Does anyone have any experience with using RF amplifiers to improve CATV signal quality? I've seen some cheap ones for around $10 from Philips (e.g. this), but I'm skeptical as to how effective it would be.
I know the "passive" style splitting amplifiers work well to give a better signal strength to one output vs. another, but these 1-to-1 kind that you plug into a power source are less familiar.
I'm considering using something like this to improve the video quality seen with my Hauppauge PVR-500 tuner. In my case, I have a splitter feeding one output to the TV directly, and the other to the tuner card -- but the tuner card produces much worse quality than my TV. Plugging into the wall directly doesn't seem to noticeable improve things.
I got the idea to use an amplifier when someone mentioned the tuner chip on the PVR-500 is unusually sensitive to noise. Would you expect an RF amplifier to improve things at all? Even though these devices claim to boost signal quality, I don't see why they wouldn't just amplify the noise already on the line since it's just an amplifier.
I know the "passive" style splitting amplifiers work well to give a better signal strength to one output vs. another, but these 1-to-1 kind that you plug into a power source are less familiar.
I'm considering using something like this to improve the video quality seen with my Hauppauge PVR-500 tuner. In my case, I have a splitter feeding one output to the TV directly, and the other to the tuner card -- but the tuner card produces much worse quality than my TV. Plugging into the wall directly doesn't seem to noticeable improve things.
I got the idea to use an amplifier when someone mentioned the tuner chip on the PVR-500 is unusually sensitive to noise. Would you expect an RF amplifier to improve things at all? Even though these devices claim to boost signal quality, I don't see why they wouldn't just amplify the noise already on the line since it's just an amplifier.