# Cable User Moving and Wanting DTV MRV



## nubfilter (Mar 17, 2011)

Hi All,

I'm currently shopping for a new house and I'm looking to purchase in the next 3-4 months. I'm pretty much decided on DTV as Cox Cable makes me furious.

I've been reading up (albeit for only about an hour) on the 'Whole Home DVR' setups. One thing that confuses me is that I keep seeing these references to DECA and Coax. I understand that there must be at least one Coax cable run from the Dish to a receiver, but I keep seeing things about SWIM and splitters and deca adapters to all of the boxes - which is really confusing because I dont understand why anyone would sprawl coax all over their house.

I plan on doing this once and doing it right.. so here's my thought:

The main run of the coax will go to from one dish to one main 'brain' of the system (HR24? box) in the home theater. Then, the main box is connected via an ethernet cable to my home LAN. Other rooms in the house will also have DTV 'slave' receivers that use the tuners on the main box - these receivers will also be connected to the home LAN via ethernet. I should be able to watch 2 or 3 different LIVE feeds throughout the home on the various TVs.

For the LAN, I will be using CISCO hardware with Cat6 in every room, so bandwidth and latency will not be a problem.

The DTV hardware in 2011 can work the way I expect, right? Or are we still not in 2011 yet?  Just looking for a yes or no from one of the serious experts.. I can look up the details if it sounds promising.


Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any responses.


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

The current receivers don't work like you are thinking, there is no master and slave. Each receiver will need a run of coax. Ethernet will be handled through this coax with DECA adapters that will combine the network traffic and satellite signal into a single coax.

We want "to sprawl coax all over our house" because we have to. "Slave" receivers that just run off ethernet don't exist in the D* system. Everything runs off coax.

Each receiver will have it's own tuner(s), and the only LAN connection will be another DECA that connects the while setup to the internet.

If you choose not to use DECA adapters you can run whole home DVR over your own network but it won't be supported by D* and delectably doesn't work as well as DECA.


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## nubfilter (Mar 17, 2011)

*facepalm*

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated... any news on some ethernet only hardware on the horizon? Hardware betas perhaps? I'm not going to sink thousands to run cables that I have to pull out in 3 years.


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

Running a coax to each room should not cost thousands.


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## nubfilter (Mar 17, 2011)

No.. obviously not..

It's the investment in all the receivers for something that seems like outdated tech to me - e.g. you wouldn't buy an analog cell phone today. Ok maybe a bit too much on the example.. In the end I suppose I wont have a choice but it's just frustrating. The point is, I can run 20 or 30 ethernet ports that never have to move, and Cat6 should be sufficient for years and years. If I drill hoes and run boxes for Coax they're pretty much there.. I have to put another hole in the wall to move it and drywall/paint over the old hole. 

I guess my expectations are just too high ha ha ha.


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

How is coax cable outdated? How many rooms/TVs are you planning?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Spread Spectrum modulation isn't going away anytime "soon".
You/I can pass so much more information over one coax than any ethernet cable today.


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

Let me guess.... you work in the IT or some other computer/technology industry?

Coax isn't going anywhere any time soon. Since you are experienced in cable fishing it should be a pretty cheap install for you. 1000' of cable is what, $100 and change? Add plates and connectors and you're in it maybe $200. Or if you don't mind cables on the outside of your house you can get the free install. You also don't have to dedicate holes in the wall for one cable. Use keystone jacks and you can have all your cat6 and coax nice and neat in one place in the wall.

If you want my own personal opinion on the subject a lot of the "greater" technology that we have now isn't anything great compared to what we had. Since you like phones, take VOIP technology for an example. Most of it sucks. Vonage, magic jack, etc can't touch an old battery ran POTS line. Just because something is newer doesn't mean it's better.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matt said:


> If you want my own personal opinion on the subject a lot of the "greater" technology that we have now isn't anything great compared to what we had. Since you like phones, take VOIP technology for an example. Most of it sucks. Vonage, magic jack, etc can't touch an old battery ran POTS line. Just because something is newer doesn't mean it's better.


Careful, your analog is showing. :lol:


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Heck, doesn't MoCA 2.0 use the same cabling as 1.1?

A few weeks ago, there was an interesting interview with Bob Frankston on TWiT's Triangulation show. I believe he was involved in the creation of NAT, and developed VisiCalc. In the show he discussed that the switch over from phone lines and coax for data was not a technical limitation, but a business one. He actually called the state of bandwidth in this country a "criminal offense of Moore's Law" which I found interesting.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

dpeters11 said:


> Heck, doesn't MoCA 2.0 use the same cabling as 1.1?


 you mean "coax"? :lol:



> A few weeks ago, there was an interesting interview with Bob Frankston on TWiT's Triangulation show. I believe he was involved in the creation of NAT, and developed VisiCalc. In the show he discussed that the switch over from phone lines and coax for data was not a technical limitation, but a business one. He actually called the state of bandwidth in this country a "criminal offense of Moore's Law" which I found interesting.


until there is fiber to the home, copper/coax will still be king.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> you mean "coax"? :lol:
> 
> until there is fiber to the home, copper/coax will still be king.


Well there are different specifications of coax aren't there? RG-59, RG-6 etc. I mean you can't exactly use coax from a 10base2 or 10base5 network.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

dpeters11 said:


> Well there are different specifications of coax aren't there? RG-59, RG-6 etc. I mean you can't exactly use coax from a 10base2 or 10base5 network.


There are several varieties of coax. Impedance is one, 50 ohms or 75 ohms, and then there is loss/100', with RG-59 having the most, RG-6 comes next, and RG-11 having the least.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

"veryoldschool" said:


> There are several varieties of coax. Impedance is one, 50 ohms or 75 ohms, and then there is loss/100', with RG-59 having the most, RG-6 comes next, and RG-11 having the least.


Right, so what I was meaning when I said I thought MoCA 2 used the same cabling was that it used the same spec of coax and existing cable wouldn't need replaced.


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## nubfilter (Mar 17, 2011)

So many responses, this already seems like a wonderfully active forum having only been registered for 5 hours.

Matt,

Yes you nailed it -I do work in IT at a large utility company. Currently I work with Advanced Meter technology as a sysadmin, but I have a fairly strong telecom history as well. I know that Coax does have a large bandwidth capability (such as a DS3 for example) - and it even had the edge over Fiber in the early days... On your VoIP analogy one point I'll make is you are considering 'over the internet' in the equation... in a properly controlled network environment (such as where I work) VoIP quality is amazing, far beyond anything copper can deliver. It's all about QoS, latency, and the proper amount of buffering - similar to how a fairly well connected home (inside the corporation) setup would be. I will grant you the VoIP performance we see at work is on 10s of millions of dollars of equipment and a 'carrier grade' network fabric - not a Linksys WRT54g...

It just seems to me like Ethernet and 802.11 are currently 'winning' (no charlie sheen pun intended) the home connectivity front. Perhaps, as I suspect you were alluding, it's a culture thing on my part and I should just get with the program - after all I'm no digital broadcasting expert. It sounds like you guys are of the opinion this stuff isn't going anywhere soon so I'll accept that and get off my soap box.

On a side note, I saw the iPad app review today for the first time... the coolness level of that alone is probably enough to outweigh my coax-a-phobia.


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

nubfilter said:


> So many responses, this already seems like a wonderfully active forum having only been registered for 5 hours.
> 
> Matt,
> 
> ...


You saw right through my query. 

Everything is considered when they plan out a design, as you know. Using DECA allows them to have everything uniform across the country, instead of all the crazy stuff people would do to cut corners if they supported home brew setups. People would use WRT54g routers, other Cisco, others Belkin... you can image what kind of nightmare that would be on tech support end. I even know an IT guy who boasts he can run a network on cat3 cable.  I think it's by design, not by technology gap.

When you have a million dollar backbone like you are talking about I bet everything works nice. Unfortunately they won't send us all that kind of stuff with the free install. 

EDIT: Sorry if I offend all you linksys guys! :lol:


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## dsw2112 (Jun 13, 2009)

nubfilter said:


> ...Yes you nailed it -I do work in IT...


Given your comments I think most would have bet money that this was the case :lol:

In any case, any home you buy is likely to have coax to a least a few rooms (or at least the main viewing areas.) I work with a few IT guys, and they have similar opinions about ethernet going forward. I always ask them the same question; who cares about the medium if the end result is the same 

Run ethernet to your hearts content, but coax will have its place for a considerable length of time.


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## dsw2112 (Jun 13, 2009)

matt said:


> ...I even know an IT guy who boasts he can run a network on cat3 cable.


I've worked with two different IT guys who could barely run a network on cat6 :lol:


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

If there were a central server(s) where everything was, then IP to clients would make some sense.
This just isn't the case currently, outside of very large MDU systems [large apartment buildings].
In "our case" things are distributed in various places. Some of the tuning is now being done at the dish/LNB, while fine tuning is being done at each receiver. The DECA networking is simply using the existing coax through the new MoCA technology over a part of the spectrum freed up by doing the course tuning at the dish.


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

Oh yes I forgot about the HR20i.  Runs on ethernet but stuck in the 90s. :lol:


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## nubfilter (Mar 17, 2011)

The more I think about it, the more it does make sense for dtv to go that route... being the guy who gets the calls from friends and family regarding all things techie I've seen some disasters. I'm now feeling as though I sound like the guys who whine about Apple's iPhone not having super advanced feature x or y exposed.. 99% of the customers don't care about it, and it would be too much trouble to answer the questions for those that don't understand how to do something properly.

@veryoldschool yes that's basically where I was coming from... the large scale systems (such as casinos, hotels, apartments) seem to have the tech for years that, being a somewhat tech savvy guy, I would appreciate having in my home. I always assumed there was no way they have a 5000 way coax splitter device in the attic, they probably have one big box with 50 tuners that converts the signal to a digital format and any client can tap into any of the active feeds from the tuners.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

nubfilter said:


> @veryoldschool yes that's basically where I was coming from... the large scale systems (such as casinos, hotels, apartments) seem to have the tech for years that, being a somewhat tech savvy guy, I would appreciate having in my home. I always assumed there was no way they have a 5000 way coax splitter device in the attic, they probably have one big box with 50 tuners that converts the signal to a digital format and any client can tap into any of the active feeds from the tuners.


It's a matter of scale.
The very largest MDUs do use 50+ tuners and send everything over IP.
The next step down is to use "basically" what we're using now. There are several [many] "SWiM" units that do the course tuning and send signals to the receivers. This isn't 5000 coax splitters, as they're segmented to eight tuners per leg.
This technology has now moved down to home use, and currently will interconnect up to 16 tuner/receivers and still have them all networked for video streaming between them.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

nubfilter said:


> The more I think about it, the more it does make sense for dtv to go that route... being the guy who gets the calls from friends and family regarding all things techie I've seen some disasters. I'm now feeling as though I sound like the guys who whine about Apple's iPhone not having super advanced feature x or y exposed.. 99% of the customers don't care about it, and it would be too much trouble to answer the questions for those that don't understand how to do something properly.


You hit one of the main reasons right there. Too many possibilities for problems and too many different pieces of hardware.

Of course now they are releasing some boxes that don't even have an ethernet jack.

Matt, as a Linksys user I find no offense. Of course the only thing that says it's a Linksys is the case, running dd-wrt on the inside


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

I'm a linksys user too, even the factory firmware, but I sure wouldn't try to use this thing for anything advanced. :lol:


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## Matman (Mar 24, 2008)

Op. Forgive me on this as I can tell already from your posts that your tech level WELL exceeds mine, so this may be a redundant post. I'm a visual guy as well, so I am going to try to paint a picture of my setup as well in the hopes it may help. 

I'm not sure you would need to run coax to every room. Depending on the age of your house, most of the cable "splitting" to the various rooms is done at a central point, either in the basement or a panel somewhere. For my setup, I have the dish on the side of the house with a single wire run to this panel in the basement. From there I have the 4 way splitter setup with the end from the dish in 1 side. I took the "outs" from the splitter, and ran them to the existing Coax splitters, removing the cable feed to the various rooms I have TV's in and replacing that with the feeds from the Sat dish.

In my living room I have my DVR, my router and my Cable Modem. (VT has a real limited amount of ISP's, so Comcast is about the only game in town. I can honestly say I have had good luck with their internet and VOIP Product). My DVR has 1 coax feed running to it. I have a dedicated COAX line to the actual cable coax that I had to wall fish. I have a 3rd coax line that is also a wall fish that I have plugged into my Satellite spliter and the other end through the Directv Deca box that gives the entire Satellite network internet access. 

I guess in my rambling way is I am saying that with 2 small wall fishes, I was able to setup the whole house with Satellite and DECA. I actually just did the wall fishing and setup this weekend, took a couple hours. Obviously depending on your setup and age of new house this could vary, but I guess the point of my long post is if the cable network is already strung in the house you buy, you don't have to recreate the wheel. 

For what its worth, I upgraded to MRV when we bought our house in Oct. Couldn't be happier, being able to use the DVR in all rooms of the house is great. I honestly got it because I wanted the Dish to only have one cable line coming off of it not 4 and MRV is one way to ensure that, but now that I have the MVR as a side benefit it has rapidly become a MAJOR perk. 

Hope that helps. If not, well, thanks for reading at least! =)


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

Level of tech really isn't the main driver for this anyways. It's going to be business costs. I would see wireless becoming dominant long before ethernet based would be. Companies won't want to expend the costs of installing networks in everyones home. Coax usually exists from the time the house is built in 99% of houses. Etehrnet, installed for networking, however is still rare. Plus the billions of homes already setup. Ethernet isn't cost effective from a business standpoint.


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