Topic: Dear Nintendo: My Body is Ready... and so is my Entertainment Center...

[UncleBob]

In my continued series of threads where I post letters to Nintendo that they'll never see but I like to pretend they do, I would like to start off with this photo.



So, I've gotten this new TV.  Officially, it's because the TV is awesome.  Unofficially, I had planned on spending this week redoing my entertainment set-up in anticipation of finding a place for my forthcoming Wii U (only one penny left to pay on it!).  Since I was doing it all anyway and our old TV is acting up, seemed like a good time to buy a new one.

So, here I am after the first step.  Everything is disconnected and here's the pile of cables left over.

This is what you've made my life, Nintendo.

My wife, who's never really been involved with this process before (but she wanted to help so we could get the TV up and running.  By the way, it's running, but it's not up yet.) is such a sweet heart.  She got to do a bunch of the untangling.  How come, no matter how much effort I put into making all the cables look nice and run cleanly, whenever I take it all down, I end up with something that looks like Tangela?

Anyway, back to my wife.  You know the TV show Hoarders?  Sometimes, they bring in family members who haven't been in the house (or haven't been in it in a long time) and they have this look of complete disbelief on their faces because they just never realized?

Yeah.

Anyway - she has to run to Evansville for some catering stuff and I had to send her to Best Buy for another cable.  This TV has a pretty silly cable situation.  If you're mounting it flush to the wall, the regular component/composite ports are pretty much useless.  The jacks stick out too far and such.  Sadface.  There are some "mini-jacks" on the bottom that you can use, but I only have one mini-jack-to-RCA adapter and I need two.

Next up, once I get the basic cables plugged into the TV and it's hanging, I plan to move all of my components back into the room make another photo.  We're also getting another media component center that should work well to set under the TV (the other two I have are towers that will plank the TV on each side).  I think that'll be spectacular for getting it all going.

[MrPhishfood]

Exactly what are you going to connect to your TV?

Even with my PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii connected I don't think my cable situation is that messed up.

[ShyGuy]

Why don't you put the old TV in spare bedroom and hookup half you collection in there?

[UncleBob]

Exactly what are you going to connect to your TV?
Even with my PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii connected I don't think my cable situation is that messed up.

Previously, my set-up consisted of three TVs, Satt/DVR Box, VCR, Blu-Ray, 5-Disc DVD/Surround Sound, my PC, an Intellivision, 2 NES systems, 2 SNES Systems, a Nintendo 64, five GameCubes (one with a monitor), three Wiis and three switch boxes that allowed me to virtually play any system onto any of the TVs (give or take).

I'm going to trim that down a bit this time - two of the GCNs are going to get shelved.  The Blu-Ray player is getting swapped out with a 3D Player.  And I'm going to ditch the entire "everything on any TV" set up.  Until I luck unto a great deal on an 8x4 or 10x4 switch matrix, it's just too many wires and it's honestly not something I use often.  I'll probably put one NES/SNES on each smaller TV and both to the larger TV.  The N64 will probably only go to one small TV and the main screen.  Each GameCube will go to one TV alone and the same with each Wii.  The Wii U will, likely, only go to the main screen (can I somehow hook up both HDMI and composite?  If so, I *might* share it with another screen).

With the center media console storage coming in, I think I'll pretty much be set on how I get it all shared/split that will take care of a lot of cables.

Why don't you put the old TV in spare bedroom and hookup half you collection in there?

The old TV is going into our bedroom (replacing a 27" tube TV that only has coax input), but I think the Blu Ray player will be the only thing going in there (aside from feed from the Satt/DVR box).

[Ceric]

I hook everything to a receiver and then the Receiver to the TV because of port situations in this vein.

I often ask why my cables are tangled like that but I know what the answer is to keep them from that.  Its to get an organizer of some sort that keeps them spaced.  I've seen and AT-AT one that is pretty cool.  Not practical in my situation but I wonder if toe separators would work...

On the Wii U I don't see any reason why you couldn't hook both of the inputs up since they use different ports on the machine but, you might have to change the output on the console itself to swap them.

[BranDonk Kong]

The problem lies within the fact that you are bat-**** crazy, UB.

[NWR_insanolord]

I have to agree with Brandogg on this one. Though I really would like to see the result of hooking up an Intellivision to an 84 inch HDTV.

[UncleBob]

65".  And it'll be AWESOME.

[Ceric]

65".  And it'll be AWESOME.

Pixels as BIG as my Head.

[Mop it up]

What's the resolution of an Intellivision? You ain't smoothing out those jaggies...

[MrPhishfood]

This is extremely mega crazy. Good thing you're already married, if I had a set up like that I would never show it to any girl I'm interested in.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I know I'm too late on this but

DO NOT BUY ANY CABLES AT BEST BUY

go to:
www.monoprice.com
^everything you would find at Best Buy and more for FAR FAR LESS, even after tax and shipping.

[UncleBob]

I am a fan of Monoprice - but since I tend to not know what cable I'm needing until I'm hooking something crazy up, I usually need my cable right *now*.  Unless Monoprice starts a same hour delivery service, they're not too much help to me...

[Louieturkey]

I am a fan of Monoprice - but since I tend to not know what cable I'm needing until I'm hooking something crazy up, I usually need my cable right *now*.  Unless Monoprice starts a same hour delivery service, they're not too much help to me...

Just do what I do.  Go to Monoprice and buy a ton of extra cables.  That way, you'll never have to go to BB the day of hook up because you bought everything you could possibly need ahead of time for about the same price as buying the one cable required at the time and you can be the guy who can help a friend in need as well.

[NWR_insanolord]

Speaking of cables, the Wii U comes with an HDMI cable, right? Or do I need to order one now to have it in time?

[Caliban]

Speaking of cables, the Wii U comes with an HDMI cable, right? Or do I need to order one now to have it in time?

Was that a jab at Sony's HD console...

[Louieturkey]

Speaking of cables, the Wii U comes with an HDMI cable, right? Or do I need to order one now to have it in time?

Yes, it comes with one.

[NWR_insanolord]

Speaking of cables, the Wii U comes with an HDMI cable, right? Or do I need to order one now to have it in time?

Was that a jab at Sony's HD console...

No, it was a serious question. I wanted to make sure I didn't need to provide one, and I would have ordered one off Amazon if I did since they're almost as cheap as Monoprice and I have Amazon Prime so I'd get it in time for Sunday.

[Caliban]

Speaking of cables, the Wii U comes with an HDMI cable, right? Or do I need to order one now to have it in time?

Was that a jab at Sony's HD console...

No, it was a serious question. I wanted to make sure I didn't need to provide one, and I would have ordered one off Amazon if I did since they're almost as cheap as Monoprice and I have Amazon Prime so I'd get it in time for Sunday.

I did LOL... In case you haven't noticed, several other media outlets have done a video on unboxing the Wii U box.

[Ian Sane]

I relate to that big cable mess.  Remember in school when two different teachers would assign major assignments around the same time?  I always hated that.  It was like the teacher assumed that their class was the only one I took so all my free time could be allocated to their assignments.  Electronics are the same way.  They all have their cords and all assume that THEY are the only piece of electronics you're going to ever use.  Hell, for most of my life TVs only ever had one A/V port and the electrical outlets in my house are assuming I'm only going to put a TV and a VCR into that corner.

I recently did a big TV switcheroo myself and it was a huge hassle.  My old setup was an old CRT upstairs and a newer bigger CRT downstairs.  Upstairs TV was for the NES, SNES and Genesis, though that TV only had one A/V input so I bought a switch to connect all those systems to.  Downstairs TV had three inputs which consisted of DVD player, Wii, and the PS2 & PS3 sharing a common cord that remained connected to the TV but had to be swapped to the different system depending on what was being used.  A few months back my friend moved into an appartment that came with TVs so he gave me his old HDTV.  That HDTV sat in a empty spot of my bedroom for a few months as I dreaded the task of swapping TVs around.

However my upstairs TV died.  So I moved the downstairs TV upstairs where it houses the retro systems and the PS2 and the HD is now downstairs with the new PVR I got, DVD player, Wii and PS3.  Of course moving everything around was a huge pain in the ass.  Each corner has only one outlet so every TV had a bunch of powerbars behind it, along with the numerous cables coming in and out of everywhere

It would be nice if that was that but life just doesn't like harmony.  A few days ago my PVR would just not turn on.  So I unplugged it and it reset and was fine.  But that was not an easy task.  Crawling around the TV to access the plug AND determine what is connected to what was such an ordeal I ended just unplugging EVERYTHING and plugging it back in.  These setups just don't allow for easy maintenance.

The upstairs TV had it's share of chaos as well.  My brothers and I are filming a movie and there is a fight scene that we decided to film in my living room.  So all the videogame systems had to be moved so they don't appear on film.  But we also decided to take the old broken TV, hollow it out, and have a part where one guys drops a TV on his opponent during the fight.  So the real TV had to go out and the prop TV in it's place so pretty much all the work to hook everything up had to be undone and redone like two weeks after the initial job.  The real TV is back up but I have yet to hook up my old systems.  The problem with them is they're for the most part top loading so you can't put them in a shelf AND they all have corded controllers which take up tons of room and get all tangled up.  The move to cordless controllers this last gen was a godsend.

Whoever events wireless electricity is the next billionaire.  Not only would that remove all this annoying cord tangling but it would benefit today's smartphones and such that have piss battery life compared to what we had in the past.

Oh and I replaced my PC recently so there was another cord switcheroo to get my printer, mouse, keyboard, monitor, etc. to the new PC.  And I'm a musician and setting up band equipment is another cord tangle disaster.  My life would be so much easier if my interests didn't all involve lots of electricity.

[Louieturkey]

Ian, my suggestion is to invest in a label maker so you can label all of your cords on each end and even label the different inputs on each tv and power strip.  That way, if and when you need to unhook and rehook everything up, you won't have to worry about what goes where because it is already labeled.

[UncleBob]

...mostly.

There are still some tweaks.  I'd like to get some of that wrap-around tubing for some of the cables.  I'd also really like to replace the 13" CRT TVs with some flat panels, but my wife thinks we've already spent too much money on TVs this month.

I'm also still waiting for my new sensor "bar" that's USB powered...

So, here's the set-up.

On each side tower is an NES, SNES, N64, GameCube and Wii.  Each of these are connected to the 13" CRT up top.  The left tower also stores my Dish receiver/DVR.  That'll probably change soon, as I don't have HD service... which is just silly at this point.  The one on the right has a VCR which, at this point, is mostly used as an RF Modulator, as that TV only has a coax input.

Now, the Dish Network box goes to both side TVs.  It's a dual tuner, so each box can have a different channel, if I really wanted.

There's an Intellivision in the center cabinet that that goes out to the TV on the right via the Coax.

Additionally, whatever is on either TV is sent to the switch box in the center as well.

Now, on the center TV - 65" 3D.  The Panasonic Q and my white Wii is hooked up via component.  In the cabinet below is my main switch box, 5-disc DVD/Surround Sound (which the surround sound part isn't hooked up yet - I have to re-run the speaker wire as it's too short to reach its new home) my PC and my new 3D Blu-Ray player.

The three GameCubes are networked with a dedicated 8-port hub - which would allow me to pull out my other three 'cubes that have Broadband adapters, should I have company over and they bring a TV.

Thanks to the most recent Wii Update, I can now watch Netflix, Hulu or Youtube via any of my three Wiis, my Blu-Ray, my PC and directly on my TV.

Yay.

20 1/2 hours...

[MrPhishfood]

OMG A PANASONIC Q!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and like 3 wavebirds!

I as a budding teen with no money this was the holy grail.

[Caliban]

I think your setup, UncleBob, looks great despite the known cacophony of cables.

Wait, so where's the Wii U going to be set up?

[EasyCure]

OMG A PANASONIC Q!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and like 3 wavebirds!

I as a budding teen with no money this was the holy grail.

I know right!

If he wasn't already married...