distribute video from DVR to 4 TV's

[zacapa07 0]

I have a Samsung SDR-5100N DVR. It has a VGA out and an HDMI port, but no RCA or BNC video out. I have 4 separate RG6 cables from the DVR location to 4 TV locations. What's my best way to connect the DVR to all 4 TV's?

 

Thank you!

[wkearney99 0]

Four cables to EACH location? A total of 16 cables? Or just one to each location?

[ronp 0]

What input types do the TVs have?

[bigglebowski 0]

I assume the cable is already in the wall and not being used for something else already. If you can pull cat5 you will have more options to choose from.

 

HDMI or VGA over cat5 is much more common and probably but I have seen HDMI over coax solutions but they are not cheap. You will also need some kind of 1:4 splitter which will be much more common. I would not do VGA as it seems like they are completely phasing those connections out on newer flat screen consumer based TVs.

[zacapa07 0]

Hi,

 

I have 1 unused RG6 coax from the DVR to each TV location. (4 coax's total) The TV's are different; 2 TV's have HDMI inputs and VGA inputs as well as component video. 2 TV's only have component video and RCA video inputs. They all have a coax input but that is being used for an antenna connection. I'm not determined to have HD picture on the TV's, just whatever I can get over the coax without spending lots of money. Thanks for help.

[bigglebowski 0]

Cheaper route would be to use a VGA to Composite adapter. From there you have 2 options:

 

Get a 1:4 splitter for composite video and send it all out that way.

 

Or you could get an RF modulator which will convert it to a TV channel. From there you can use a 4 way TV splitter to feed all TVs.

 

You could even mix an match with a combination of the last 2 scenarios.

[wkearney99 0]

Yep, that's about the only cheap route, down-convert the VGA output on the DVR to composite video and distribute it that way. Once it's composite you could even take it a step farther and convert that to an NTSC RF channel.

 

Bear in mind that you'll have a significant loss of detail due to the down-conversion. That and some of the adapters are very limited in what input resolutions they'll accept. You'd have to know that your DVR can output a resolution it could use. 1024x768 is about the MAX you can use as a source for VGA-composite down-converting. 800x600 is more typical. This would likely mean your local monitor connected would also be stuck at that resolution.

 

For the HD capable TV's you could convert the VGA signal an HD RF channel, but those boxes can be expensive. Like $1000 and up. This is because they have a fair bit of digitizing circuitry in them (that and licensing costs). It's not just a simple matter of an RF conversion.

 

Pulling new wire and using converters is likely to be a lot less trouble over time for the TVs with HDMI input. Granted, you'd be tying up the input for this.

 

Using a single-channel HD modulator might be your 'least worst' option. You'd have to integrate that with the existing antenna signal, but that's not that difficult or expensive using an RF filter.

[wkearney99 0]

I also ran across these, but I've no idea how well they works:

 

http://www.hdtvsupply.com/hdmi-to-svideo-converter.html

http://www.hdtvsupply.com/hdmi-to-coax.html

[zacapa07 0]

Thanks for all help/suggestions. I am going to try the VGA to component video and then split out to TV's. I will report back with success or failure...

[bigglebowski 0]

VGA to "Composite" (yellow RCA connector on TVs). You will also need a 1x4 splitter to distribute for 4 TVs, this will have a bit of an amp in it to keep the signal strong enough to be split. This should be $100-150 total including some RCA to F adapters if needed.