What Cables besides HDMI are necessary?

[norahs]

HELP, I'm a bit confused. We are in the process of having built-in cabinets installed to house all of our electronics. We plan to buy a new receiver, probably Onkyo along with a Blue Ray DVD Player which will be in our cabinet. Our plan is to install a flat TV (LCD or Plasma) on the wall about 15ft from the receiver. We want the wiring installed now to meet our future need. Based on the Electronic Store, I was told we only need to run one HDMI cable to from our TV to our Receiver. Everything else would run through the receiver including our Cable TV hookup.

Now that our walls are torn up, we want to get it right. Based on my review here I have purchased a HDMI cable through Blue Jeans Cable (it's already on its way), however in other treads there were suggestions to run other cables, but I don't understand why (I'm a newbee and don't know what most of this stuff means).

What cables do I really need to run to the TV and to the Receiver from and to the TV and why?

 

[mike c]

just to be sure, I would run RG59/RG6 cables from the TV to the receiver

at least 6 cables if it were me.

3 for component
2 for audio
1 for composite

normally, you wouldn't need this ... but better sure than sorry.

 

[MDS]

The reasoning behind mike's list of cables would be to protect yourself for future needs.

- Component video cables because sometimes HDMI doesn't play nice with certain cable boxes or receivers or your cable box (like mine) doesn't have an HDMI output. If your receiver can't transcode from other video formats to HDMI then you'd need one cable of each type to make a direct connection to the TV.

- Analog audio cables so you could make a connection from the cable box to the TV to watch TV without the stereo on or use the TV's audio outs to the receiver when the TV is the source of the audio (using the internal tuner because you have an antenna or the cable company cable directly connected to the TV).

- Composite video because it is the lowest common video format and all legacy devices support it. Maybe you'd want to connect a handheld game or camcorder that only supports composite video and not go through the receiver.

- I'd also suggest one optical digital audio cable, again in case you need to send digital audio from the TV to the receiver when using the TV as the source. TVs typically don't have coax digital audio outs but if in the future one does, you can use the composite video cable because it's the same thing.

- RG6 would be for the direct connection of the cable or antenna to the TV. You might use a cable box now, but if you also add an antenna for viewing over the air HD, you need that cable too.

- 1 or 2 CAT5 for ethernet. Not too many TVs have network jacks but that could change. Last years Toshiba Regza had one to view email, play mp3, and view jpegs so it might become more common in the future.

The theory behind all this is that too much is better than not enough. It will be a royal pain to tear down the drywall and route cables later. No harm if they are there and most unused.

 

[deedubb]

Definitely run more than you think you will need. One HDMI is not enough. They can also run a conduit in case you need to add something in the future, that way, they can just run the wire through the conduit w/o tearing the walls apart.

 

[ChunkyDark]

Definitely run more than you think you will need. One HDMI is not enough. They can also run a conduit in case you need to add something in the future, that way, they can just run the wire through the conduit w/o tearing the walls apart.

I agree. I would just run one HDMI for now, but have some 1 inch or larger pvc run for conduit. I mention pvc just cause it's way cheaper. The underground stuff even fits together without need of adapters.

 

[norahs]

Thanks

Appreciate all the responses - I'll check these out.

 

[norahs]

I have a load bearing wall, so need to limit the number of cable to only the minimum necessary and no conduit. Things have gotten way too confusing.

We have a Onkyo receiver that we want everything to run though our ceiling speakers. We receive our TV signal through a coax cable and don't want another cable box as we have a new blue-ray DVD player for movies.

We plan to run the coax directly to the TV. Now that our walls are full of holes we need to run our cables now.
Here's what we thought:
1 Coax Cable from TV to cabinet for future cable box
1 HDMI Cable from TV to cabinet for future ???
1 set of 3 Componet Video Cables (green, blue, red)

I suspect we'll need a couple of audio cables, but I still don't understand what cables are actually necessary to run the LCD TV and our DVD player and how to hook up the receiver. We don't ever expect to play video games or anything else like a computer to our TV.

Could anyone please simplify this for us?

 

[bandphan]

I have a load bearing wall, so need to limit the number of cable to only the minimum necessary and no conduit. Things have gotten way too confusing.

We have a Onkyo receiver that we want everything to run though our ceiling speakers. We receive our TV signal through a coax cable and don't want another cable box as we have a new blue-ray DVD player for movies.

We plan to run the coax directly to the TV. Now that our walls are full of holes we need to run our cables now.
Here's what we thought:
1 Coax Cable from TV to cabinet for future cable box
1 HDMI Cable from TV to cabinet for future ???
1 set of 3 Componet Video Cables (green, blue, red)

I suspect we'll need a couple of audio cables, but I still don't understand what cables are actually necessary to run the LCD TV and our DVD player and how to hook up the receiver. We don't ever expect to play video games or anything else like a computer to our TV.

Could anyone please simplify this for us?

Im not sure why the wall being load bearing limits your cable run. Does your tv have cable card? IMO you should run what has been suggested. 1 hdmi cable should be enough with avrs and switches avialable. Run the cat5, as it can be used in a large number of applications and its thin. http://rapidrun.com/runnerBaseCables.asp might have some solutions. Who is running the wire?

 

[mod]

This thread is a great help to me also. A related question. So all the cables are in the wall, What do you recommend for either terminating at the wall or bringing them through the wall? What I mean is, should the cables end at the wall with connectors that you plug into or should it just be a plate with a hole in it that you bring the cables through into the room? My TV will be wall mounted and I'm getting ready to run cables in an open wall.

 

[cornelius]

Just a side note - Test your HDMI cable if you can, before you close up the wall. I've seen defective ones, and you'll want to find out sooner than later if it's not working...