This may sound weird but I am severely limited in space.
The TV in our family room is located above a fireplace.
I have space to install a center channel just under the TV.
The speakers in the tv are located on the bottom of the unit
and it provides ok sound but it is a pain because I have two
back speakers controlled by a receiver. So everytime I have
to change devices DSS / DVD / VCR I have sound level issues
and it takes two remotes to correct this. I have no room
left or right of the TV for two front speakers. I am not
a sound perfectionist so getting something to work is more
important than having it sound perfect. I considered using
the tv as the center channel (again the sound is ok from it)
but cannot figure out a way to connect it to a receiver.
Someone said it can be connected as the center pre-out.
Many people said don't go down that route instead get a
center channel. Will a center channel be sufficient or
should I just find a way to hook the receiver up to the TV?

aramar wrote:

Is front center channel sufficient?

No, but it beats the heck out of nothing.

This may sound weird but I am severely limited in space.
The TV in our family room is located above a fireplace.
I have space to install a center channel just under the TV.

IMO, this should be done forthwith.

The speakers in the TV are located on the bottom of the unit
and it provides ok sound but it is a pain because I have two
back speakers controlled by a receiver.

The front and back speakers should be controlled by the same entity.

So everytime I have
to change devices DSS / DVD / VCR I have sound level issues
and it takes two remotes to correct this.

Not nice!

I have no room left or right of the TV for two front speakers.

What about elsewhere along the front wall or side walls near the front
walls?

I am not
a sound perfectionist so getting something to work is more
important than having it sound perfect. I considered using
the TV as the center channel (again the sound is ok from it)
but cannot figure out a way to connect it to a receiver.

Ultimately that is probably a good thing. You've already pointed out some
very fundamental problems with this approach.

Someone said it can be connected as the center pre-out.

Perhaps.

Many people said don't go down that route instead get a
center channel.

Easy to agree with. Center channel is also known as mono. Frankly, good mono
is far better than poor stereo. Mono plus surround could work better than it
seems on paper. You probably want to figure out how to mix some sound from
the front into the rear speakers.

You might even get some advantage out of having the front channels feeding
speakers in or towards the rear of the room to enhance the spatial effect.
This is meatball surgery - we're just throwing sound around trying to get
the most pleasing effect. However the basic is there - good mono plus some
kind of spatial effect, beats bad sound and very inconvenient operation.

Will a center channel be sufficient or should I just find a way to hook
the receiver up to the TV?

What's this about "sufficient". You are severely constrained, so the
question at hand is not "sufficient" but "improved". A good center channel
should be an improvement. Take the good that you can find.

About your left and right front situation... Is there a chance that you
could do something kinda Bose-like (wash my mouth out with soap!) and bounce
the left and right channels off the side walls, using speakers mounted under
the TV? To have the required directionality,the speakers would have to be
other than tiny.

What keeps you from putting up other speakers in the front of the room?

Unfortunately I don't have enough space on either wall as the area
next to the TV is all glass shelving and glass doors floor to ceiling.
Beyond that the distance from the TV is too great.

What about using two surround sound speakers side by side under the
TV. Two of these would fit to give me stereo sound instead of mono
from the center channel. Would this be better?

Another option is ceiling installed speakers. I could go that route
and keep the center channel under the TV. I see that Klipsch has
ceiling speakers with directional tweeters (no idea how well this
would work).

aramar wrote:
Unfortunately I don't have enough space on either wall as the area
next to the TV is all glass shelving and glass doors floor to ceiling.
Beyond that the distance from the TV is too great.

What about using two surround sound speakers side by side under the
TV. Two of these would fit to give me stereo sound instead of mono
from the center channel. Would this be better?

When speakers are that close, the sound is mono, regardless. Center channel
speakers tend to be more robust and have directivity that is more optimal
for an application like this one.

Another option is ceiling installed speakers.

That would have some romance to it.

I could go that route
and keep the center channel under the TV.

Agreed.

I see that Klipsch has ceiling speakers with directional tweeters (no
idea how well this
would work).

Ceiling speakers wouldn't have to be restricted to just speakers mounted in
the ceiling. They could be more conventional speakers facing the listeners,
suspended just below the ceiling.