Dear AT Home Tech,
Last year, I bought a 42 Panasonic plasma HD TV. It is mounted on the wall in my living room. I was a newbie at the time so it took awhile to figure out that I not only needed the HD TV, but I also had to upgrade my cable box (and service) in order to get all available HD programming.
Now I would like to set up another TV in my office/guest bedroom (I am thinking about a 21 LCD this time in the location pictured to the right). My question is, what will I need in order to get:
a) cable programming
b) HDTV
I envision this TV like they look in the ads no extraneous cables or tuner boxes anywhere! Is this realistic? Is there some wireless contraption that will allow me to use the existing cable set up from one room in another room?
Many thanks,
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn,
So it sounds like you've already invested in the HD cable box for the Panasonic plasma. To get analog cable to the second tv, you can get a splitter to split the tv signal but if you want HD on the second TV, I'm afraid you will have to invest in another cable box.
As for the setup in the picture you sent, the tuner box can be eliminated if HD is not required, but otherwise it is an unfortunate byproduct of HDTV. Typically these setups have all the wires running through the wall and coming out into a cabinet directly below the tv and connected to the components. I have done this with my own home setup and am quite happy with the way it turned out.
Anyone else out there know any better or have other suggestions for Kathryn?
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
This will hide the wiring. It was posted here recently:
http://www.flatwiretv.com/installation.html
view anne's profile
Although I've no personal experience with CableCARD HDTVs, you can purchase HDTVs with them and eliminate the cable box altogether. The cable features are somewhat restricted when compared to a stand-alone cable box, but perhaps not too much for your needs. You'll still need the coax line to the TV. Hopefully you can run that line through an exterior wall directly to where your TV hangs or under baseboards (yours look pretty small) and up the wall through the wall studs. This installation would be involved, but sometimes necessary and not any more difficult than the suggested FlatWire product. Worst case, just stand there with your cable installer and demand a quality run.
Ultra-wide Band is supposed to make all of these cable runs obsolete, but its not been released into the wild yet, only at trade shows like CES.
Good luck!
view superstovall's profile
Thanks superstovall, I think the CableCard is what I was thinking about.
If I have an existing cable outlet (jack?) in the room I want to put the second TV in, will that provide the necesary coax line to the TV?
I've had cable TV for years -- but never more than 1 TV at a time!
view Kathryn's profile
Your cable installer will be able to tell you if he/she can use that line - but that is a great sign and hopefully they can and your installation work would be substantially less. It will depend on whether the existing line in the wall is or can be connected to the same incoming line/signal as your existing TV's coax line. Its likely that your coax lines that you can see on the walls (aka 'drops') are fed from the same incoming line/signal, so all are effectively 'live' and just need something (cable box/tv) connected to them.
Let us know what you find out and publish the install photos!
view superstovall's profile
I'm on a similar hunt and have discovered that it's difficult to find smallish TVs that take cable cards. We've been looking for one for our bedroom. We don't have room for any furniture to hide the components, so cable card ready is a must. For now, it's dvds on the laptop.
One salesperson told me new models will begin arriving in stores in May?? Maybe there will be something then.
view Juli's profile