[mythtv-users] Coax splitters - how painful are they?

[R. G. Newbury]

Brian Wood wrote:
> R. G. Newbury wrote:
> 
>> Well I DO NOT FEAR a visit from the FAA....it would be the DoT up here 
>> in the 'frozen north' (that describes our bureaucracies not our weather!)
> 
> 
> Actually I believe it would be the DoC, at the behest of the DoT.
>> Seriously, I want to combine a cable feed and an antenna through 
>> combiner, and feed one coax to the TV. Either feed alone is fine and I 
>> can switch them, but through a (cheap) combiner I get nothing watchable.
>>
>> Both signals have already been split: the cable coax to feed the 
>> mythbox, and the antenna has already been boosted (by a medium-cheap) 
>> amp, and split three ways, 2 of which feed the HDHR unit,
>>
>> This may not be the best setup.. I do not know. I do suspect that I need 
>> better splitters than the el-cheapo's I had in the bottom of a box of junk.
> 
> Combining OA and cable is frought with problems, you not only can't have
>  the same channels on both feeds, but adjacent ones can pose problems as
> well. You need to balance levels, taking into consideration that the
> levels from a CATV system can vary as much as 12 db. in a 24 hour period.
> 
> If it were me I'd use two different capture devices, one for OA and one
> for cable, as a capture card is probably cheaper then the gear to
> properly do such a combining.
> 
> But that's me, and the "land of the cheap (capture cards that is).
> 
> beww

It's not a capture card problem. I have 4 tuners: 2 analog in the 
PVR-500, and 2 digital in the HDHR.

My wife wants to channel surf. Although she appreciates the advantages 
of the mythbox over the VCRs, there are still ocassional problems which 
cause her to want to avoid using the mythbox directly.

What I was attempting to do, was feed the antenna and the cable into the 
single coax input on the TV. Like most TV's it only has a single coax. 
While cyber-shopping, I found a page which stated that the Sony 
KDL-37XBR4 had two coax inputs. A physical examination dashed that hope.
The LG treats Antenna and Cable as just 2 different input sources, so I 
can switch using the remote...IF I can actually switch or combine the input.

Since combining is a No-Go....anyone have any ideas for a remotely 
controlled switch?  (Lirc is expandible and can do so much!)

Geoff