Home Theater - Structured Home Wiring
There are special considerations for wiring your home theater or main entertainment room.
Before starting, you need to determine:
- the location of the televison
- is the TV wall mounted, part of an entertainment center, over the fireplace...
- the number of speakers
- the locations of those speakers
- are the speakers in-wall, wall mount, book shelf, or floor standing
- the location of the stereo components and other electronics
Television
There usually aren't many choices on where to place the television, especially if it is a flat panel that you are hanging it on the wall.
If possible, you will want to place it where the sun will not shine directly on it.
The center of the TV should be eye level when you are sitting down.
If hanging the TV above the fireplace or some other high location, then get an angled wall mount so that you can tilt the TV downward.
Also, placing the TV in the corner of the room makes it very difficult to place speakers for surround sound.
If this is a wall mount installation, then be sure to have a power outlet and audio/video cables behind where the TV will be mounted.
For audio/video cables for a new HDTV, I would suggest at least:
- 2 or 3 HDMI cables for a cable/satellite HDTV signal, next generation HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player, and possibly a game system like an Xbox 360 or a PS3. Some TVs also take a computer DVI input, although DVI can be converted into HDMI so a separate cable is not required.
- 2 S-Video cables for legacy devices like a DVD player, VCR, or an older game system
- Composite and/or digital optical audio cables to go with the S-Video input
Although it is possible to make HDMI cables from Cat5 or other wire, you will get the best quality if you run a wire directly
from the stereo component right to the TV without any breaks in the wire for a wall plate. It wont look as good to have a hole
in the wall with a wire coming out of it, but this hole should be hidden by the TV and the will be a lot less signal loss.
If this is a TV in an entertainment center or on top of a TV stand with all of the stereo components with it, then you don't need to run any of the wires from the components to the TV.
You will have to run speaker wires and other wires in-wall. This is covered in the Stereo Components section below.
Speakers
Once you have chosen the location for your TV, you will need to place the speakers. Placement is determined first by the number of speakers.
Receivers, amplifiers, and surround sound processors usually indicate the number of speakers as 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1. The .1 refers to the single
subwoofer channel. Some systems may have 2 subwoofer channels or two center channels, but these are the basic configurations.
| Channels | Description |
|---|
| 5.1 | One center, Two fronts, Two side/rear |
| 6.1 | One center, Two fronts, Two side, One rear |
| 7.1 | One center, Two fronts, Two side, Two rear |
These speaker placements are rough guidelines. Refer to your speaker documentation for placement instructions.
Click image for larger view
For home theater, all speakers should be at ear height when seated. This will not be possible for the center channel, since that is where
the TV is placed. Some systems resolve this by using 2 center channels placed on either side of the TV or above and below the TV.
This isn't really necessary. You can just place a single center channel above or below the TV.
Windows, hallways and open rooms may interfere with perfect speaker placement.
If perfect placement is not possible, it is best that pairs of speakers be placed consistently.
If one side speaker needs to be close to the corner, then place both of them near the corner.
Stereo Components