Help me get wireless TV, or at least not have guests break their legs?
September 5, 2014 12:39 PM Subscribe
Please help me understand my options for a wireless TV setup so I'm not sued by people tripping over the cable strung across the room and breaking their legs. I have DISH but they've been no help when I try to talk to them and paying $150 for a technician to come out and answer the question is absurd.
The location where we have our TV positioned is a generally freestanding sort of wall on our semi-open concept living/family/dining room. After trying out a bunch of furniture positioning this works best in terms of comfort and view ability and our general lifestyle. The problem is that there's no cable outlet on the wall and no easy way to get one there that doesn't require either stringing one across the ceiling, putting it through some adjacent rooms or ... what we have now: just leaving it strung across the floor as a massive hazard.
A not-to-scale amateur drawing of our current setup behind the link. The yellow highlight is the current cable positioning and the red is what I'd like to have happen. The wall where we have the TV is between two open hallways.
What I can't sort out is what equipment we need to make this happen. That TV is currently connected to a DISH Hopper. It's a smart TV and can also access wireless. We also have two other TVs upstairs who are each connected to Joeys (and I believe each are also connected to cable outlets).
Does anyone know if:
1. There's a way to connect, say, another Joey to the TV in question and NOT to an outlet (because there isn't one!) and then position the Hopper in the other room where the outlet is and have those two work together? The Hopper could be as close as 10 feet or as far as 30 feet away, by estimate.
2. If #1 isn't possible, is there some other technology that exists that will work with the Hopper/DISH to get this done?
The location where we have our TV positioned is a generally freestanding sort of wall on our semi-open concept living/family/dining room. After trying out a bunch of furniture positioning this works best in terms of comfort and view ability and our general lifestyle. The problem is that there's no cable outlet on the wall and no easy way to get one there that doesn't require either stringing one across the ceiling, putting it through some adjacent rooms or ... what we have now: just leaving it strung across the floor as a massive hazard.
A not-to-scale amateur drawing of our current setup behind the link. The yellow highlight is the current cable positioning and the red is what I'd like to have happen. The wall where we have the TV is between two open hallways.
What I can't sort out is what equipment we need to make this happen. That TV is currently connected to a DISH Hopper. It's a smart TV and can also access wireless. We also have two other TVs upstairs who are each connected to Joeys (and I believe each are also connected to cable outlets).
Does anyone know if:
1. There's a way to connect, say, another Joey to the TV in question and NOT to an outlet (because there isn't one!) and then position the Hopper in the other room where the outlet is and have those two work together? The Hopper could be as close as 10 feet or as far as 30 feet away, by estimate.
2. If #1 isn't possible, is there some other technology that exists that will work with the Hopper/DISH to get this done?
Response by poster: No basement, no crawlspace, we're on a concrete slab foundation. It would have to go through a few walls to get there. I'm okay with spending a little money on the solution, just not spending it on having someone tell me their particular company can't do it. We may at some point get rid of the inconveniently located fireplace which could mean a very open space and I'd like some options of being able to move the TV around without regard for cable outlet location.
posted by marylynn at 1:00 PM on September 5, 2014
posted by marylynn at 1:00 PM on September 5, 2014
So what's the problem with stringing it across the ceiling?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:01 PM on September 5, 2014
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:01 PM on September 5, 2014
There are wireless HDMI transmitter/receiver units you can buy. They'll cost $150 and up. They work, but leave some artifacts in your image. Here's one being tried out.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:11 PM on September 5, 2014
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:11 PM on September 5, 2014
If I was your neighbor and you lived in a free standing house, I would come over and crawl up in the attic to drop cable. I have done this several times. Do you know anyone like me?
posted by Lesser Shrew at 1:11 PM on September 5, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Lesser Shrew at 1:11 PM on September 5, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'd like some options of being able to move the TV around without regard for cable outlet location.
Sadly, the way this is done is to put multiple cable outlets in the living room so that there is one on every wall that your TV could conceivably live on.
Wireless solutions work great for internet because a minor hiccup or slowdown due to interference doesn't have a great impact on usability. Even when streaming (Hulu, Netflix), a bandwidth problem results in buffering which is a minor inconvenience at most. Real-time transmission of an HDTV signal, without artifacts, severe compression, or frame drops takes significantly more bandwidth to be sufficiently reliable, especially considering that the bandwidth must ALWAYS be available - intermittent interference ruins the experience too. Consumer-grade technology just isn't there yet.
As Lesser Shrew suggests, have someone drop cable from the attic and/or fish the coax through the walls to the location(s) where you want an outlet. Dish techs probably won't do it - cable and satellite techs have largely stopped doing this for customers because of the added time, expense, and amount of complaints when the finished product doesn't look great. Find a local handyman who knows how to do this and who can properly repair/repaint your walls when it's all finished.
posted by trivia genius at 1:43 PM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
Sadly, the way this is done is to put multiple cable outlets in the living room so that there is one on every wall that your TV could conceivably live on.
Wireless solutions work great for internet because a minor hiccup or slowdown due to interference doesn't have a great impact on usability. Even when streaming (Hulu, Netflix), a bandwidth problem results in buffering which is a minor inconvenience at most. Real-time transmission of an HDTV signal, without artifacts, severe compression, or frame drops takes significantly more bandwidth to be sufficiently reliable, especially considering that the bandwidth must ALWAYS be available - intermittent interference ruins the experience too. Consumer-grade technology just isn't there yet.
As Lesser Shrew suggests, have someone drop cable from the attic and/or fish the coax through the walls to the location(s) where you want an outlet. Dish techs probably won't do it - cable and satellite techs have largely stopped doing this for customers because of the added time, expense, and amount of complaints when the finished product doesn't look great. Find a local handyman who knows how to do this and who can properly repair/repaint your walls when it's all finished.
posted by trivia genius at 1:43 PM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
You mentioned an upstairs. What's directly above the wall the TV is on? Is is one of those rooms with a cable outlet? If that's the case, you could have someone drop a cable line down from there to the TV location.
posted by advicepig at 2:08 PM on September 5, 2014
posted by advicepig at 2:08 PM on September 5, 2014
I'd personally investigate running a cable through the attic or upstairs, but one other possibility you could consider would be to use a Joey for the awkwardly positioned TV, and then get a really cheap, small TV to hook up to the Hopper if you need to use it to program something. (Note: not a Dish subscriber, so this is just something that looks plausible based on their ad copy.)
Another (probably undesirable, but undeniably cheap) option would be to buy a cord cover and continue to run the cable along the floor, or buy some wall-mounted conduit to run the cord over the ceiling. Neither option is going to be terribly aesthetically pleasing, but they will be cheap.
posted by Aleyn at 2:23 PM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
Another (probably undesirable, but undeniably cheap) option would be to buy a cord cover and continue to run the cable along the floor, or buy some wall-mounted conduit to run the cord over the ceiling. Neither option is going to be terribly aesthetically pleasing, but they will be cheap.
posted by Aleyn at 2:23 PM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
Why not get a wireless Joey? What you can do is either connect the Hopper to an upstairs TV or leave it unconnected to a TV in the corner (assuming you can use a Joey to access all the functionality) and then use the wireless Joey to connect to the living room TV without wires. According to the review I linked to, the wireless Joey is only $50, so cheaper than wireless HDMI.
posted by EatenByAGrue at 5:04 PM on September 5, 2014
posted by EatenByAGrue at 5:04 PM on September 5, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
If you have an unfinished basement or a crawlspace, you can probably run the existing cable from its current inconvenient outlet down to the basement, across the floor joists, and back up into the wall or through the floor adjacent to the wall. No ugly strung cable across the floor or ceiling in the living room anymore.
posted by trivia genius at 12:50 PM on September 5, 2014 [2 favorites]