A/V Question...need help

My new mountain house has a place to put a flat panel TV above the fireplace. Just below the mounting bracket are two outlets, one for cable and phone/CAT5 and one for power. I know there are wires installed in the ceiling for two sets of speakers, and wire in the back of the room for a subwoofer. In a nearby closet the wires exit as this is where the prior owner was to have placed his A/V equipment. My question is: How does sound get from the TV to the speakers? Do I have to use the coaxial cable wire to transmit sound to an amplifier? This is the only way I can see that it would be done. I have purcahsed a Samsung HD Blu Ray player with built in Wi-Fi adapter as I like to watch movies streamed from Netflix. Thoughts?

 

The sound for the speakers shouldn’t come from your TV; it should come from the cable/satellite box. Basically, you take whatever source your using (satellite box, dvd player, blu-ray player) and use either the analog (least desirable) outputs on the back of it or the digital outputs (preferable) and route these to either an A/V receiver or an A/V preamp. Please don’t route coax cable from a high quality source to your new HD display. Things like this make baby Jesus cry.

 

I'm afraid the prior owner did this.

 

There's a possibility that he just used the connection underneath the TV to run the coax to a cable/sattelite box.

 

I don't plan on using cable or sattelite. I get 14 HD stations via rabbit ears! Why couldn't I just run the coax into a good high end receiver instead of a cable/sat box? It's been too many years since my stereo set up days and the technology has improved considerably.

 

If that's the case, then yes you'll have to run a RCA or digital (if your tv has one) cable from your tv to a receiver or preamp if you want to use speakers other than those standard on your tv. At least this is the case for over the air TV.

 

If I just want to watch movies over Netflix (wirelessly sent from my router), I can just hook the Samsung DVD/Netflix player up to a receiver, correct? Then run the coax from the DVD player to my TV? The speaker wires are where the receiver will be......

 

Please don't run coax from the Samsung to your TV. Instead, run a HDMI cable to your receiver and then run a HDMI cable from your receiver to the TV.

 

I know, but I can't. I think the prior owner wired it badly. The HDMI cable would need to be 50 feet long.....

 

IMHO, I'd still use HDMI cable. Read this for info on longer cable runs: http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/how-long-can-hdmi-run.htm


It would be a shame to buy a blu-ray player and not be able to get a HD signal to your HDTV.