Hi I am building a new house and i am uncertain as to the best way to connect everything, i want to bury all the cabling in the walls I will be buying a hdtv and using the freeview facility, a blueray, a games console, a pvr and a 5.1 sound system. After talking to a local AV specialist, they suggested just using hdmi cabling and connecting everything into the AV receiver and then a hdmi out to the tv, i then went to the local Sony centre who recommended running everything direct to the tv and then an optical cable back to the AV receiver for the 5.1 sound. Does anyone have any views on the pro's and cons of the 2 methods? Thanks
Do the first method, run everything to the receiver first. Those Sony guys are just like the Best Buy sales people, they don't know anything when it comes to technology. The second method (running everything to TV) is not only more of a headache, but will definitely cost more depending on how far your devices will be from your TV. It costs a lot less to buy a few short HDMI cables and one long one, instead of buying a bunch of long ones. I would also recommend putting a "pipe", such as PVC from you TV to your components (receiver). By doing this you always have the option to later run more cables, or upgrade to better cables, just in case newer TV/Components/Cables come out that you may want. It's just a good way to future proof yourself. Also with the pipe, I would run the one hdmi through it instead of only behind the wall, because if you decide to replace your HDMI cable in the future, it may be a headache trying to get that cable out of the wall, and will be a lot easier to simply pull it through the pipe. Also if it's an "outside" wall, just make sure that it is installed correctly and doesn't interfere with the vapour barrier, electrical, plumbing, etc, but it must have a vapour barrier around it, electrical code says so. Another note, as for the one long hdmi cable, if it is too expensive to buy one, you can always use two Ethernet cables and an HDMI-Ethernet Extender/Transceiver. If you take this method I REALLY recommend that you use Cat-6 cables or above (cat-7 which may be overkill). Some installers will say, Cat-5e is just fine, but really when it comes to smooth full HD transmission Cat-6 is A-LOT more reliable as Cat-5e, at least by twice. However this method is only usefull if your TV is from a long distance from your compenents, for example if you have a TV upstairs in your bedroom and your compenents downstairs. So you don’t need to buy the most expensive HDMI cable, most HDMI cables will do fine, so if you can I recommend getting an HDMI cable that is reasonably priced for the one though the wall. The converter is a nice cheap method, but using HDMI is the way to go. Hope that helps.
Hi mike.m Many thanks for the info. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but do you have any knowledge on speakers built into the ceiling? as the missus wants to keep the walls as sleek as possible Thanks again
Personally, I prefer to have the speakers stick out (wall mounted), and usually on the side of the walls, so that the sound is dispersed as much as possible, and then have the back speakers as ceiling mounted, but that's for 7.1 systems. So when it comes to in ceiling speakers, you don't want to go too cheap. I’m not a whole lot knowledgeable when it comes to Architectural (ceiling) Speakers but I know some good brands. Mirage is a good value product. Klipsch has some very good speakers. Precision Acoustics is good too. Some other notable mentions are Polk Audio, Boston Acoustics, and Yamaha, but I don’t have much experience with those speakers, but they seem to be pretty good. I wouldn’t go with Bose though. Some of the products are okay, but even then almost everything has a huge price tag on them, and the price doesn’t justify their quality. Also with speaker wire, you don’t need to buy the most expensive wires, as long as they aren’t thin (you want low impedance). It’s just like Ohm’s Law, the thicker the wire, the less resistance so more current can pass. But one thing’s for sure you can't go wrong with Klipsch, they offer very good quality speakers. Sorry I can’t be of any more help in that section. Hopefully someone with greater ceiling speaker knowledge can post here, or you can try making a new post for that topic here: http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/106
Thanks mike.m Going back to the original post, if i want to use the hd freeview from the tv and the ability to record it to a pvr, i guess i first put the coax to the telly and from there to the pvr, i guess this me record function, to playback i guess i then connect to the av receiver? Are all these achieved by hdmi cables?, does one cable handle more than one function?, if so, is it coax to tv, hdmi to pvr, another hdmi to av receiver, hdmi back to tv? One further complication would be if i wanted to be able to view the recorded content of the pvr on other tv's throughout the house, would this mean aerial coax to pvr, coax to splitter amp, then splitter back to all tv's including the main one? sorry this doesn't appear correct as i dont seem to have the freeview ability like this Any suggestions very welcome Thanks
