How many HDMI cables from a wall mounted TV?

Question

Hey all,

Im upgrading my home theatre system and planning on wall mounting my television soon but im not sure how many HDMI cables i should be leading from it. I dont want to have to come back and do it later.

I have a receiver, a hd dvd player, and a ps3. whats the best way to set up that combination?

Thanks

Answer 1

If your receiver supports HDMI inputs, you should just plug everything into that, and then run 1 HDMI cable through the wall.  If you want to go expandable, I'd say you'd want the same number of HDMI cables as HDMI inputs in your TV.  If you're not sure, go with 2.  Most TVs have 2, a few have 3, but if you're using your receiver as a passthrough, it'd only be for a future device once your receiver runs out of slots.

You're doing the in-wall installation with a socket, right?  Not just dropping a cord through the wall and having it come out the top and bottom?  Then you could do 2 or 3 HDMI connections, easy, and it's expandible for future, or it's perfect if you end up selling your home.

Answer 2

Most home theater receivers allow you to select the audio and video source that goes to the TV. For example, you can connect the output of the cable box to receiver input #1, the DVD player to input #2, and the ps3 to input #3. You then select the input you want to watch with the receiver's input selector and have one output from the receiver going to an input on the TV. In this case, you only need one HDMI cable (from the receiver to the TV) going through the wall.

Of course, this assumes that you have that many HDMI inputs on your receiver (some only have 1 or 2, if any). If you don't have that many HDMI inputs, you'll have to use component video/audio inputs for one or more of the video sources.

You can also set up your system to have all of the audio/video sources go directly to your TV (the cable box to TV input #1, the DVD player to input #2, and the ps3 to input #3, etc.). You then select the viewed source with the TV's input selector. But, in this case, you'll need to have 3 HDMI cables - or a combination of HDMI and component video/audio cables, if you don't have enough HDMI inputs on your TV - going through the wall (the 3 audio/video sources going to the TV).

Since you're going through the wall, I think it would be best to only have one cable going from the receiver to the TV, with all of the video sources going to (and switched by) the receiver. This minimizes the cable bundle going through the wall (less to go wrong - and have to be replaced by tearing up the wall if it does go bad).

Answer 3

if youre going to use a wire mold then it won be a problem running more or less cable but if you have an  receiver that can does video switching with HDMI youre then set only run one cable from the tv to the receiver and all the sources connect to the receiver.

BTW by doing this you will have to turn on your receiver everytime youre going to use any of the sources connect to the receiver.