Wall mounted TVs - cabling ?

[RottenTiming]

Having had a windfall I would like to spend it on a flat screen TV.

Can't get my head round wall mounted situation however.

In magazines there are never any wires showing but I don't see how this can be so.

How do you connect your home cinema speakers , V+ box, dvd player, Wii etc without having a big bundle of wires trailing down the wall from the TV to the relevant hardware ?

Is that why most people just stick the huge flatscreen TV on a long unit of some sort because the wires from a wall mounted TV look untidy.

My dream of freeing up some floorspace with a wall-mounted TV will be completely trashed given that a unit to stand such a big TV on will take up more space than the current TV does and we really need the space.

Ours is going on a bracket on the wall. The socket will be placed behind the tv, the electrician will fix a socket to the wall fro the dvd, sky box etc and will then track this up the wall and it will magically appear behind the tv. We are also having an entertainment hub where all the dvd player, amp, sky box and any other gadgetary can be stored and called upon using something called a magic eye, airport express (wifi extender) or iphone - I don't really understand it all - it's dh's baby...but it looks good.

I think you need to get an electrician to put all cables through the wall itself.

Pants, we have solid brick walls so running cabling "inside" the wall cavity will not be possible.

I'm looking at needing to stand it on a hulking great television unit of some kind aren't I ?

Our wall is solid too - but it will be channelled and the wiring placed inside ducting so that we can easily add new gadgets if need be.

Will the ducting show as having a plastic front or will there be an invisible duct channel chased in and replsatered over ?

I mean't....."Replastered" of course

Invisable duct channel chased into the wall and replastered over.

Any chance you have a fireplace underneath the wall space where you want to put the tv, you could run the wirse around that so they are less noticable, we had done this downstairs and it looked ok as i then hid the wires behind a clock on the fireplace if you get what i mean.

Weve recently re-wired though so now every wire is hidden in the walls and we have sockets behind where the tv is to go, i dont understand it all but hopefully my other half will be there every time i want to watch something to turn it all on for me!

Unfortunately no fireplace under the desired position of TV

If you don't want to put ducting into the wall then you could fit surface mounted ducting like this. It won't look as good as having the cables running inside the wall but it's a lot less mess and hassle. If you're planning on decorating the room in a few years you could use surface ducting now then fit ducting into the walls as part of the redecoration.

The same company also sell ducting that runs along the skirting board, which I've used for speaker cabling. It's very effective and looks good.

I'd definately want to avoid wall mounted ducting nocake.

I think we are looking at chasing out, setting in duct and replastering and finally redecorating (and it is a big room so we'd better get saving).

Juist wanted to revive this thread to ask if anyone has any experience of wireless TVs where the Wii, dvd player, cable Tv box all plug into a transmitter, totally separate from the TV, which then communicates wirelessly with the TV.

Do you mean a wireless signal sender? We used one to send the sky signal from downstairs tv to tv in our bedroom. I can't remember the make but it was around £50 from currys. It worked really well. Sky+ worked on upstairs tv too. It blocked out our wifi signal tho so we couldn't get online at the same time as using it.

Also, with regards to the previous posts about burying wires in the wall. Make sure you put in spare scarts etc. The last thing you want is to have plastering done etc then the wires breaking like what has happened to us twice... Good job my dads a plasterer.

To go back to your original question, you can also do something like this:
www.audio-moebel.de/Wandsysteme-TV-Halter/VCM/VCM-TV-Paneel-Scala-3.html?from=7df2859c7ea22b0b638a61dbb6a1cf72

Sorry it's all in German, though I imagine something similar must be available in UK.

All the wires are hidden inside the rectangular panel, and the socket is somewhere behind it too.