Buy Budget-Friendly HDMI Switcher

On September 06, 2010 in Uncategorized

An HDMI video switch (a.k.a. HDMI video switcher, HDMI switch box) takes HDMI data from several HDMI devices and sends the data from one of them to your own HDTV. In such a manner, it acts as an agent to receive several HDMI signals for your own HDTV, even if the HDTV has only 1 or 2 HDMI port(s).

You may hook up several HD sources to your HDTV, which include your favorite:

* BluRay player, HD-DVD player, DVD player with HDMI output;
* PS3, Xbox360, Wii with HDMI output;
* HTPC, or computers with HDMI ports;
* HDTV box, satellite dish network, HD PVR;
* HD camera, or HD cam recorder;
* Any other electronics which are able to outputting HDMI signal.

For the value of connecting many HDMI electronics, how much money should you really invest on an HDMI switch?

A Good Price for An HDMI Video Switch

You may find branded HDMI switches at around $250 in a nearest BestBuy retail store, or perhaps $150 if you research prices a little bit. Your own instinct certainly immediately tells you this won’t add up: HDMI switching is such a straightforward functionality, so why does it have to cost you that much? Also, with a wide selection of 42-46 ” HDTVs priced somewhere around $600-700 these days, $150 - $250 in fact would seem to be too much, we might as well add a few hundred bucks to get a fresh new HDTV.

How About Just $20?

Indeed, buyers only really have to spend $20 on a 3-port HDMI video switch, which will have the task done literally perfectly just like those $250 ones: they’ve got the same goodies such as support for 1080P FullHD, DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, Linear PCM (LPCM), automated and manual HDMI switching, HDMI v1.3b and HDCP pass-through.

Number of Ports Matter. More ports demand more components and cost a little more. A 2×1 HDMI switch, with 2 HDMI inputs and 1 output, will cost about $10-15; whereas a 5×1 HDMI video switch could cost you for probably $30-40, but not $400.

Do They Really Work The Same?

Part of you inside quite possibly keeps telling you that those expensive ones have to have much better audio/video quality, because they cost a lot more, right?

However, in the digital environment, 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 at all —- absolutely nothing is in between.

The HDMI video switch is not going to convert the signal at all, HDMI data are handed over from the input port to the output port untouched, and this makes sure that whatever in the HDMI source is going to be sent to your own HDTV just as if the HDMI source connects to your own HDTV directly.

This is precisely why a $20 HDMI video switch will have its HDMI switching job done equally well as $250 ones.

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