Anyone know how to A-B a TV setup with a Digital Cable box, so that I can watch one digital channel while taping another digital channel? ... Mike

I think your going to be out of luck on that one Mike. About the only thing an A-B switch would help you do I is tape an analog channel while watching a digital one. (or vice versa) Not much help considering you could probably do that with picture in picture anyway.Best of Luck--Dave

hoff: You're right. I stood behind my massive wall-unit for 30 minutes last night in a sea of wires trying to figure this one out. Suddenly, all became clear.

In the "old days" (read: when TVs and VCRs had only basic ins and outs), things were quite different. But now I have it wired so that I can change cable-signals from my remote. No, I still can't watch and tape two different digital signals at the same time, but I can watch basic cable and tape digital, or vice versa.

Of course, for another $11 plus tax every month I could get an extra digital box.... ... Mike

That's correct: On any system that requires a tuner, you need a tuner for each destination if you want different stations on each.

Larry

Have you thought about going Sat with a Tivo T-60. There dual tuner support is out and working very well so that you can do what you wish. Also the sat picture should be much better then the cable, that is if you can go sat.

rschaaf: thanks for the info. Would be a good idea except for a couple of things: in Canada, we only just now are getting a disk recorder and it has to be purchased with a Sat system. Without adding an HD receiver, there is just no benefit over digital cable. Not to mention the cost of the equipment and the dish sitting on my fence. Right now the cost of recorder and dish is about $700, and another $600 for an HD box. This doesn't include installation or any subscriptions. ...Mike

Hey Mike,
Cable boxes always present this problem since they only tune one channel only at a time. It also makes Picture in Picture a little more difficult. What I have been doing on my installs with a cable box is to feed the output of the cable box (be it coax or RCA, some boxes only have Coax out and the Digital boxes offer RCA or coax out) to the TV, and then feeding a second coax feed to the TV under the auxillary coax input (assuming the TV has a second coax input). This will be just a regular cable feed that does not have a box. Then take the audio out of the TV to the receiver if you have one.

This does not make it so you can watch and record two digital channels at the same time, but it does allow you to watch and record a digital and a basic cable channel or PIP with a digital and a basic. Also it makes it so that Pip will somewhat function and when you swap the PIP channel the audio will follow whatever you swap to.

It depends on what box you have as to where you put the VCR, if your box only has a coax out then you will have to put it inbetween the box and the TV. If you have digital cable, then they have a dedicated output for VCR's and you can either use the dedicated coax output or Y off the RCA outputs, if you are using the RCA's.

If you are using the RCA's out of the digital box to the TV then the TV must have RCA in and RCA out for audio. (This is for PIP to function when you do a swap, so that the TV either sends the audio out of the basic cable or digital cable box on the same line out of the TV to the receiver.)

Ok I re-read this and it sounds a little confusing and you may not even care about PIP, but the two issues go hand in hand.

I would like to know how others are setting up their systems with cable boxes with PIP and recording one thing while watching another.

Jeff

... only confusing to someone wh's never struggled with the problem before; I appreciate your suggestions.

The Scientific Atlanta 3001 has several outuput options: for sound, there is coax digital out and L&R component out. For video, it has S-out, coax out, and Video component out.

Oddly my TV has only one coax in, but it has lots of other types of connection, such as S-Video and component (and composite) ins.

The S-Video VCR also has a variety of ins and outs. So I have the basic cable split from the wall: one to the Digital Cable box; one to the VCR. I can record digital (but only see digital), or record basic cable (and watch digital), simply by switching Line Inputs on the VCR.

In the long run, it doesn't really matter how many ins an outs you have: once the signal comes out of the Digital cable box, that box is the only one that has power over the channels. ... Mike