Do different cable boxes prevent people from splitting cable to other TV's in the house?

Question

Using a cable splitter, I used to split my cable from the main cable box to 3 TV's in my apartment. Each TV would have cable (independently) without a cable box (you could watch any channel regardless of what was playing on the cable box).

Now I've moved to another apt. and split up the cable but all you can see on the other TV's is what's playing on the cable box. So if I want to see something in my bedroom I'd have to watch what's playing on the main TV in the living room (the one with the cable box).

I even put on a VHS video on the main TV and it shows up on the TV in the bedroom (as well as on the main TV). This never happened before. Am I forgetting to do something?

Answer 1

Your splitter is in the wrong spot. You need to split the cable right as it comes out of the wall, before any devices are connected.

Answer 2

Sounds like when you moved you switched to digital cable. This will no longer work. You can try splitting it right from the wall but you will not got most of your channels that way. (probably only basic cable)

*** EDIT ***

The VCR thing will always be the case.

This is how it should be done.

Normal Cable: Line from wall to cable box. Line out of cable box into splitter. Split as needed out to TVs.

Digital Cable: Line out of wall to splitter.  One line goes to cable box then to main TV. Rest split as needed to extra TVs.

Remember the more you split the line the worse your picture quality is going to be.