How to split your cable for all of those tuners

So your are building a monster media center with 4 tuners at least (thats 2 analog and 2 digital). You start splitting the cable with cheap splitters and wonder why your picture is horrible. In the case of tuning high definition over cable (Clear QAM), the picture stutters and breaks up and analog tv starts to look like you are using an antenna again. You need a distribution amplifier. This is basically a powered splitter that adds back some of the amplitude to the signal that you lost by splitting.

The catch comes if you want to put your cable modem behind this distribution amplifier or a digital cable box that does pay-per-view etc. Basically anything that needs communication back through the distribution amplifier needs a special type. This is called a bi-directional distribution amplifier. This allows that communication backwards through or more likely around that signal amplifier. I needed a 1 to 4 port to allow the HDhomerun (2 ports), my cable modem, and one analog tuner to all be plugged in at the same time. This worked well for my and my signal strength went back to a level that was good for all of the devices. I used an distribution amplifier that amplified the outgoing signal 8dB. Now I really need one in the box outside my house to split all of the inputs initially. I have seen some that do a version of power over ethernet with normal coax so I will look for one of these