Advice needed for hanging a TV on the wall.

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So finally we upgraded ourselves to the 21-st century and got a plasma TV (scheduled to arrive this Thursday). The wife wants to hang it on the wall. I don't mind doing that either but have a few concerns abut it - how are the components going to be linked to it?

I can pull the electric supply and install an outlet behind the TV. I can probably install an ethernet outlet behind it, too, even though I am going to see if I can do anything about wireless.

But how about the Wii, the DVD player, the old VCR, etc? I just can't see how these wires would be routed inside the wall.

Any ideas or solutions for a similar situation?
 
Use plastic wire channels. Check out Lowe's, HD. One side has adhesive. I used them to hide wires for the under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen. Came out looking very nice.

You can route cables thru the the wall, but it is more difficult, plus you can not easily add another one. Wire channels allow you to add/take out wires as needed.
 
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Just pop a hole behind the tv, run the wires down inside the wall and bring them out below the baseboard. Anything I've ever seen that runs down the wall looks absolutely terrible.
 
Is this an interior wall? If so running them inside the wall will be simple. I'd suggest a wall mount that is wide enough to mount into 2 studs, and use the cavity between them to drop your wires down to the stand below.
 
I ran HDMI and RG6 cables through the walls. I made several 4" by 4" holes adjacent to studs I needed to go through. Then reached through the holes to drill through the studs. Finally, I used drywall screws to fasten a piece 1/2 x 1 1/2 across the inside of the 4 by 4 holes and the screwed back the drywall piece that had been cut out. After a little tape, a little mud, some elbow grease and paint, it looks like new and no wires show. It was some work but I thought the outcome was worth it. Incidentally, I used a Sanus mount appropriate for my 24 pound TV. I screwed the mount to a single stud using two 1/4" lag bolts. Your plasma set is probably heavier so you may want to bridge across two studs.
 
Some things like these can help make a clean looking installation:
HDMI-Dualwallplateblue250.jpg

wallplate_rca_combo.jpg
 
Here are my comments. I did this about 4 years ago when we bought our first flat screen TV. I wanted to make it a totally clean installation with the TV mounted to the wall like a picture frame with no visible connections whatsoever. So I embarked on this by mounting a recessed electrical outlet (like is used for a clock) and also put in a little plastic box that had a plastic conduit down to the basement for the signal wires. This was fine and dandy and I was able to place our cable box in the basement in close proximity, feeding it the remote's IR signals with a "remote repeater". But then I need to deal with the DVD player, which obviously wasn't very convenient in the basement. For this I placed it in a nearby game closet which we have, and ran what at the time was a hideously expensive 25' HDMI cable between the DVD unit and the TV (through the basement and up the wall). Later we bought a Wii and I bought a component video (and audio) cable that was once again long enough to reach to the game closet. The Wii uses bluetooth for the controllers so you don't need an IR repeater for that. These days the prices for those long cables have dropped dramatically but for these lengths, I wouldn't buy the cheapest one on the market.

The only modification I am going to make is to move the cable box into the game closet. Our lovely box has a habit of locking up or otherwise needing to be reboot, so that's a pain to run to the basement just to do that. It would be more convenient if everything were in the game closet.

What do you do if you don't have a handy game closet? Well then you are going to have to run the cables to a media cabinet (maybe with your stereo stuff?) or some other relatively close and appropriate location. I have heard of people locating their hardware in a nearby bedroom closet or some other location but that's kind of weird to run to your bedroom each time a DVD needs to be inserted (or the neighborhood kids bring over their Wii games). But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Remember one thing though. Now this TV is more or less fixed at that location till the end of the universe, or until such time as you decide to patch up the rather large holes you made in the wall at eye level. If your wife likes to rearrange the furniture sometimes then this puts a crimp in that idea.
 
Thank you all for the comments. The more I read, the less I like the idea of hanging it on the wall. Our setup would basically be the same as kschachn - invisible electronic devices placed somewhere out of sight.

The wall to be placed on is insulated so looks like a lot of work - cut the drywall, remove the insulation, pull all these wires and then put the insulation back. I think I will have to come up with a budget for a nice stand instead that will hold a large TV and be catproof at the same time (maybe bolt the TV to the stand) as we have a bad-[censored] cat.
 
Ever heard of Scat Mat? I have two cats. One always jumped on the dinner table and kitchen counters. Not any more!
It gives enough shock to make it very unpleasant, but not lethal. And yes, I tested it on myself (on highest setting) before laying it out for the cats. Medium power is enough to send them running.
 
The TV arrived, it's giant (far larger than what we thought when ordering online) so the location we had in mind will not work. The alternative is a place where I HAVE to put it on the wall. Will order the supplies from Prosatellitesupply.com today.

As for the cats - I smacked one on the head with the WII remote as I got very excited while bowling. It pi$$ed him off and he attacked me. Fortunately, no major injuries for me or him thanks to the silicone cover on the remote. On a smaller TV I never got this excited playing video games.
 
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