I can see the value of that with big existing installations such as block of flats. The £100-ish for the TMDS 42 C as a quick and relatively cheap bolt-on to a system has got to be appealing to landlords. The alternative is to rip out perfectly functional distribution and then spend several thousands of Pounds installing Q-compatible gear, not to mention the significant disruption for a day or more to people's Sat' reception. I know which I'd choose
What I'm not so clear on is the value to someone starting pretty-much from scratch without any headend gear.
Apart from say owning the hybrid LNB that might have come as part of a Sky Q install, someone in @*Dan*'s position isn't really invested in any hardware already. I'm struggling a bit here to see the benefit of spending £100 or so on some extra bit of hardware to make a Hybrid LNB compatible, all to avoid spending £30 on a proper Quattro LNB. Maybe I'm missing something, but the sums don't seem to add up.
Is it not cheaper and less complicated just to do this correctly from the word Go?
@*Dan*'s goal here (unless it has changed) is to have something that serves his immediate needs but that is also future-proofed as far as a possible return to Sky Q. He hasn't said as much, but it's sensible too to look at where satellite receivers/recorders are going. The next generation gear (*Gen 3) is already here. These Freesat receivers/recorders break the link between 1-cable = 1-tuner.
He needs to serve signals to four rooms; two cables per room. This means he'll need eight connections at the headend. Obviously an Octo LNB is the simple and cheap solution, but it means having eight cables coming from the dish to the distribution point. It's cheap but ugly and not future-proofed.
One alternative is to keep the existing hybrid LNB (new value £25-ish?), and then buy a Quad-compatible multiswitch. Yes, they exist. But I can't find anything from Triax, Televes, Fracarro, Whyte or Iverto that offers both Quad compatibility and the skill of providing both wideband and legacy support on its outputs. AFAICT, there's no overlap with those two functions in a single product. You can have Quad compatibility but no wideband output, or you can have legacy+wideband output future-proofing so long as you buy a £30 Quattro LNB.
This brings us to the TMDS 42 C. TTBOMK this type of product is the only way to add wideband compatibility to a multiswitch that supports a standard Quad LNB. The catch is the cost (TMDS 42 C + an 8-output multiswitch + power supplies) and additional complexity all to save £30 on a Quattro LNB.
Is that really a sensible solution?
*The Arris boxes marketed under the Freesat brand support multiple tuners, similar to the Sky Q recorder. In the case of the Arris, it's possible to record up to four channels simultaneously when the box is getting two wideband feeds. In legacy mode, the standard 1-cable = 1-tuner rule applies. The box adjusts accordingly.
Interesting to know that the switch option could be used with my current hybrid LNB and commit to one of the rooms being fed from the two sky q outputs on the LNB itself and the other four into a switch. That is the cheaper way of doing it as I guess the multi switch I need for that is cheaper than the triax 508 that lucid suggested earlier in the post. The other benefit with this is that I already have the feeds coming into my loft from the dish so would just be a case of getting a switch and then plugging in my room feeds into the switch. BUT as lucid alluded to, I don't think it is worth the outlay considering the hassle I have gone through to fish all 4 twin cables up into the loft from around the house - the things I do not to have cables on the outside wall! I currently have all rooms fed with terrestrial TV at the moment anyway so there is no rush (or nagging!) to get the signal up and running and I am trying to really future proof the setup more than anything.
I am currently building a internet network so I could actually mount the multiswitch in the same cabinet and have everything run from there. Going forward, any new boxes we get will at least work and wont be stuck with old technology given that most of the hard work (fishing cables) is done. The biggest issue really is getting a quattro LNB fitted onto my dish as its 3-4m up on the wall. Once the feeds for the quattro are installed would this just be a case of plugging in all four into the switch and it will work or is there configuration required?
On the TDSR 508 i noticed there are two lots of LNB inputs on each side and also there is an extra connection next to these 4 LNB inputs labelled T?