TV/cable question

[ill-advised strategy]

Yeah rshea, that’s all well and good, but what about the pressing socio-political implications?

[riser4]

Go to the maul.

[Iowagriz]

We have two cable boxes in the house to the main TVs, the bedrooms have Smart TV same are just connected to the cable wall outlet. They pick up all channels without the box. Oddly numbered and that makes it a pain to find. But they all exist (minus music and HBO type movie channels).

Try the direct connection, run the TV thru the reprogram/setup and see what happens. Good enough for the bedroom is my guess.

Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk

[Garth Bimble]

Circling back to the original Charter problem...what exactly is happening? It's possible, as others have said that it's a wiring issue. Some cable wiring is getting old and if it's outside there's no telling what kind of condition it may be in at this point. If the outage is impacting all TV's I'd start there but even if it's just 1 or 2 TV's it could still be the main line not providing a clean signal that's strong enough to service all 5. There's really no reason why, if the wiring's good and the connections have been done correctly why you should be having a problem with the cable. I'd get Charter involved and see what they come up with before jumping into the streaming set up. That's going to present a different set of issues you may not want to deal with.

[ill-advised strategy]

With 5 TVs you have a ripe opportunity for science(!)...

One gets Charter. One gets Roku. Another gets Directv....etc.
After 20 or 30 years you'll have enough data to conclusively decide which one is best and you can publish your results in TV Guide and die in peace knowing you contributed something meaningful to the body of human achievement.

[ill-advised strategy]

imagine:

Q: What are you up to this week?

A: It's the playoffs, so we're heading to the condo....for Science!

You could wear a lab coat unironically. A lab coat dude.

you may have to have monkeys living in those rooms watching tv....just a few monkeys...it's not real science unless you're fucking with monkeys.

[RShea]

We have two cable boxes in the house to the main TVs, the bedrooms have Smart TV same are just connected to the cable wall outlet. They pick up all channels without the box. Oddly numbered and that makes it a pain to find. But they all exist (minus music and HBO type movie channels).

Try the direct connection, run the TV thru the reprogram/setup and see what happens. Good enough for the bedroom is my guess.

Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk

Many of the companies are going to digital TV and scrambling the signal so it can only be picked up with a set top box that they provide (and usually charge for it with a monthly rental) The reasons are people are more and more just doing internet and back in the analog signal days, the cable modem needed basic TV so you had to get both. Now they separate the services out and do the bundles and it usually required their activated equipment.

[RShea]

Yeah rshea, that’s all well and good, but what about the pressing socio-political implications?

That is over on the Political Forum now where everyone is discussing that. Things on TGR are such that all but the new Jongs should know that by now.

[iceman]

hm, lab coats.

[Meadow Skipper]

IAS is on fire...the only reason I’m reading this thread.

I’m using my snark credit before I’ve earned it, I owe one useful answer but probably won’t be on this topic.

[::: :::]

hm, lab coats.

Maybe check out Goop and see if Gwyneth has curated some bourgeois lab coats and Japanese spa slippers for all the short term rental guests?

[riser4]

IAS is on fire!

[teledad]

Is your splitter powered? If you just have 5 TVs attached to a passive 8-way splitter each cable box is getting 1/8 of the signal. Get one of these instead.

[The Tortoise]

[bagtagley]

[Supermoon]

Ice,

is your place wired for ethernet? You could run your Roku/et al hard wired possibly and not have to worry about your wifi bandwith and signal strength as much. Even if you get one or two TVs off the wifi it could help significantly.

Otherwise, x2 on calling Charter and telling them to fix it.

[iceman]

Ice,
Otherwise, x2 on calling Charter and telling them to shove it.

Got it.

[Hott Butt Mud]

I'M CALLING IT RIGHT HERE.

If all you fuckers have rental properties now, then the bubble is about to burst. Thanks.

[cmcrawfo]

@cmcrawford: If you want snarky I can go that way. Ready?

Bottom line is we have this place and people come visit and I want to make it easy for them, which makes it easy for me. Lots of people watch TV before bed, so we set it up so they could, except the way it is now, sometimes they can't, and they don't bitch, but they ask, and then I'm in it. Which I'd prefer not to be.

Maybe just offer them a selection of books on tape?

[crackboy]

What I would do which has sort of been said

If the TVs are any sort of old

Replace them with a Roku TV from TCL
You can run ethernet to them to avoid wireless network issues
Put together a media PC server with Plex pass and stick video files (movies etc) that I am sure you have paid fair money four
install Plex app on the rokus so they can just watch stuff there.

You don't technically need a plex pass to watch on the same network but with it you could in theory keep the stuff on your own computer and watch it other places/phones etc

Alternatively or in conjunction, just get a bunch of chromecasts for the tvs. That way people can just use their own logins for streaming apps on the TVs. If this is a vacation place, more than likely they have their own subscriptions

If you don't have easy ethernet access you can always replace your router with something like what google offers which would give you bridge access to various accesspoints.

alternatively get a roku stick or box. I believe the boxes have ethernet connections