First post! Glad I found this site, looks like a wealth of knowledge (and knowledgable people) here...

I have just recently purchase a LCD (42LG50) and just received my HD box (Motorola DCT6416III). I have the box hooked to the tv via a HDMI connector (Belkin 3 foot). Cable provider is Cogeco.

Before I received the HD box I had the coax hooked directly into the back of the TV and the analog channels had no interference etc.

Going through the HD box gave me a lot of channels "will be ready shortly" and most with major artifacts and messed up sound. Call to Cogeco resulted in them scheduling a technician to come out next week.

I did some messing around myself and found a problem.
My cable comes into the basement and I had that split to my 27" basement tv and then a 50 foot RG59 cable coming into the DCT6416III.
When I hooked the 50 foot RG59 directly into the outlet I have good quality on the LCD.
I tried replacing my splitter with the splitter that came from Cogeco and the same artifacts etc.

Question, is it worth replacing the RG59 with RG6 cable to the HD box? Would this let me run the splitter (and my basement TV) without as much signal degradation?
Anything else I can try?

Thanks,
Burt :)
(sorry for the long post)

Yes, and that is probably the first thing the technician will do or recommend.

I just replace the 100 foot (thought it was 50ft in original post) RG59 with 50 foot RG6. Now I have to test the splitter again...

Burt :)

I had similar problem at my old house...the splitter that Rogers installed was ok...anyway my problem was solved after installing one of those signal booster as per the Rogers techician suggested.

Splitter needs to be rated 5-1000 MHz minimum and bidirectional. Just call Cogeco and they should install appropriate cables, splitters, amp if necessary, etc.

Please read the following post and the appropriate links, useful for those new to the forum:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741 (Motorola optimization, TV optimization, etc)