You’ve brought home a flat screen and would like to mount it on a wall – what do you do? You buy a VESA wall mount, of course. However, the question arises, what is a VESA wall mount? Well, the VESA wall mount, or more specifically the Video Electronics Standards Association wall mount, is usually a metal X-shaped contraption that is used to mount flat screen TVs as well as monitors or PCs. The mount is known as VESA because the standards of the mounts were decided by the Video Electronics Standards Association.

You cannot, however, buy whichever mount you lay your hands on first or else you’ll end up with a fancy wall mount with the wrong dimensions. It is important to know the dimensions of your TV bracket and size of the TV before you can buy a VESA wall mount. You might raise the question, “Why would I need to know the dimensions of the wall mount?” If you don’t, you might end up buying a wall mount that doesn’t fit into the mount holes on your television or PC. To enlighten you on the art of choosing the right wall mount, you can read through the explanation described in detail below.

The VESA standard corresponds to the mount holes built at the back of your flat screen. The variety of VESA dimensions is almost uniform throughout the products of well-known companies such as Sony and LG. There are four holes at the back of the mounts which are screwed into the corresponding holes at the back of the flat screen. These four holes are arranged in the shape of a square. The holes are placed on the four corners of the square wall mount to ensure uniform distribution of the weight. If the holes were close together, the mount wouldn’t be able to bear the weight of the TV.

One important thing that should always be kept in mind is that if the manufacturer of the flat screen has provided you with screws, you will always use those and not the ones that come with the mount. This is to avoid the risk of damaging the back portion of the flat screen TV in any way. Another thing that should be kept in mind is the shape of the TV or monitor. Why is that? It’s mainly so that if you have the kind of TV that is curved in shape, especially around the center, you might want to put a little more thought into buying the right VESA mount.

The Flat Display Mounting Interface measurement, better known as FDMI measurement, is specified by the numbers written on the box of the VESA mount. The numerous variants of dimensions include 75 x 75, 100 x 100, 200 x 100, 200 x 200, 300 x 300 and 400 x 400 amongst many others. In fact, the dimensions can be as big as 800 x 800. All of these dimensions are in millimeters and can be determined by finding out the distance between the holes with the help of a ruler. It goes without saying that the bigger the TV, the bigger the mount’s dimensions. The most popular dimensions are 75 x 75, 100 x 100 and 200 x 200.

Most, if not all, of the FDMI-compliant device manufacturers have the hexagonal VESA logo on their wall mounts to make it easier for customers to identify them. However, some of them may not have this logo, so you can always look up the name of the device manufacturer to make sure of its FDMI compliance.

FDMI is the easy-to-understand version of VESA wall mount dimensions. Alternatively, some manufacturers use the MIS or Mounting Interface Standard to express the dimensions of VESA wall mounts which range from variant B to variant F. These are usually denoted as MIS-B, MIS-C, MIS-D, MIS-E, and MIS-F. In addition to all of that, the mounts differ in a way that they may be center mounts or edge mounts. Some companies just want to make things difficult, right? Well, fear not because after you’ve read through the explanation below, you’ll have become an expert on VESA wall mounts.

In a lot of aspects, variants B through E have a lot of similarities. The holes for the screws are made for standard M4 machine screws. These holes are approximately half a millimeter away from the edge of the mount. There are some differences too between variants B and E; while the MIS-B is majorly available in dimensions of 75 x 75, the MIS-E is available in dimensions of 200 x 100. The clearance area of these mounts should ideally be completely flat.

The Variant F VESA wall mounts have dimensions in multiples of two hundred millimeters such as 200 x 200, 400 x 400, 600 x 600 and 800 x 800. The screws to be used in the mounts are standard M6 and M8 machine screws. There can be a deviation in these screw sizes, which is exemplified by the case of smaller mounts such as the MIS-F 200 x 200, which requires M4 machine screws to fix it up on the wall.

Trying to understand which mount to pick for yourself is not, in any way, rocket science. With a little insight, you can understand what to consider when buying a wall mount and realize what an integral part the dimensions of the VESA wall mount play in this buying decision. It’s imperative that you comprehend what a poorly chosen wall mount could mean for your TV. Now that you’re equipped with everything there is to know about wall mounts, you can buy an appropriate mount with the correct dimensions for your flat screen and enjoy watching TV from an optimal angle. Whether it is a plasma, an LED, or an LCD, there are VESA wall mounts for all.