than a Raspberry Pi. They were £25 for Black Friday.
If you added Kodi to a FireTV stick, you'd have all of the common plugins via the FireTV stick without having to fire up the Kodi app.
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^^ That's cool I didn't know you could do that
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i run cabble from sky box outlet 2 to another telly. have to watch same channel.. if you google your wishes ,somebody will know a way round
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My disc has two lines running from it, into my Humax Foxsat HDR PVR. This can record two programmes simultaneously (provided they are from different "servers" or whatever they are called - generally BBC versus independent) and sometimes watch another live.
It might be simpler to install a dedicated separate disc.
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So at the dish end, where the cable goes into the bit in the front of the dish, are there two spare sockets there? If so you only need an additional cable run from the dish to the required room, and a decoder box (unless you TV has built-in freesat, which I doubt)
However all options which involve the disk are more expensive (by quite a bit, if you are thinking of a new dish) than the Firestick/Roku option.
Firestick/Roku - just plug it in, configure it onto your WiFi, and away you go. Portable too (i.e. you can take it anywhere you have an internet connection and TV with HDMI port), not just at home...)
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There are, indeed, two spare sockets. I already have a Firestick.
If I moved the old set into the room next door and installed another Firestick, loaded with Kodi, what more would I need? Freeview would be o.k., plus streaming via the Firestick.
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Nothing. Just the Firestick. You should be able to get tons more channels through that than you can get through your satellite (including Live TV if you load the right apps - there is a version of Kodi called Pulse which loads zillions of bits and has a slightly more friendly user interface.)
If you want to use Freeview you will need an aerial. (Freesat is the one you'd connect to your dish, but you'd also need a satellite decoder plus cables from your dish to your new decoder)
Last edited by: smokie on Tue 13 Dec 16 at 14:27
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Would the firestick remote play havoc with the other firestick, seeing as it uses Bluetooth rather than infra-red (which most other remotes use), or can you set up each firestick to operate from its own remote without interference from another one?
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 13 Dec 16 at 15:03
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You can pair multiple remote with a FireTV. The remote should auto pair with the new FireTV stick.
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And I've just checked, I setup a second FireTV in the same room as I had the other (only one powered up).... the new one started and paired with both the remotes in the room.... Maybe the remote (Bluetooth device) can be detected even when a button is not being pressed?
Anyway both remotes were working on the new FireTV.... Went into settings and unpaired one of them. Now only one works.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 13 Dec 16 at 16:02
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Shared satellite disc - diddy1234
