We upgraded to the digital/phone/Internet package and installed only one digital box wit the rest of the house on analog. While I can only speak definitively about Shrewsbury Cable, I can't see how this wouldn't work anywhere...
Depending on the equipment the cable provider uses, one or more splitters with the appropriate notch filters on each output, may be necessary to separate out the unwanted packets and phone signals for each device. In Shrewsbury's case, the gear they now use doesn't require the filters, so I split the incoming cable using the town's original 1:3 splitter, connected one output to an amplified splitter (Radio Shack) to provide analog to the rest of the house (via additional splitters - everything is configured as what's called a "home-run" to the basement), and connected each of the other two outputs to the digital box and phone/cable modem respectively. The tech from Shrewsbury had no problem with this configuration because if you want independent digital signals, you need two or more digital tuners. If you want to see what this looks like, I'll send a link to pics on picassaweb.
Since I have finished the basement as something of a Pub, I have a little TV mounted in a corner above the bar. I am about to split the signal from the digital box's output, in the same way as described above for the whole house, so that both the larger TV and the "bar TV" can be driven by the one digital tuner - the digital box output to the TV is analog.
There is one very important issue to remember when playing "cable guy": Avoid putting an amplified splitter, or even a cheap splitter, in-line between your digital (or phone) gear and the outside world! These digital devices are bi-directional and the amplifier is essentially a capacitor that will block all but 60Hz(+/-) and will typically not allow return signals to pass. Sometimes, a cheap splitter's internal configuration is such that the return signal is degraded so much that it too is essentially blocked. (Anyone who has had trouble using BSRs to control lights or other appliances working on some outlets in the home, but not others, is fighting a similar issue with the circuit panel being the culprit). You can buy cable amps that will accommodate digital devices, but a good splitter was less expensive the last time I checked.
And one last tidbit... As of July (?) of this year, cable providers are now required to allow you to purchase the digital box if you don't want to pay a monthly rental fee. I'm not sure if you can be restricted to the one being provided by the cable provider, or if they are required to support any digital tuner the customer may have... This could be a savings if you have several TVs because the typical monthly fee for a digital box is ~$8/month, or ~ 100/yr.
Later,
Steve
On 9/15/07, Frank Sweetser <fs@wpi.edu> wrote:
John Stoffel wrote:
> Before we had a splitter in the analog cable, with one feed going to
> the TV directly, the other going to the TiVo. This way we could watch
> live TV (commercials and all!) when the TiVo was recording something
> we wanted, but didn't want to watch at the moment.
>
> Now that we have digital cable, I don't think I'm going to be able to
> do this anymore. Dammit. This is an oversight/gotcha that I didn't
> realize.
>
> I'll see how much extra it will cost to get another digital set top
> box, which I'll dedicate to my TiVo's use I think. :] I
> dunno... maybe there's a way to do this. Anyone know for sure if the
> Scientific Atlanta set top box has analog output of *all* channels, so
> I can just tune up and down using the TV tunner? Even if I don't get
> over channel 99 on there, I'd be ok with that.
>
> I suspect (strongly) that it doesn't work that way and that I'm
> screwed, sorta. Not terrible actually, but annoying.
Actually, it does. If you throw a splitter in, you'll find that all of the
analog signals are still there just as before.
One thing you'll need to be aware of, though, is that depending on where you
put them, adding in too many splitters will now degrade the signal quality for
your phone as well as just your television picture, so make sure you give the
phone box priority.
--
Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that
WPI Senior Network Engineer | is simple, elegant, and wrong. - HL Mencken
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