Earlier HDTVs are likely to include just 1 or 2 HDMI ports, and this puts the early adopters in a slightly awkward position today, as there are so many HDMI appliances to be plugged in, yet so few HDMI ports available.
In order to connect your various HDMI gadgets to your HDTV, one way, , is to upgrade to a new HDTV which now mostly has 4 or more HDMI ports, but that also leads to much, much lighter weight of your wallet.
A more affordable way is to take advantage of an HDMI switch, which can connect multiple HDMI items 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 acts as an agent to accept many HDMI data for your HDTV, even though your HDTV has just 1 or 2 HDMI port(s).
By using an HDMI switch, you can connect multiple HD sources to your HDTV, such as:
* Blu-Ray player, HD-DVD player, DVD player with HDMI output;
* Playstation 3, 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 uncommon ones with more ports. The most frequently used and most budget friendly 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 getting data from 3 of your HDMI sources, and 1 output port sending signals to the HDTV. There is mostly a LED light on each input side to indicate which source is chosen.
An HDMI switch generally offers you automatic switching, and allows you to override and manually select your source; some advanced HDMI switch can have a handy remote control to help make switching HDMI much simpler.
Automatic HDMI switching
A solid HDMI switch need to have this automatic switching function.
Every time you switch on an HDMI source, the HDMI switch will automatically select this source. If you decide to turn on another one, the HDMI switch will switch to this second source. If you switch on another, it’ll jump to this third device.
In most cases, 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 feature may not always work when there is one or more HDMI sources “always on”, such as an HDTV recorder or a satellite network box, which you likely don’t switch off that often, and is, therefore, always turned-on in the background.
In that case, you will need to manually select your desired HDMI source.
An HDMI switch with manual overriding feature would typically have a button on it, which allows you to manually pick your desired HD source by pushing it.
As an illustration, if the switch is now on Input 1, your pressing the button once will let you select Input 2, pressing it again allows you to jump to Input 3.
HDMI switch with remote
A remote control would be so much more convenient when you could just sit back and relax on your sofa, and select whatever input by pushing on the remote, than running over to the switch and press a button on it.
Tags: early adopters, hd camera, hd dvd player, hdmi switch, input ports, satellite dish network