SMATV & Cable

[d03d03]

Hello,

I have a question I am hoping someone here might be able to answer. I own a small motel and I currently have 21 cable drops for basic cable in the rooms. The basic cable is not bad it is 75 channels for a little over $5 a month per drop. But Time Warner recently bought the cable plant and got rid of all analog premium channels save for 1 lonely HBO. They want $10 a month per drop for one channel of HBO.

Now I was looking at Dish & DirecTV business service and for the same price Time Warner is asking for 1 channel of HBO I could get multi-channel: ShowTime, HBO and STARZ.

I am happy with the basic cable it is a good price and I get Toledo, Detroit, Bowling Green, Cleveland and Windsor locals, two Fox Sport nets and some Spanish stations which the guest like. I do not want to loose all that buy getting my basic service from either of the dishes, but I would like to add some premium channels via one of the dish companies.

So that said here is my question. The basic cable stations occupy channels 1-99; would it be possible to receive premium channels via satellite, modulate and distribute them via a SMATV system so that they occupy channels 100 – 125 AND integrate them with my current cable feed supplied by Time Warner so that all channels are disabled seamlessly together on the TVs?

Any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

 

[wallyhts]

Yes you can however it will cost you about $1,000 bucks a channel.

You will need to build your head end and then use a active Combiner.

You will need a satellite IRD and modulator for each channel.


I would check out Drake and Blonder Tongue.


You could get modulators here and there off eBay and save money.

 

[dishrich]

The basic cable stations occupy channels 1-99; would it be possible to receive premium channels via satellite, modulate and distribute them via a SMATV system so that they occupy channels 100 – 125 AND integrate them with my current cable feed supplied by Time Warner so that all channels are disabled seamlessly together on the TVs.

First of all, you need to call a professional installer that knows how to properly integrate all this for you. You do NOT want to be sending stuff back out to TW's plant & causing interfearance for other TW subs.

But for some basic advice, I HIGHLY doubt the basic service occupies ALL channels from 1-99. More likely, the analog only goes up to ch 78, THEN skips to ch 95-99, which leaves quite a bit of available channels to locally modulate on. BUT, those spaces are most likely occupied by digital carriers for TW's digital services. But that's very easy to fix - a simple low-pass filter put on the main cable feed to filter out those carriers will enable you to cleanly modulate whatever you want in those spaces. This way, you could put YOUR channels in the 2 digit range & not have to deal with customers trying to key in 3-digit numbers, of which some TV remotes will not let you do. (you have to scan up for any channels above 99 )

(BTW, you DO understand that channels 95-99 are actually between channels 6 & 14 frequency-wise, so the filter will leave those intact, assuming you have any)

I do this in my house right now on top of my basic cable service with 8 modulated channels from my DVR & satellite boxes & it works great, since I have a TV in every room.

 

[dishrich]

Also another thought - instead of going the DBS route f/premiums, you could just get a digital box from TW for each HBO plex channel you want on your system. TW probably provides all the screens of a given premium for the same price as the analog, as long as you are getting a digital box from TW. You would then run each box into a modulator on a different channel. Since from your post your really just wanting more HBO feeds for the same $$$ as the one analog from TW, this would get you more for about the same cost as getting it from DBS, but you wouldn't have to deal with 2 different prog entities. While you still would have most of the same upfront equipment expenses wally mentioned, you would NOT have to deal with getting your own satellite receivers & if the digital boxes break, TW takes care of those.

You probably should talk to someone in the commercial TV division of your local TW office about this - they may actually work with you & possibly even provide the equipment at a reduced or no charge, just to keep ALL your TV business.

 

[d03d03]

thanks for the info.

I did not mention but I would defiantly get some kind of contractor/tech to install the system. I just wanted to know first if it was even technically feasible before I subjected myself to talking to sales reps.

And dishrich is right the basic channels are 1-76 and then a public access on 99 for some reason, but as he stated I was assuming TW had other signals on the 80s & 90s and every blue moon they add a channel or two. So just figured I would be safe putting them in the 100s.

But seeing as it is in the realm of possibility I will probably go ahead and get some quotes from the concerned parties.

Thanks for the info, any other suggestions still welcome!