September 6th 2010 Use HDMI Switch to Hook Up Multiple HDMI Devices to an Aged HDTV
Earlier HDTVs tend to include merely 1 or 2 HDMI ports, and this puts the early adopters in a somewhat awkward position today, as there are so various HDMI systems to be plugged in, yet so few HDMI ports available.
In order to connect your multiple HDMI appliances to your HDTV, one of the ways, , is to upgrade to a HDTV which now generally has 4 or more HDMI ports, but that also ends up in significantly lighter weight of your wallet.
A more inexpensive way is to utilize an HDMI switch, which can hook up multiple HDMI devices to your HDTV via a single HDMI port.
What Is an HDMI Switch, and What Does It Do?
An HDMI switch (a.k.a. HDMI switcher, HDMI selector) receives HDMI signals from various HDMI sources and transmits the signals to your HDTV, occupying only 1 HDMI port. It will serve as an agent to receive many HDMI signals for your HDTV, even though your HDTV has just 1 or 2 HDMI port(s).
By using an HDMI switch, you can connect numerous HD sources to your HDTV, such as:
* Blu-Ray 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, HDTV recorder;
* HD camera, or HD Cam recorder;
* Any other products capable of outputting HDMI data.
See How Easily It Works
There are 3-port, 4-port, and 5-port HDMI switches, and those rare ones with even more ports. The most popular and most inexpensive ones (due to mass production) are 3-port HDMI switches.
On a 3-port HDMI switch, you will have 4 HDMI ports: 3 input ports receiving data from 3 of your HDMI sources, and 1 output port sending signals to the HDTV. There is typically a LED light on every input side to display which source is picked.
An HDMI switch usually gives you automatic switching, and allows you to override and manually choose your source; some enhanced HDMI switch can have a remote control to make switching HDMI much simpler.
Automatic HDMI switching
A good HDMI switch should have this automatic switching feature.
When you switch on an HDMI source, the HDMI switch will automatically pick this source. If you decide to switch on another one, the HDMI switch will switch to this second source. If you turn on another, it’ll jump to this third device.
Quite often, this can be intelligent enough to work out just fine and take care of most, if not all, of your switching needs.
Manual HDMI switching
The above-mentioned auto-switching function may not always work when there is one or more HDMI sources “always on”, such as an HD PVR or a satellite network box, which you likely don’t switch off that often, and is, as a result, always turned-on in the background.
If that’s the case, you will must manually select your desired HDMI source.
An HDMI switch with manual overriding function would usually have a button on it, which would allow you to manually choose your preferred HD source by pressing it.
For instance, if the switch is currently on Input 1, your pressing the button once will let you pick Input 2, pressing it again allows you to change to Input 3.
A remote control would be so much more handy when you could just sit back and relax on your sofa, and select whichever input by pressing on the remote, than walking over to the switch and push a button on it.