2012-04-17, 22:11
Due to some changes in my home, I will be moving my bedroom from upstairs to the ground floor. Because of this, I will have 2 televisions mounted on the same wall, just one on each side of the wall. My living room and main HTPC is located on the wall currently with the wiring inside the wall. I would love to be able to connect a 2nd television in the bedroom to the same HTPC and Cable box. Since the TV's will be back to back so to speak, the wiring is all in the same location. The remote situation is not a problem, I will use a tablet in the bedroom to control both the HTPC and the Cable box, but the signal to each tv is where I would like some advice.
This HTPC is running with an AMD A8-3850 APU. I have a PCI Express slot that is free and open for a second video card with HDMI out. I can just plug the second TV into this video cards HDMI output, set Windows / Catalyst drivers to mirror so each Monitor/TV displays the same thing. I have done this on standard monitors but not televisions. Should I be wary of anything trying this setup in Windows? I have no intent to use crossfire on this since I am not a gamer, but just want to confirm XBMC will not have any issues.
Now comes the cable box. While not that critical, it would be nice to have it also plugged into both TVs, and again the tablet can control the cable tuner without an issue via WIFI. However, I don't have the option of adding a second video card and I don't really want to use a splitter if that is even an option for HDMI. I am curious if I can install a basic TV tuner card into the available PCI slot of the HTPC and connect the cable box to the HTPC which would simply work as a pass through (set on channel 3 at all times while using the cable box for the actual tuning like back in the VCR days).
I assume doing this will be fine, but would love some input before I go and purchase a video card and a TV tuner. I would also like some input on which Tuners I should consider. I have thought about getting this also, but since I don't DVR at all, and don't really need 4 tuners, it seems to a very expensive item and overkill, but very cool all the same.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6815706001
Would love a better method to do all of this if anyone has one. I have an HTPC in my current bedroom now, but I would like to use it elsewhere in the house if I can use the main HTPC for both rooms.
Thanks in advance,
Diggs
This HTPC is running with an AMD A8-3850 APU. I have a PCI Express slot that is free and open for a second video card with HDMI out. I can just plug the second TV into this video cards HDMI output, set Windows / Catalyst drivers to mirror so each Monitor/TV displays the same thing. I have done this on standard monitors but not televisions. Should I be wary of anything trying this setup in Windows? I have no intent to use crossfire on this since I am not a gamer, but just want to confirm XBMC will not have any issues.
Now comes the cable box. While not that critical, it would be nice to have it also plugged into both TVs, and again the tablet can control the cable tuner without an issue via WIFI. However, I don't have the option of adding a second video card and I don't really want to use a splitter if that is even an option for HDMI. I am curious if I can install a basic TV tuner card into the available PCI slot of the HTPC and connect the cable box to the HTPC which would simply work as a pass through (set on channel 3 at all times while using the cable box for the actual tuning like back in the VCR days).
I assume doing this will be fine, but would love some input before I go and purchase a video card and a TV tuner. I would also like some input on which Tuners I should consider. I have thought about getting this also, but since I don't DVR at all, and don't really need 4 tuners, it seems to a very expensive item and overkill, but very cool all the same.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6815706001
Would love a better method to do all of this if anyone has one. I have an HTPC in my current bedroom now, but I would like to use it elsewhere in the house if I can use the main HTPC for both rooms.
Thanks in advance,
Diggs