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Post by Skaggs on Jan 20, 2009 11:08:25 GMT -5
Does anyone have experience with HDMI switches?
Brand & model number will help.
I was contemplating mounting my HDTV on my wall and don't want to run multiple HDMI cables to the HDTV.
My current receiver does not do HDMI switching, although upgrading my receiver may be a possibility, too.
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Post by crashrooks on Jan 20, 2009 11:37:12 GMT -5
Funny you should post this...I was just reading another forum and someone asked the same question. I have no experience with HDMI switches at all...but here is what someone suggested on the other forum. www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=HDMI-31 |
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Post by bruces on Jan 20, 2009 18:50:08 GMT -5
Since I got an A/V receiver with built in switching, I have one I am no longer using.
The HDMI switch is a model #HS-41A0, with 4 inputs, 1 output and an IR controller.
If I remember correctly, I originally got it from monoprice.
While I was using it, I had my Harmony 880 set up so the switch changed to the correct input for each of my activities. It worked very well.
You are welcome to it Skaggs. You have certainly been enough help to me and everyone else on this forum to deserve an occasional reward.
If you are interested, send me a PM so we can arrange for you to pick it up.
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Post by Skaggs on Jan 20, 2009 19:23:35 GMT -5
bruces: Thank you very much for the kind offer. However, I ordered a combined HDMI & optical audio switch this afternoon. My situation is this: I have a very good (but older) audio amplifier that only accepts component video inputs. I have 4 video devides that use HDMI and only 2 HDMI ports on my HDTV. Since I'm moving my HDTV from a stand mount to a wall mount, I don't want to fish two 35' HDMI cables and two 35' component cables through the wall. My audio amplifier also does not have enough toslink digital audio inputs for all of my devices, so I went for the Octava 5 X 2 HDMI Distribution Amp with Digital Optical AudioI did find many other HDMI switches (almost bought one from monoprice), but not one that would also take the audio from all the HDMI signal inputs and output it through one toslink cable. This switch will also handle an additional display that I hope someday will be my projector.  I have a Harmony 890 remote and will be using it's RF capabilities to control all my audio & video devices, which will be stored in a cabinet in the corner of the room. |
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Post by UsualNoise on Jan 22, 2009 15:00:50 GMT -5
At some point you'll probably want to upgrade to a receiver that does HDMI switching. It's certainly easier to manage everything with that setup, and you have the added capability of receiving HD audio over HDMI should you ever need to (e.g. Blu-ray / HD-DVD). But I understand upgrading a receiver is not an easy task money-wise or setup / configuration-wise.
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Post by xzi on Jan 22, 2009 15:12:10 GMT -5
At some point you'll probably want to upgrade to a receiver that does HDMI switching. It's certainly easier to manage everything with that setup, and you have the added capability of receiving HD audio over HDMI should you ever need to (e.g. Blu-ray / HD-DVD). But I understand upgrading a receiver is not an easy task money-wise or setup / configuration-wise. I went a much cheaper route-- if you keep your old receiver, get a cheap HDMI switcher and a Logitech Harmony remote, you'll never care about what settings they all need to be on ever again. For Blu-Ray I just made sure to get a model with built-in decoding and used the 7.1 analog inputs on the older receiver and now I even get advanced CODEC support, too. |
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Post by xzi on Jan 22, 2009 15:14:03 GMT -5
I have a Harmony 890 remote and will be using it's RF capabilities to control all my audio & video devices, which will be stored in a cabinet in the corner of the room. This is my exact setup too, it's awesome. My equipment is all in a closet in another room, even. |
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Post by UsualNoise on Jan 22, 2009 15:22:25 GMT -5
I went a much cheaper route-- if you keep your old receiver, get a cheap HDMI switcher and a Logitech Harmony remote, you'll never care about what settings they all need to be on ever again. For Blu-Ray I just made sure to get a model with built-in decoding and used the 7.1 analog inputs on the older receiver and now I even get advanced CODEC support, too. Yep, that works too. I had a PS3, so upgrading the receiver was simplest for me. I ended up with a Denon 3808CI which is a fantastic unit. I control everything with my MX-500 remote (paired with a USB-IR adapter for the PS3) so everything plays nicely together. I did go the 7.1 analog route with the Blu-ray player I bought for my mom. Samsung BDP-2500, works great and streams Netflix. |
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Post by Skaggs on Feb 10, 2009 11:03:36 GMT -5
FYI... If that Octava switch did as the documentation said, it would have been a great device. However, I initially could not get audio out of the toslink output. An email to Octava and they responded to swap out two of the chips in the unit (these chips were included with the original package). I thought it was kind of strange that they would want customers to open the device and swap out chips, but I did it once they confirmed it would not invalidate my warranty. I got audio out of the toslink output after the chip swap, but other issues developed. Everytime I switched channels the screen would go blank for 2-3 seconds, the video would appear for 2 seconds with no sound, then the screen would go blank again before the video appeared with sound. This became very annoying. Another problem developed after a few days when I lost audio again. I determined it was the switch when I removed the toslink cable from the back of the switch, inserted it into a source (tivo) and 5.1 digital sound came through the audio amplifier. Apparently, they haven't worked out all the kinks when the switch is taking the digital audio from the HDMI and sending it out via toslink. I emailed Octava and they responded that the blank screen issue was the HDCP handshaking. I explained that if I remove the switch between the video source and HDTV, the blank screen & audio dropouts don't happen. They didn't reply. Also in my email, I inquired if there was a fix for the occassional missing audio. Never got an answer from them. I emailed again asking for an answer and also told them their $300 HDMI distribution box / switch was behaving like a 50 cent piece of garbage. They said they wanted me to be satisfied and reminded me of their 30 day return policy. I decided to take them up on that offer. I ordered a 4x1 HDMI switch from monoprice for $29.94 on Thursday, February 5th. On Monday, February 9th, I received the switch. I installed it last night and it works fantastic. It does not have the blank screen issue when changing channels that Octava told me was the HDCP handshake. (The blank screen does appear when switching HDMI inputs). In the past few months, I have purchased many items from monoprice.com and have been extremely satisfied with their customer service and quality of product. While I was looking for a 5x1 switch, monoprice has one in development but not yet ready for purchase. I thought I would swallow the $30 for the 4x1 switch and pocket the $300 for the 5x2 Octava switch while waiting for monoprice's 5x1 switch to be released. Since I only have 3 toslink inputs on my receiver, I had to use the digital audio via RCA from the TWC 8300. Maybe I'll just upgrade my receiver instead of buying a bigger switch. |
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Post by bruces on Feb 11, 2009 10:13:54 GMT -5
It is interesting how often a cheaper piece of equipment works better than an expensive one.
Of course, the more expensive the equipment is likely to be a new design where they have not had time to work out all the bugs yet.
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