doing some renovations at home, ive asked the builder to chase out a channel in the wall behind where the tv will go, but its a fair run back to where i expect to house my amp/sky box/apple tv/PS4 etc. i dont really want 4 or 5 hdmi cables, running through it – is anyone using one of those extenders or splitters or any other nifty solution?

I dont run an amp to my tv, but when I was looking in to it I think i was told that all the devices plug in to the amp then a single hdmi from the amp feeds the tv.

I have 2 hdmi and power lead to the tv buried in the wall.

And yo can get really long hdmi leads, like 5+metres.

Right, if you have an AV amp then you can use that as the switch and have a single cable to the TV.

You could run a single cable but as someone who has spent many years cabling up av on exhibition stands everything under the floor or in a wall gets a spare! And a draw wire isn’t a bad idea. I’d also put network cable in, it can be adapted to carry pretty much anything you want with the right boxes at either end.

How long will the run be?

For sure, if I was going to run cables in the wall I’d still want the ability to change cables. I think I’d either live with having a visible conduit (recessed into the wall) or skim a tiny bit of plaster on top so worst case you can still pull the conduit open and polyfil/paint to repair.

Background being the previous owner in our house ran a channel in the wall for his TV, but we don’t have our TV where he had his so there’s a heavy HDMI cable sticking out of the wall that is too thick to pull back through the channel.

Remember you have to run the speaker cables too, one hdmi from amp but 3 speaker cables too , unless you power a speaker bar/unit local to tv with HDMI connection for sound.

Also remember that if you are going 4k you’ll need a 4k pass through enabled amp to be able to plug all your sources into it.
I just got a 4k TV and my amp is old so won’t pass 4k BUT as I can easily plug all the sources into the TV (it’s on a stand) and use the ARC to send the DTS or other sound signal I haven’t had to upgrade but I have 4 HDMIs plugged into the TV.

when I asked my electrician about this he said that he’d run the cables externally and then through the wall to the back of the TV. That way you don’t mess with the internal decoration which, if your wall isn’t dry lined, may well crack around the conduit.
Obvs this depends which wall your TV is on.

thanks for replies. yeah i definitely want to be able to change cables in future, how ong before HDMI is obsolete? network cable is decent shout too.

think i will get them to fit a flexible conduit with brush plates at each end, and for now just get some long ass hdmi cables. run is maybe 3m but there is a change in direction…

I’d put two HDMI 2.1 cables in the wall – use one, other as a backup. Maybe ethernet too if you connect your TV rather than use a streaming box with the rest of your stuff.

As said, if you use an AV receiver / amp then that can do all the switching and audio. The TV just gets switched on and left on one HDMI input. Pretty much any AV receiver you can buy now do proper 4k passthrough, even the cheapest £150 Yamaha that Richer Sounds sell.

fit a flexible conduit with brush plates at each end,

That’s the best solution
if you don’t have an amp at the moment there are loads of HDMI switch boxes, either manual or remote control that will do the job eg first result was a remote 5 port for £22

I used this conduit when we built our house. Not sure it’s the cheapest but was cheap enough not to be worth spending lots of time searching elsewhere.

Can you put it behind the skirting boards? thats what I did with ours and its just taking them off to swap anything out