TV Cables, Accessories & Aerials

The huge growth in the sale of Flat Screen HD Plasma and LCD TV's is not only driving the secondary market TV Brackets and TV Wall Mounts but there is a real clamour for HDMI cables, Digital Aerials and High Quality TV and Audio Interconnect cables

But for many people the whole prospect of whether to wall mount the TV or use a TV stand, and then what cables to use to connect everything together is really daunting. Add to this the issue of the move to the new Digital standards and the growth in HD services offered by Sky and Virgin etc and it's easy to see why it's intimidating.

So here are some basic pointers:

Mounting the LCD/Plasma TV on a wall Vs going with a Stand? Whether you wall mount your TV or use a stand is in many cases purely down to personal choice and what looks best in the room the TV is going into. The benefit of using a TV Bracket to wall mount the TV is that you will allow you to reclaim some space in your room where, you can typically mount the TV at a better viewing height and the cantilever arm brackets allow the TV to be easily moved to give you the best possible viewing angle wherever you sit in the room.

How do I hide my cables? The ideal solution is the sink the cables into the wall so they are not showing at all but as this is not possible or practical for most people there are now a range of excellent Cable Tidy and Cable management solutions available. Some of these like the Vogels EVO 6000 range also include the option to integrate shelves into the cables management solution so that you can position your DVD player or Sky box just below the wall mounted TV. Other options include the Cable Tidy for D-Line which is available in 4 different colours and can be painted with emulsion paint if your wish. A more comprehensive solution is to use an "in-wall" box from Premier Mounts. These are available for their AM2, AM250 and AM3 range of wall brackets.

Will I get a better picture on my new Flat Screen High Definition TV (LCD or PLASMA)? Yes but, only if you are connecting the TV to a HD (High Definition) input source such as a SKYHD Box, a Vigin Media HD Service, a Sony PS3 or one of the new DVD HD players. If you are simply replacing your existing TV with a Flat Screen TV and you are not upgrading the signal source (in other words you are still using the same old DVD or VHS Player and you are connecting the TV to your old TV aerial) then the picture may actually be worse than on your old big CRT TV. To get the best from your new HD TV you really need to connect it to a HD source and then use a good quality HDMI lead (ideally one of the new 1.3 specification cables) to connect your TV to it.

What are HDMI cables? HDMI cables (HDMI stands for "High-Definition Multimedia Interface") are the first industry-supported, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface cable, which basically means they will deliver crystal-clear digital audio and video signals in a single cable. The real benefit of this is that HDMI cables dramatically simplify cabling and really do deliver the highest-quality home cinema experience. The HDMI leads will replace your SCART leads but you do need to have devices that are capable of outputting some form of digital High Definition video signals.

What types of video does HDMI support? HDMI has the capacity to support existing high-definition video formats (720p, 1080i, and even 1080p). It also has the flexibility to support enhanced definition formats such as 480p, as well as standard definition formats such as NTSC or PAL.

What about the new in HDMI version 1.3? Although previous versions of HDMI have had more than enough bandwidth to support all current HDTV formats, HDMI version 1.3 increases its single-link bandwidth to 340MHz (10.2 Gbps) to support the demands of future High Definition display devices. Basically the new standard allows for more data to be sent down the same size cable so you will see a benefit with Higher resolution, Deeper colours and Higher frame rates (less blurring when watching sport for example). The new high-definition DVD formats (HD-DVD and Blu-ray) and game machines (including the Sony PLAYSTATION® 3) will make use of capabilities added in HDMI 1.3.

Aerials - Assuming you are not a Satellite subscriber or on Cable you will need to upgrade your aerial to one that supports the new Ditgital Signals. We have a range of Aerials that will do this including complete installation kits that will give you everything you need in one box.