What the heck do I do with my DVD player, cable box and stuff like that?
Plan on buying a new TV sometime this week. I’m thinking 52" if the price is right.
Thank for any sugestions.
Mount some shelves on the wall on either side of the tv. Bonus points for busting out drywall and drilling holes through studs to hide all the wires.
They have some very nice, low shelving units (contemporary or more traditional styles) that look good below the television, and you could put some plants or other decorations on the top shelf. Of course if your television is being hung above a fireplace, you might want to run those cables discretely down the wall off to the side.
Some people have put in hidden wires that lead off to the side to devises such as DVD and cable boxes that are hidden in bookshelves or simply placed on other furniture. It is really not that hard to hide cables, but it takes some time and construction and you need to be sure you will not change your mind about placement later.
I work at a local Costco. I used to work construction. I always stress to our members that to get that “TV Commercial Picture on a Wall” look you’re going to be hiding cables. To run the power cable for your TV down through the wall is against code, though I’m basing this on California’s code.
That said, there are a number of terrific stands (not just Costco, obviously) that have a wall mount bracket that sticks up from the back of the cabinetry designed to hold the sundry cables from the components we’ve all accumulated. You get a nice cabinet, or glass shelving, and hidden cables all in one shot. These are what I usually recommend first to members.
If they’re set on a wall mount I give 'em the caveat of, “An electrician is coming over, you know?”
<mod>
Off to General Questions.
IMHO > GQ
</mod>
I’ve never understood the trend of having your video equipment low to the ground. It seems to be counter-intuitive to put it out of reach of yourself, unless you uncomfortably bend over, but within reach of the kids and pets, and your shins.
I have a TV cabinet that has shelves above the top of my TV, putting everything at easy reach when standing, as well as not obscuring the range of the remote.
Hanging the TV on the wall frees you up to do whatever you want with the accessories. Stack them on the floor under the TV, stack them on a bookshelf 10 feet away, buy a vertical A/V rack that positions them right next to the TV, whatever.
We recently bought a big TV too, and went through a similar decision-making process. We didn’t like the idea of permanently locking in the TV’s position with a wall mount, and either way we figured we’d be buying a stand for the accessories, so we just bought a big stand and parked the TV on it.
Allow me to interject a side note: Don’t mount it over a fireplace. At best, you’ll get a sore neck from watching a TV that is hung far too high. At worst, you’ll find out that sensitive electronics don’t need the extra heat.
There are some really nice stands and credenzas for just this thing.
Just thought I’d ditto this. The only good thing that can be said about a flat screen hung above a fireplace is it looks impressive when you walk into the room.
“Oooh, look- the TV’s above the fireplace!”
Then sit down and try to watch a movie on it, and 2 hours later you’ll have a stiff neck. To say nothing of the heat wafting up at it.
We have ours mounted to the wall across from the couch, with the center of the screen at the height of our eyeballs while sitting on the couch. Beneath it is a long console with glass-doored cabinets on the L and R, with an open area in the center. TV components are on the L, stereo components are on the R, Wii and DVD’s are in the center. I added an outlet to the wall behind the TV and all control cables are run through the wall.
Sweet! I get bonus points!
We put a cabinet above the tv for all our dvd/Wii/cable box needs. All the wiring is in the walls. It took many hours (and much creative thinking on our parts) but the look is fantastic. And it makes our hallway of a living room functional (since nothing is on the floor).
Not sure why it would be illegal. There are no exposed wires in the wall and everything is plugged into a proper & accessible outlet (albeit in the basement and not in the living room).
Running a power cord inside the wall is against the National Electric Code, but there’s nothing at all wrong with having an electrician tap an existing circuit and place a receptacle right behind the TV so the TV’s power cord remains entirely outisde of the wall. You could even use a clock receptacle so the plug can be recessed about an inch within the wall.
The rest of the wiring just needs to be “in-wall” rated (CL2 or CL3) - it’s not at all hard or expensive to find in-wall rated HDMI cables, speaker wire, etc.
Nothing wrong with “plenum rated” cables, if you happen to have some on hand - they’re by some measures “safer” than CL2 or CL3 - mainly they release fewer and less-toxic fumes when burned, but residental walls are very rarely used as plenum space.
I agree with this. It was an incredible pain in the arse to sort out the wiring, but it was really worth it. Hint: put one or two extra cables through for future expansion. You never know when you might want to add “just one more” gadget.
Not to mention that after putting up the TV for the first time, I sat down to watch it and realized it was about 6 inches too high. I swore I would learn to live with it because there was no way in hell I was going through all that pain again.
That lasted 24 hours. Again though, I’m glad I fixed it.
Echoing a couple previous comments, above the fireplace is indeed a bit too high. Ours is there. Didn’t have a choice. It’s OK, but a foot lower would have been better, especially if the didtance between your screen and seating area is short.
Our house came “plumbed” with a channel for the wiring so we didn’t have a problem w/wires.
Lastly, we’re very happy with a mount that allows for tilting the screen right or left and in/out.
My built-in entertainment center project. You can see the conduit I installed behind the drywall to allow for the passing of cables between the various levels:
And the final result:
That’s swank, Patty.
At least you hired an installer that knows his stuff!:p:D;)
Yeah that furry guy was a big help!
One note of advice, if you do install conduit or channels behind the drywall (especially horizontal runs), be sure to run permanent pull lines in each conduit run so you can easily pull speaker wire (or whatever) through them after the project is all finished. The pull line needs to be just over twice the length of the conduit, as a moment’s thought will make evident. I used bead chain since it’s good for making 90° turns inside the conduit. Small gauge picture-hanging wire would also work.
Congrats on getting the 52 incher! That’s what I did and I had to decide between using a base cabinet or hanging on the wall. First of all, the TV will be very heavy ~100 pounds, so you have to do the job right if you’re hanging it on the wall. You will also have to hide all the wiring, or it’ll look awful. Keep in mind that you’re going to have a lot of devices – I have the cable box, blu-ray player, divx player, dvd recorder, receiver, middle speaker. Note that it’s not just video stuff; you also have sound equipment. To really enjoy your HDTV you need to hook up the sound equipment too. After considering all this, I opted for a beautiful cabinet to sit the big TV and plenty of storage below it. It was still kind of a pain to hook everything up from behind, but once it’s finished it’s been blissful enjoyment of the audio-video experience. I just ordered the Battlestar Galactica blu-rays and that’s going to be awesome in my setup.