An HDMI video switch (a.k.a. HDMI video switcher, HDMI switch box) gets HDMI data from many HDMI devices and sends the signal from one of these to your HDTV. In this way, it will serve as an agent to receive many HDMI signal for the HDTV, even when your HDTV has merely 1 or 2 HDMI port(s).
You’ll be able to connect multiple HD devices to your own HDTV, which will include your favorite:
* Blu-Ray player, HDDVD player, DVD player with HDMI output;
* Playstation 3, Xbox360, Wii with HDMI output;
* HTPC, or computers with HDMI ports;
* HDTV box, satellite dish network, HD PVR;
* HD camera, or HD cam recorder;
* All other products that are able to outputting HDMI signals.
For the easiness of connecting many HDMI devices, how much money should you really spend on an HDMI switch?
A Good Price for An HDMI Video Switch
You might find branded HDMI switches at about $250 in a neighboring BestBuy retail outlet, or perhaps $150 if you shop around a little bit. Your own feelings probably quickly tells you this doesn’t sound right: HDMI switching is such a simple feature, why does it need to cost you that much? And don’t forget, with plenty 42-46 ” HDTVs priced approximately $600-700 at the moment, $150 – $250 surely does sound to be too much, we might as well add a couple of hundred bucks to own a completely new HDTV.
How About Just $20?
Yes, you will only need to pay $20 on a 3-port HDMI video switch, which will have the job done literally beautifully just like those $250 ones: they’ve got precisely the same benefits such as support for 1080P FullHD, DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, Linear PCM (LPCM), intelligent and manual HDMI switching, HDMI v1.3b and HDCP pass-through.
Number of Ports Matter. More ports use more materials and cost a little more. A 2×1 HDMI switch, with 2 HDMI inputs and 1 output, could cost about $10-15; whereas a 5×1 HDMI video switch could set you back for probably $30-40, but not $400.
Do They Literally Function The Same?
Part of you inside perhaps keeps telling you those highly-priced ones have to have superior audio/video quality, simply because they cost much more, right?
However, in the digital universe, it’s either 1 or 0: signals either get transmitted and transmitted in its 100% full quality, or it’ll get lost with nothing transmitted whatsoever —- nothing in between.
The HDMI video switch isn’t going to change the signals at all, HDMI data are passed over from the input port to the output port untouched, and this guarantees that everything in the HDMI source will be sent to the HDTV as if the HDMI source hooks up to your own HDTV directly.
This is precisely the key reason why a $20 HDMI video switch will have its HDMI switching job done equally well as $250 ones.
Tags:
hd camera,
hddvd player,
linear pcm,
satellite dish network