HDMI cables and splitters

[Tony F]

Hello, I was talking to a friend of my fathers and he asked me how to get a signal from his cable box via HDMI to 2 other tv's in the house. His main tv is in the den with his cable box. The only output on it is via HDMI. He doesn't want to rent more "boxes" and figures the best way to get video to the other 2 tv's in the house would be to run a 50' HDMI cable to a HDMI splitter that would have 2 more 12' cables to the other sets. He knows that the same source would be on all 3 tv's and that is ok with him. Is this the best way to go about this ? I told him to look on ebay for a 50' and 2 12' cables and a splitter but he got confused when some of the splitters are powered and some are not. I don't have this problem as I have a satellite dish and he has to have cable because there are too many trees on his property for a satellite dish. Does he need a powered HDMI splitter for a 50" cable run ? He also got confused with all the different Chinese suppliers of HDMI cables and splitters on Ebay and kind of gave up and asked me. I thought I'd refer it to the pro's here.
Thanks!
Tony