You can get something that will allow you to put them in a closet or in another room and it extends the reach of the remote control to where you have it stashed. It even goes through the doors on the entertainment center or the closet. Do a search on Amazon and you'll see reviews and different brands. The only drawback is playing DVDs--you would have to go to where you have the player stashed to insert and remove the DVD.

Here is a link that might be useful: Remote Extender

Nadine,
Here is a pic of our set-up. We bought the shelf from IKEA, its the kind that doesn't have any brackets or attachments showing. Since our walls our white, we thought it would sort of "float".

The DVD player sits on the shelf, and DH attached the multi-socket outlet thing on the wall behind the TV. We do not have cable TV so I dont know how big that box is and whether it would also fit on a similar shelf? We still need to find a way to hide the cables.

(We're also not sure about all the photos on that wall - we put them up before the TV was there but now it looks busy. Actually, we put them up in a haste one night at about 2am after a few too many glasses of wine!)

And a long shot of the room (the fireplace looks odd as the chimney pipe is not attached!)

I would think you would need to fish wires through the wall to reach where ever you put the components. I could be wrong though. I would post on the Home Entertainment or Electronics forum to double check.

Behind our TV is an electrical outlet and a cable outlet (the one with the little round cable thing that you screw the cord onto. The tv is plugged into both.
The cable outlet runs into the closet on the left side of the photo. That is where all of our things are hooked up. The cable is screwed into a box, in the closet, which is made for remote sensors. There are "outlets" on the box, which you use to connect your dvd/vcr/satellite/surround sound into.
The remote sensor is installed near the bottom left of the fireplace. But you can also get a sensor that just peeks out from your tv...very small and not noticeable. There is a basic cable wire (very cheap) that runs from the sensor on the wall, into the closet and also plugs into that same box as everything else.
Then there are small sensors that you place on your dvd player/satellite receiver/surround sound. They just stick on the front of them. Now you can control all of your items even though you can't see them, via the remote sensor.
I'm sure this sounds completely confusing, because I'm not good at explaining things like this.
All of our wires do run through the walls, but you can also run them through the attic if you need to, or just do small holes, or even just "hide" the necessary cords.
We have just one cable cord that goes from the box behind the tv into the closet, and then one cable cord that goes from the remote sensor on the wall into the closet. So we only really ran 2 cable cords.
We purchased our supplies from smarthome.com. The whole setup was under $100.

Ah ha...I see. I figured they'd have to still be wired somehow. So it probably won't work with our situation. Wish we would've thought about this before we drywalled the ceiling. We wired for speakers, but didn't give a thought to the rec'r/dvd. Oh well..need to come up with plan B I guess.

I have 3 tv's set up using the same cable box. I keep the cable box in my living room, but by using the X-10 Powermid, I can control my bedroom tv by just pointing at a piramid. So, you can have multiple rooms using the same cable/satellite channel. Alternatively, I have a tv that we just put in the kitchen that is connected to a video distribution center in the attic. It can pull in local channels or just play what's currently on the satellite.

All that being said - I personally feel that a flat screen tv mounted on the wall looks weird with nothing underneath it.

Here is a link that might be useful: X10 Powermid

I would just get a narrow stand to place it on. The cost for that and the wallmount won't be that far off and with a not so deep stand you'll still have more space in the room as well as some storage for movies and such as well.

I wouldn't mount it on the wall if it's gonna drip a cord or two to a stand holding the cable/dvd player. It's a bad look. These are streamlined-looking TVs, and cords just junk them up. I'd get a stand to hold everything.

Do not give up yet.
I have similar set up as robin2007. I was able to run my cable in wall as I was doing a fireplace remodel. But did something similar before that.
Not sure what tvs do this but there is a cable called an HDMI. You plug in tv. You then run the HDMI cable from tv to your receiver. All your components plug into the receiver. So you end up with only one line to your tv. I know several on this site use little transformer things that go on the corner of tv and components. New to me but it does seem to work.
In my situation, the single cable runs down inside the wall, along baseboards, then up into wall a little, coming out the otherside of the wall where my office is located.
I think you can still have tv on your wall with the cable either going to your components hidden in a closet or other room and using a special remote, or to a small cabinet you have in room.
You do not have to be super skilled to do this. If you do not want to run cable through walls (which is not as hard as one tends to think) there is a small plastic cord hider that folks use that runs the cable down the wall a little more descretely.
Keep thinking. Shop wisely for your cable and remote. There are sites online that sell it super cheap compared to regular stores. You will be surprised at how affordable and possible this can be.

Hi, I was needing some help please. Will this remote extender work in my situtation? I am mounting my TV on my wall but don't want to have my cable box and blu ray player in the cabinet below now that I am hanging the TV on the wall. Directly behind my wall that the TV will be mounted is a closet. Would the remote extender work in this case if I put the cable box and blu ray in the closet behind wall? The opening to the closet is in another room, but I would be able to go into my closet to play blu rays if needed? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

We have an hdmi cable routed through the wall into the area where we have a console table set-up. I've also seen people stick the cable box behind the tv brace.

We used to have the cable box behind the tv brace, that worked quite well.

I want to have a tv/ fireplace direct vent installed into a faux wall. However, I don't want any cable lines/ dvd/ stero to be seen. Any suggestion on how that works. I don't even knowwhich cable line I would use to put into my wall and run it down to the crawl space because I don't have cable but want it cable ready incase I chose one day to sell the house.