TV wall mount/HDMI question

[Lurch]

This isn't really garages, but home repair so close enough.

I am switching over a wall in my home from sweet 1950's wood panel to sheetrock before I wall mount a tv on it. I want to make sure that I install all of the cable that I could possibly need in the wall before I button it all up, for obvious reasons.

I'll be adding a new power outlet next to the tv wall mount, along with an HDMI outlet for sure. My is question is how many HDMI cables (or other types for that matter) will I need? I don't want to find out down the road that I have to redo something because I didn't plan ahead.

I'm not big into A/V stuff, all that's hooked up to the TV now is a Direct TV box. A sound bar or DVD player are future possibilities.

Enlighten me please.

 

[old_man]

The best thing to do is to run a LARGE conduit to a 4plex outlet. make sure and run and leave a string through the conduit so you can fish additional wires if you need them in 20 years.

I'm an Electrical Engineer. My crystal ball says that the hdmi type connections will go away and be wireless within a few years. Heck, my wife's cellphone has a wireless hdmi now.

 

[Lurch]

The best thing to do is to run a LARGE conduit to a 4plex outlet. make sure and run and leave a string through the conduit so you can fish additional wires if you need them in 20 years.

I'm an Electrical Engineer. My crystal ball says that the hdmi type connections will go away and be wireless within a few years. Heck, my wife's cellphone has a wireless hdmi now.

I thought about conduit, but I really can't notch the studs too much since they're only 2x4's. How large is large?

 

[GrimmJeeper]

Get an A/V reciever, and run 1 HDMI to your TV. everything else gets plugged into the reciever and input is switched by what source you select on the receiver.

 

[GordoSmasho]

I would say one hdmi is enough. If you have a good sound receiver that handles HDMI switching then all you need is one out. Just make sure to use a quality one. If you want audio out of the TV only then you need to run as many cables as you have devices. Yes HDMI will go away but its at least 10 years away before its obsolete. Wireless technology is there but it is not reliable and user friendly at the consumer level yet.

 

[seanR]

Run a quad shild coax and a few Cat 5 wires from your source to your tv.
You can get HDMI baluns pretty cheap from monosource now. Cheaper than what a 10 of 12 foot HDMI c as ble will cost. A lot of them now will carry bi directional audio and ir control.
Wirless will never be the norm, everything will be run through Cat 5 or 6 or fibet.

 

[bulrid8]

Always run backups. If you think you need one, run two. If the original cable ever goes bad, you have a backup.

As said, run a coax, cat5 and audio cables, just to be safe. Cost more now, saves headaches up the road.

 

[Lurch]

Cool, thanks everyone for the input.

Plan is to run two HDMI's, two cat5's and a coax. That stuff is dirt cheap on monoprice.com so no sweat if I don't ever end up using it.

 

[XJLI]

Cool, thanks everyone for the input.

Plan is to run two HDMI's, two cat5's and a coax. That stuff is dirt cheap on monoprice.com so no sweat if I don't ever end up using it.

my day job is super high end AV. one HDMI and two cat5s is a pretty standard cable run for a tv that has equipment within 25ft. anything over that, three cat5s.

i wouldnt bother with the coax to be honest.

 

[RWKHausSupply]

3 HDMI's.
2 cat 5
1 comp set
2 L/R audio set (one for poss sound bar, one for poss audio in)


Why not?
Who knows.
And its cheap.