New project for home cinema. PLEASE HELP!!

[fishox2005]

Hi all,
I have a Samsung LE46M87 LCD tv connected to sky through my sky + box. At the moment it is sat on a crappy stand in the corner of my large living room. I would like to place my tv centrally on my largest wall which is solid breeze block with plaster board dabbed on.
I have a new solid wood media unit on the way which will go in the corner where the tv is at the moment. Can any one advise me the best way of putting the tv on the wall which will be about 8 feet from the unit and connect to the sky box in the media unit? Do i need extra long scart leads etc..?? How do i hide them?? ( channel out a groove and plaster back over perhaps??) Also i want a blue ray player which will give me surround sound. Can a playstation 3 do this?? As i could kill 2 birds with one stone that way. I was also thinking of upgrading to sky+HD to make full use of my1080HP tv. Should i do this before i put my tv on the wall?? What other wires etc... will i need to achieve the best results??
Would anyone help a learner on the right road in achieving his dream living room!!
Many thanks to anyone who can help.
Fishox

[MarkP80]

Hi Fishox,

I'll get the ball rolling -

Can any one advise me the best way of putting the tv on the wall

- Well, you'll need a wall bracket to begin with! There's a lot of threads on here about mounting these, so do a quick search.

which will be about 8 feet from the unit and connect to the sky box in the media unit? Do i need extra long scart leads etc..?? How do i hide them?? ( channel out a groove and plaster back over perhaps??)

- Yes, I would recommend you make a channel in your plasterboard and bury the cables. I have a non-HD cable box, so I needed a scart connection. I buried this, but went for a flat ribbon-tyoe connector, rather than a fat cable, I personally find these easier to manipulate and hide.

I was also thinking of upgrading to sky+HD to make full use of my1080HP tv. Should i do this before i put my tv on the wall?? What other wires etc... will i need to achieve the best results??

- Well, for this you'll need an HDMI cable. Most things connect with these, these days, so you really need to put one in, in fact I'd put two in. I'm not sure the SkyHD box outputs sound over HDMI, so you may need to connect the box up to your amp (not sure though, someone will need to confirm).
You'll also need to put a power supply in for the tv. When I did mine, I put this in a separate channel, just to keep the cable away from the signal cables, to make sure there was no interference.

Also i want a blue ray player which will give me surround sound. Can a playstation 3 do this??

- It most certainly can. I use a PS3 to play normal DVDs as well as BluRay and it does a great job at upscaling. This will connect using that second HDMI cable. For non-cinema style viewing the PS3 outputs sound over the HDMI cable to the TVs speakers. For surround sound the PS3 outputs via an optical connection straight into your cinema amp. I also find the PS3 useful for storing photos for viewing as slideshows on the TV, and I have music stored on it in MP3 format to play via the amp - great bit of kit, I think.

Hope that helps for now,
MarkP