House Renovation - Home cinema wiring?

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Hi guys – man I’ve spent some fruitless time on google recently.....

I'm in the planning stages of renovating/extending a 1930s house to move into next year. The whole place will need rewiring, plastering etc so it seems a good time to wire in home cinema connections.

My current system is fairly budget:
§ All-in-one 5.1 Sony DAVDZ210D
§ Samsung 32” LCD (LE32R74BDX 32")
§ Humax Digital Recorder(PVR9200TB)
§ D-Link DSM-520 Wireless HD Media Player – wired connection to home server.

I’ll upgrade this once my finances have recovered from the house move so investing a bit more in the wiring now will future proof a little.
And as I have a soon to walking son I want to get all possible cables hidden and devices out of reach. SO......

· What wires/sockets should I put in for surround sound speakers? - Up on the walls in the four corners? And one ground level for the sub?

· If the TV is going to be on the wall on the chimney breast should I install some cables/sockets so the devices can be in a cabinet to the side away from small hands.

Any advice or suggested reference material would be gratefully received.

Cheers

Ben

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Ben,

I built an extension this year and had it all wired up for home cinema.

The first thing that strikes me is the location of your TV. On a chimney breast over a fire place means that the viewing height is going to be difficult and a strain on the neck. It was the best advice I got from other users of this site when doing my building job. Don't have the TV too high!! I wired most things to my Amp and then to the TV. I put in a cable duct with cord incase I have to add anything at a later stage. I ran 2 HDMI cables at the time, one I use for the AMP the other for SKY HD. I also ran an aeriel at the time. The power source is run seperatly to a socket behind the TV.

Speakers are located as follows: Centre just under the TV, Front ones are 1 meter from the centre of the TV on either side. The rear speakers are located at about head height on the side walls about a foot behind the seated position. My sub is just run direct from the AMP. Sockets are behind the cabinet with power run into Tacima block.

What cable depens on your budget. I use QED micro for the rear speakers and QED Silver Anniversary XT for the front and centre. More than adequate for most systems. Ihave Yamaha 863 Amp and KEF speakers.

Where you think you might have to add anything try to run a cable duct with cord inside then just attach it to the cord and pull through.

Hope this helps

 

[Anonymous]

Definitely fit a dedicated power supply back to the consumer unit - well worth while and cheap to do during a renovation / extension.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys - that's got me started and I've been trawling the thread archives based on what you've said.

This is likely to be a stupid question but if you are wiring in the wall for the TV I'd assumed you needed a wall plate with a selection of sockets - but DIY sites seem to have your cable going into and out-of the wall through a cable duct.... i.e quite a large hole for an HDMI plug to get through?

Can anyone recommend a good reference website or book - home cinema for dummies? that gives a guide to this kind of thing.

Cheers

Ben