The Best Hookups for Your Television

Does it look like you need to get rid of those clunky television sets from years ago and trade them out for the sleek and lighter LCD or Plasma screen televisions that can be wall mounted? There are a variety of ways that you can install your television, but your final decision should be based around your desired picture quality. In order to do so, you need to know about the different audio/video inputs before we start mounting anything to a wall.

Things you'll need:

Television

Assortment of cables (depending on hook up)

Tv Wall Mount

Electric Drill

Stud Finder

Level

Surge protector

Cable raceway (optional)

Step 1: Measure the distance on your wall where you would like to mount your television, it should be mounted in a spot that is ideal for all viewers in your room. It is a good idea to also measure how much length of cable that you have so that your cables will not be tugging between the wall sockets, your television and/or the receiver. If you do not to make holes in your wall and like your television to go with pieces of furniture in the house, skip over to Step 5.

Step 2: Drill the TV Wall Mount into your wall, if you are drilling into sheet rock, make sure you are drilling into a wall stud using your stud finder. Use the level to make sure that your television will not appear crooked.

Step 3: Drill the other half of the mount to the back of the television. Depending on your type of wall mount, this will allow the television to be slid on a track or tilted on its X or Y axis.

Step 4: Attach and secure the television so that it is firmly planted on the wall, you may also want to tilt it on the angle and axis so that all viewers can see the screen easily.

Step 5: Insert the cables into the television inputs depending on your desired image quality. You can use the coaxial cable, which is like a long threaded stem, but I would HIGHLY recommend that you only run this cable from the antenna in the wall and into your cablebox / satellite receiver. The coax cable basically smooshes all of your audio/video signals, you will not get a high def image nor even stereo sound if you run the coax cable directly from the wall into the television.

You also have the RCA composite (Red, Yellow, White) which splits your audio and video into separate channels, but I would recommend that you use this input for perhaps a dvd player, vcr or gaming console, but you aren't going to get a lot of quality out of this option.

You can use the S-Video cable which is an okay digital option, especially for say your dvd player, but it does compress a bit of information within the S-Video, and you will have to run your audio with a separate source.

You can use Component video (Red, Blue, Green) which is a step above S-Video by splitting the video signal into three but offers high definition resolution-but again you will need a separate audio source.

Finally, it is well worth the investment of HDMI cables, as they combine the audio/video into one high def digital source. As long as you have this input built into your tv, I would highly recommend that you run the coax cable from the wall, into your receiver, and out from the receiver (only if it is a HD receiver) and into the television with your HDMI cable. Due to the great capabilities of transferring audio as well, I would highly recommend running your surround sound stereos into the television with the HDMI cables as well and you can also run some of the newer computers into your television using HDMI and turn your entertainment center into a working computer network as well.

Step 6: Plug all devices into your surge protector in order to protect your investment. Then, power everything on and check out the picture quality of your television. If you do not see anything, or perhaps the image is a little distorted, make sure you have all plugs inserted all the way. If you like what you see, sit back and enjoy. If all of those cluttered wires are an eyesore for you, invest in a cable raceway that will cover over your wires and make them look more like a wall fixture or molding.

If you are installing multiple tv's, repeat these steps based on your individual needs and resources. Make sure that you do adequate research for your resources as buying and installing a television is quite the investment and you want to make sure that you are going to buy something that technology won't make obsolete within six months.