Cross post from IP.

Quoting a new construction low budget job. Total of 10 TVs in the home. 6 of those TVs are in a basement game room. Each mounted TV in basement will have it's on box behind the TV. Need to be able to individually control the channel on each TV in basement. Is there a limitation of how many RF remotes you can uniquely assign with Directv / Dish. Another question, limitation of number of satellite boxes on at the same time with this many TVs?

Customer currently has Charter cable in existing house with the same setup and has issues controlling the channel. I don't believe Charter remotes can be uniquely assigned to each box. Any other suggestions? Control system is out due to budget limitations.

These problems are a bit easier to think through if you're careful to name them in terms of what you've got, not old-fashioned terms you're used to using.

You're not trying to individually control the channel on each TV in the basement. You're trying to individually control the channel on each DirecTV receiver in the basement. In the first case you'd be looking at TV remotes; you want to look at DirecTV remotes.

The RF mode of DirecTV remotes couples ONE remote with only ONE DirecTV receiver using part of the receiver number in the setup procedure. This should mean you can control a hundred different DirecTV receivers, each with its own RF remote, right next to one another. (You also can set up a total of 8 different IR codes on DirecTV receivers, even setting as many as three per remote, using the slide switch to choose.)(You can also set up more than one remote to control one receiver via RF, but not the other way around.)

A DirecTV receiver set to RF will not respond to IR. I believe this might not be true for the Genie and its little Geniettes, but I'm not sure.

I don't know for sure about Charter cable boxes, but I have yet to see a cable box that could use a codeset different from another box of the same company. I also don't know about Dish network product. The client is asking there for something outside his budget.

I believe the RF remotes will be fine controlling the dish joey boxes or directv genie clients. The problem you will run into is that (i am assuming the basement TVs are same brand and model) the TV remote will be controlling all the TVs at the same time due to IR.

The other areas besides the basement setup should work fine with the supplied satellite remote using IR and RF (i'm assuming these are just simple TV and Sat box setups with no AVR located locally in the room).

For the 6 TV basement setup. I would get 2 Global Cache IR boxes (~$90 each) and run IR to each TV (each GC iTach and do 3 IR connections). Then use an iPad and app like Roomie to control the TVs and the satellite boxes (Roomie can control both Direct and Dish with IP so no extra hardware needed).

Thanks- I don't have details yet on customer supplied hardware. I had thought about going with On Controls- but even that is a little out of budget.

Also, if you use Dish (can't speak on Direct because I dont have knowledge of that system) you are going to have 2 separate setups; a 2 Hopper 4 Joey setup for the basement and a 1 Hopper 3 Joey setup for the rest of the home. These will be 2 different systems that will not talk to each other or share recordings, which would probably be ok in your setup.

And just to be clear there is not a RF remote out there (that I know of) that can control Dish or Direct besides their supplied remotes.

On Controls/iRule is out of their budget but they are fine with having a ~$250 a month satellite TV bill?

People are odd creatures, right?

With 10 TVs, too. Must be from a rummage sale or Goodwill.

Really?

What a nightmare..he wants that many remotes? Sounds like a DIYer solution.

it is ridiculous, sometimes people should be told they just cant afford things!!!

Sounds like the kinda of customer you gladly hand them your competitors biz card lol.

Prepare for this to be a service call nightmare. Why are you taking this job?

It's why car dealers now will finance a car for 10 years instead of talking about the actual price

I'm taking this job because I will make money. He already has this same setup at his house and has issues, so he knows what to expect so there will be no service calls and if there are, he will be charged accordingly. I proposed the right way of doing this for him, and he just can't spend the money right now due to finding about an illness after the start of construction. It's a bar area in his basement- hence all the TVs. He has agreed to the proper pre-wiring for a future upgrade to the proper equipment. Most customers have zero idea of how much things cost unless they have a friend that has custom a/v work in his home.