Box in Separate Room

anotheruser

If you bought a cheap box from ebay and put it in a different room, then split the cable signal coming into the house, would the 2nd box work fine and dandy?

Kurtis_Blue

What box ?

Moneymaker

It depends on whether the "box" will work reliably with less than half of the original signal strength. (In the case of a satellite dish LNB signal, you can't "split" it.)

StuC75

IF its satellite then No, since would need its own feed from the LNB (See how many feeds it has on the dish).. splitting the signal would affect what channels could be viewed on each box..

If its a normal aerial feed into a Terrestrial Digital STB then should be ok,, bit more info would help...

anotheruser

What about if it's a cable TV box, such as Virgin Media?

Kurtis_Blue

anotheruser wrote: »

What about if it's a cable TV box, such as Virgin Media?

VM boxes belong to VM they cannot be legally brought or sold.
If you do manage to get one it will not work.

[Deleted User]

anotheruser wrote: »

What about if it's a cable TV box, such as Virgin Media?

That would be entirely useless to you because you'd need a valid viewing card in the Cable decoder and, again, you could not simply split the feed.
It's also illegal as the Box does not belong to the person selling it on E-bay.

Moto2

You can simply split the feed to cable boxes but a random box from ebay etc won't work.
There are boxes that will work but are not legal to use in the UK

[Deleted User]

Moto2 wrote: »

You can simply split the feed to cable boxes

Not without significant loss of signal quality I believe?

Moto2 wrote: »

There are boxes that will work but are not legal to use in the UK

Or allowed to be discussed on this forum.

Moto2

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Not without significant loss of signal quality I believe?

You'll lose around 3dB by splitting it [which is half the power] and ~1dB insertion loss.
Most home installations work fine on that, if it were to be an issue, you can either rectify it by fitting a simple wideband amp [you need a return path if you have a cable modem
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30-dB-CAI-home-amplifier-with-active-return-path-ANT-AMP-PRO30A-Konig-/271388760866

Or getting VM to investigate and bumping the level a bit [if you're lucky]
There's certainly not the same issues with splitting a DVB-C signal as there is with switched polarised signals from sats.

[Deleted User]

Moto2 wrote: »

Or getting VM to investigate and bumping the level a bit

Virgin would be hardly likely to "bump" the signal to a box they didn't authorise on their network, of course!

If the OP wants another working and legal cable decoder, he'll have to pay for a Multi-Room subscription.