4 cable boxes stacked on one another?!

[Chrislmontrose]

Hello everyone! Question- If I have a media server with 4 tuners inside of it, and 4 sage HD theater extenders, on 4 tvs, and want to watch 4 different channels on the 4 different tvs at the same time, How do I set that up? I imaging I would have to have all 4 cable boxes stacked on one another all wired to a separate tuner? If I am correct then my next question would be- Could the irblaster for cable box (1)
inter fear or change channels on the rest of the cable boxes? Or vise versa?

[JetreL]

From my understanding IR Blaster can be split to use three devices. I am not sure if you can use more than one.

I currently have 2 HD-PVRs and 2 DirecTV boxes that are stacked on to each other.

Why would you need so many cable boxes? We never watch live TV and this works great for us.

[GKusnick]

If you insist on being able to channel-surf on four TVs simultaneously, then yes, you'll need four STBs connected to four separate capture devices, controlled by four channels of IR blaster. (Typically you would fasten the IR emitters directly to the STB faceplates with black electrical tape to avoid interference.)

But if you're like most of us, you're going to find that four STBs is overkill for typical SageTV use. Once you set up your favorite programs to record, a couple of OTA or QAM tuners plus one or two STBs is probably enough to capture them all without conflicts. Then you can watch what you like when you like without channel surfing.

[Chrislmontrose]

Thanks Guys!

[Islander]

Your boxes should have a way to change the remote codes. If you set the 4 to different remote codes then you do not need to worry about the interference. Otherwise, even if it is two boxes sharing the same codes, then you need to use the methods described above.

I am not sure if the IR blaster can split to 3 devices but I know USBIRT can. There are some thread about how to accomplish this and how to avoid signal interference.

These could be of interest to you:

http://www.hometech.com/hts/products...ers/index.html

[Fuzzy]

as mentioned, of you get an OTA tuner, and good antenna reception, you certainly won't need 4 tuners. In most cases, 2 would be enough.

There are a few different control schemes that will work to varrying degrees. It depends on a few things, your service, your carrier, and how many you want.