[mythtv-users] How can I connect my box to 5 TVs?

[Brian Wood]

On Apr 6, 2006, at 8:50 AM, Dr. C Mythology wrote:

> Hello,
> I was wondering if someone knew a good way to connect 4 or 5 TVs to  
> a PC (one plasma and 4 LCDs).
> I haven't bought the PC components yet

Depends a lot on whether you want SD or HD, and how far you need to  
send the signals.

One way would be to connect an RF modulator to the S-Video/component  
output of the video card and the audio output.

The problem is this would result is pretty lousy video quality and  
would be limited to SD signals.

But it *would* work and is probably the cheapest solution.

There are also some 2.4Ghz. wireless "video extenders". I've never  
seen one that would do HD but there might be some. 5 receivers would  
get expensive though.

Another answer would be a connect a MediaMVP to each TV set and use  
your network to distribute the signals. Unfortunately this would also  
be limited to SD and the MVPs at present can't do liveTV, but they  
can be had for $30US each these days.

The MVP is really just a very limited frontend. You could put  
slightly more capable F/Es on each set, possibly even ones that can  
do HD via XvMC, and use GBE to connect them.

Any solution to distribute HD to that many sets is going to be  
expensive. You could use a component distribution amplifier but you  
would have to EQ long runs, and it might be just about as expensive  
as a small F/E for each set. If you only need SD a composite or S- 
Video DA would be cheaper but still high (maybe $600 for a good one).

Basically you can distribute via RF, baseband or ethernet, as with  
everything else the more you pay the better quality you get.