Hanging a large TV on the wall “without wires showing”

Assuming that I am competent with a drill and can manage the TV mounting bracket here are the main issues:

1. Power to the TV
2. Audio out from the TV into my existing 5.1 amplifier
3. Coaxial connection for standard TV signal

POWER

So looking at each of those issues in turn I have to say that 1. isn’t an issue for me as I already have power slap bang in the middle of the wall :-). That said there are specific rules of thought around safety that make it advisable not to use the power from a lighting circuit to create a new plug socket! With this in mind, and after checking the (low) ampage requirement of the TV my plan is to forgo fitting a socket and use a clearly marked (and small) junction box to connect the TV cable to the lighting circuit, covering it with the TV itself once it is in place.

AUDIO

After looking at various low latency Bluetooth transmitters and receivers I have concluded that a wired option would be preferable (to fully avoid “lip sync” issues). Of the two wired options I looked at (HDMI and a “TOSlink” Audio only cable) I have decided to go for the latter as the cable itself is a more manageable (narrower) than an HDMI cable. It can also travel over a greater distance without signal degradation (I want my amplifier to be on the other side of the room to the TV).

The wall itself is “old school” plastered (see above) and my plan is to use a “Dremel” to cut a narrow channel for the TOSLINK cable from the TV to the floor and then run the rest of the cable under the carpet to my amplifier. Of course I will finish the job off by filling in the channel and touching up the paint work. (More pictures to follow) .

COAXIAL

Although strictly speaking “old school” coaxial cable isn’t needed to get great use from the myriad of online TV channels and services I still like the idea of having the option of watching and recording “terrestrial” TV.

Having decided that I don’t want to run a standard coaxial cable through/along the wall / under the carpet etc. I did a little research and discovered something that an application that I already make some use of for sharing photos and videos “PLEX” also has an option that allows you to share your own terrestrial TV signal over your home’s wifi. To do this I simply had to add a USB receiver (I used an old receiver that I had from the days of the XBOX “media centre”). These are actually very cheap to pick up nowadays and initial testing shows that they work well with Plex itself when connected to the PC which is your Plex media server.