wrocki
Novice Member
I’ve seen similar questions on the forum before but they were a few years ago and technology may or may not have moved on.
I’m replacing a TV in a flat which is wall-mounted, and all wiring is inside the wall.
The problem is there is no aerial cable in the wall. Only mains power, HDMI and SCART but both of the latter are now damaged.
The other end of the HDMI and SCART cables come out at skirting level in an alcove about 1.5m below and 2m to one side of the tv end on the wall and right next to a wall plate with live Sat and TV sockets next to a 13A power socket. Although both ends of the cable come out of the wall through a box about 70mm square with brushes around all four sides, between there they seem to be buried in the plaster rather than in conduit since there’s no movement pulling on either end of either cable. Either that or the conduit has too many angles in it to pull through.
The signal for the old TV ran from a Sky box connected by the HDMI lead but the TV end of that is now broken off. The SCART is similarly damaged but at the other end.
The new TV is a Hisense Roku R50A7200GTUK but, unlike the app on my Android smartphone the Freeview Play app installed on the smart TV needs an aerial connection to play live TV from a Freeview EPG.
The flat is used for holiday lets and needs to have straightforward access to the regular terrestrial tv channels preferably from an EPG like the Freeview one.
My understanding from googling is that neither of the old SCART or HDMI cables can be used to carry a tv signal so my options seem to be:
I’m replacing a TV in a flat which is wall-mounted, and all wiring is inside the wall.
The problem is there is no aerial cable in the wall. Only mains power, HDMI and SCART but both of the latter are now damaged.
The other end of the HDMI and SCART cables come out at skirting level in an alcove about 1.5m below and 2m to one side of the tv end on the wall and right next to a wall plate with live Sat and TV sockets next to a 13A power socket. Although both ends of the cable come out of the wall through a box about 70mm square with brushes around all four sides, between there they seem to be buried in the plaster rather than in conduit since there’s no movement pulling on either end of either cable. Either that or the conduit has too many angles in it to pull through.
The signal for the old TV ran from a Sky box connected by the HDMI lead but the TV end of that is now broken off. The SCART is similarly damaged but at the other end.
The new TV is a Hisense Roku R50A7200GTUK but, unlike the app on my Android smartphone the Freeview Play app installed on the smart TV needs an aerial connection to play live TV from a Freeview EPG.
The flat is used for holiday lets and needs to have straightforward access to the regular terrestrial tv channels preferably from an EPG like the Freeview one.
My understanding from googling is that neither of the old SCART or HDMI cables can be used to carry a tv signal so my options seem to be:
- Run a 3 or 4m length of white RG6 from the alcove along the floor and up the wall to the tv. It works fine but looks bad now and would need to be secured with cable clips or conduit to be safe which would look even worse.
- Get the broken end of the HDMI lead repaired and connect a cheap Freeview or the old Sky box to an HDMI input on the Hisense TV renamed to TV and hide the ‘Live TV’ icon on its menu. My understanding is that repairs to HDMI cable are not easy.
- Get something like a Chromecast or Firestick that can cast output from a Freeview Play app to an HDMI port on the Hisense TV.
- Buy a different TV that has a native Freeview Play app or other access to live terrestrial tv through an EPG. Do any of the latest Android or LG TVs have that? When I bought the Hisense I didn’t realise there wasn’t an aerial lead in the wall.
- Chase out a channel in the wall and bury new leads but the flat has only just been redecorated.