What's attached to your TV?

[atgcpaul]

The wife is nesting again. We have another baby on the way and the
downstairs has done a flip-flop. The family room off the kitchen where the
TV and couches are has become the dining room. The dining room/formal
living room is now the family room. Good for the baby and baby to come, but
now I have to wire the new family room.

We are going to wall mount the plasma instead of having it on a console. I
want a clean install so the cabling will run down the wall. I plan on getting
keystone jacks at monoprice.com for flexibiilty. What do you have connected
to your TV? I've got a BluRay player (HDMI), DVR (component), Roku (HDMI),
coax, SPDIF to stereo, RCA to DVR, and VGA to laptop. There are still more
connections that could be made.

That got me thinking. I'll need 2 wall plates--one behind the TV and one at
the console--and for every connection, instead of one cables, I'll need 3 cables.
Is that right? One cable from the TV to the plate. One cable from plate to
plate. One cable from plate to component. This is getting expensive!

Should I plan for any other connections from the TV to the wall? I also see
USB and CAT5. My Bluray has BD-live which I don't use right now but I could
run CAT5 from the console plate over to the router in the office. I don't
know what purpose USB would serve.

Thanks,
Paul

[dbhost]

My TV setup is pretty old school.

VHS-VCR / DVD combo unit.
Comcast DVR
Wii console
Playstation 3

That's about it. I have inputs for PC DVI, just haven't put them to use yet...I am toying with a WinTV PVR but am having driver troubles with it... My model isn't supported under Linux...

[radhak]

Sorry to say Paul, you have given me more information than I could give you!

My devices are directly connected to the TV, and but for your post I'd have not thought of moving the TV away : I'd have worried about miles long cables ! But now you got me thinking.

We have two young kids in school, so we are trying to keep our electronics down. My connections are -

permanently on -
- Dish network's box (which has inbuilt DVR) : HDMI
- DVD player : Component
- Wii : RCA

as needed
- An HDMI cable connected for viewing any of our HD camcorder recordings
- VGA to laptop/desktop (yeah, we have a desktop close by)

[atgcpaul]

I'm still reeling from sticker shock. I'm going to convince LOML that the best
solution is going to be:

1) have the TV sit on the yet-to-be-built/bought console (oh yeah, I need to
build another crib/changing table, too)

2) wall mount the TV but just run the cables through the wall coming through
a low-voltage wall plate. You won't see the holes if I don't buy a swing-arm
mount.

3) hide the cables behind a surface mount cover. The only problem here is that
this new room has a chair rail and pseudo wainscot.

4) move everything back to where it was!


Edit:

Found the solution. It's still a hole in the wall, but looks nicer

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

[radhak]

I am curious - what's the layout of your house? How are you planning to cable from one plate to the other? I am guessing up to the ceiling, across, then down? Is that a somewhat-straight-line?

[atgcpaul]

I am curious - what's the layout of your house? How are you planning to cable from one plate to the other? I am guessing up to the ceiling, across, then down? Is that a somewhat-straight-line?

The TV will be mounted on the wall and the components will sit on a console below it. There will be a remodel box behind the TV and I'll drop the cables down the hole to a box down by the console. I have full access from the basement below so I'll drill through the bottom plate and fish up the coax and wires to the outdoor speakers which will connect to the stereo. I may fish up Cat5, too, and run it over to the office where the router is. I'll also fish up a dedicated 110 line to the TV and the console. There's a subpanel in the basement that is almost directly underneath this space. Surround sound wires will be tucked along the carpet to the 2 rear speakers.

[vaking]

Why would you want CAT5? CAT5 gives you only 100 Mbit/s network, wireless N is already faster. I find wireless perfectly adequate but if you insist on wires - at least use CAT6.
I am having similar questions except I want to keep my electronics to a minimum.

I have 2 TVs. One is in the bedroom, high up on a wall. Attached to it is Verizon set-top box and BluRay DVD. DVD has wireless Internet with Netflix and this is most of what we watch except news.
Second TV I just installed in the living room. Attached to it again is Verizon box and an X-box. X-box also has wireless Internet with Netflix. Actually TV itself has wireless Internet but it is Samsung and does not have Netflix (Samsung offers Blockbuster). I also have a receiver and front speakers connected to TV audio out. My speakers are large good quality towers but they are bulky and with those speakers the whole setup looks heavy. The TV built-in sound seems decent so I am deliberating taking off the receiver with bulky speakers. The receiver is surround but I do not want to pull wires around the living room. So either I need to get some wireless rear sound or get rid of receiver alltogether. I also have numerous older pieces like DVD/VCR combo and DVD changer but I don't see a point connecting them. Most of what we watch comes from Internet and not on DVD or VHS.
There was a time we had Verizon DVR but there is nothing there worth recording in our opinion. We cancelled DVR and replaced with regular box. We also played with several versions of HTPC (Media Center, WinTV). We found that anything with internal hard disk makes too much noise to be kept in the living room. This was one of the reasons we cancelled DVR.

One more option you may want to consider for mounting components. If amount of electronics around your TV is small - you can to try wall mount electronics as well next to the TV. It gives you decently clean look.
I have this bracket mounted right over the TV with DVD and STB units stacked on it in the bedroom.
http://www.amazon.com/Sanus-Systems-.../dp/B000BS24V4

[dbhost]

Most people still call Cat5e Cat5... Which is capable of carrying 1GBPS full duplex (actually will do more, but is rated at that...), my house is strung with Cat5e, but the network is fast ethernet (old computers)

[gerti]

Those plates look handy, made a mental note of them!

[fbrend123]

I've got two wall-mounted flat screen tvs, and I used these kits for both. You can run all the cables except the power directly through the wall in a bunch, and you don't have to run a new hot line to behind the tv. For the power there is a recessed male plug down below with in-wall romex going to a recessed socket behind the tv. Slick and easy. Available from Amazon.

[http://www.vanco-online.com/index.ph...cceeee485698d2

[atgcpaul]

Why would you want CAT5? CAT5 gives you only 100 Mbit/s network, wireless N is already faster. I find wireless perfectly adequate but if you insist on wires - at least use CAT6.
I am having similar questions except I want to keep my electronics to a minimum.

Ummm...I guess it's because I didn't even know Cat6 existed. Cat6 it is.

My BluRay player can do wireless if I buy their USB stick. I figure it'll be
cheaper if I run the cable. This way I can use the Bluray for Netflix and then
move the Roku to the bedroom.

[JimD]

My one HDTV (2 other old type) has a HDMI from the Dish receiver and a HDMI from a LD Blu Ray that streams Netflix wirelessly. It also has a component connection to an old DVD recorder/VHS. There is a digital coaxial connection from the Blu Ray to my receiver. The TV is in a box over the fireplace with the dish receiver and the blu ray under it. Power and cords go from the TV box to a rack with the reciever and DVD and other things below and to the right.

I have 5 small speakers up high in the room (wires through the walls) and a large subwoofer in the floor shooting out a fake heat vent. Small speakers with a sub work well for me. They sound a LOT better than the speakers on the TV.

Jim

[Kristofor]

I have all of the devices/purposes listed in our main entertainment setup. However, the only cables going to the TV are power and HDMI with the receiver doing doing conversion from a couple older analog sources.

You're limited by the quality of the video conversion & scaling in the receiver, and you add a few more milliseconds of delay if you're using that source for a gaming device. On the upside it means you never need to field phone calls from your dog-sitting MIL about why she can't watch TV/Netflix/Blu-Ray/etc (which somehow even a Harmony setup couldn't entirely prevent previously).

[jaybee]

This may not help, but, at work we connect from wall plate to wall plate via cat 6 cables and we have custom wall plates made up to connect whatever we need at both ends. i.e. 3 component video, 2 audio, one hdmi and one vga at each plate. Running 2 or 3 cat6 through the walls is nothing compared to actual cables - and the cost of the wall plates is pretty much returned by the low cost of cat6.