Know The Best Price for HDMI Video Switch
On August 16, 2010 in Technology
An HDMI video switch (a.k.a. HDMI video switcher, HDMI switch box) receives HDMI signal from many HDMI devices and sends the signal from one of these to the HDTV. In this way, it serves as an agent to take numerous HDMI signals for the HDTV, even when your own HDTV has merely one or two HDMI port(s).
You may hook up many different HD devices to your HDTV, such as your own:
* 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;
* All other gizmos that are able to outputting HDMI signal.
For the leisure of connecting many HDMI products, how much should you really spend on an HDMI switch?
A Good Price for An HDMI Video Switch
You can definitely find branded HDMI switches at roughly $250 in a local BestBuy retail outlet, or perhaps $150 if you research prices a little bit. Your own intuition probably instantly tells you this won’t make sense: HDMI switching is such a simple function, why does it need to cost that much? Also, with more and more 42-46 inch HDTVs listed approximately $600-700 nowadays, $150 - $250 undoubtedly would seem to be far too much, we may as well add a few hundred dollars to buy a brand-new HDTV.
Then Why Not Just $20?
Absolutely yes, a person only have to spend $20 on a 3-port HDMI video switch, which will have the job done literally beautifully just like those $250 ones: they’ve got the same benefits like 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 will need more components and cost a little more. A 2×1 HDMI switch, with 2 HDMI inputs and 1 output, will most likely cost around $10-15; and a 5×1 HDMI video switch could cost you for probably $30-40, but not $400.
Do They Actually Perform The Same?
Part of you inside quite possibly keeps telling you that those expensive ones have to have far better audio/video quality, since they can charge so much more, right?
But don’t forget, in the digital environment, it’s either 1 or 0: signals either get transmitted and transmitted in its 100% full quality, or it will get lost with nothing transmitted whatsoever —- absolutely nothing is in between.
The HDMI video switch is not going to convert the data at all, HDMI signal are passed over from the input port to the output port untouched, which would ensure that whatever in the HDMI source is going to be sent to your favorite HDTV like the HDMI source hooks up to your favorite HDTV directly.
This is really the reason why a $20 HDMI video switch will have its HDMI switching job done equally well as $250 ones.