My sister is opening a gourmet deli/wine bar place and they got two 42" plasmas for the bar area. Both will be ceiling mounted. Anyway, how would the cable work? Could we just use the ota tuner in each or would it be best to get an hd cable box and split the signal to the two tvs? What are the options? The cheapest solution would be best. Perhaps a dvd player would be hooked up in the future.

Not exactly sure what your requirements are. The cheapest solution is to just hook up an OTA antenna to both and get local stations. What exactly will be displayed?

HD football, basketball games. I suppose a cable box would be best considering there'll be lots of big games on cable. Is there a way to split the one image to two displays from one source? What do most sports bars do regarding their displays?

Most sports bars have direct tv because of the nfl package. no good sports bar has cable for that reason alone.

2 game on sunday v. every game on sunday...

for a gourmet deli/wine bar i dont think it is necessary.

what TVs does she have? she may be able to just get a cable card for each tv and be done with it.

this is the model. looks like there's no cable card slot

TH-42PX60U

It would be easy enough to split the signal coming from the cable box to run to both displays. If there is a concern about the signal degrading after it is split, you could always get a distribution amplifier. But I'm thinking that's probably not needed in your case.

If she doesn't mind limited channel selection go with OTA. It is free TV

If she needs selection go with satellite (1 dish with dual LNB and two receiver boxes)

Video (other than RF and HD is not RF) always needs a distribution amp if you use more than one display, splitting is not a good option. But it doesn't have to be a giant one for only 2 displays.

Cable, sat, antenna....that's something she has to decide. That's a content choice.

Do people in gourmet wine bars really watch football?

My cable box has an coax output that allows it to send the same display that the primary set is getting to a secondary. I assume the second image isn't in HD though.

Cheap way a component video switcher from a cable box- should work fine for what shes looking for

thanks all. I need to talk to her and my brother in law (the other chef) about what they will be viewing.

You can't split the signal coming out of a cable box. If you wanted to air 2 different cable stations on the TVs, you'd need 2 boxes.

OTA is obviously cheapest with a built-in tuner, but if you want to air sports on them, you're pretty much limited to Saturday/Sunday (for example, no MNF).

I think you mean distribution amp. This is a store, they want both TVs operating at the same time.

You can if you don't mind the same show on both TVs. Which is the big question the people have to answer. That might be completely acceptable in a bar.