Early HDTVs usually tend to have just 1 or 2 HDMI ports, and this puts the early adopters in a slightly awkward position today, as there are so many HDMI gadgets to be plugged in, yet so few HDMI ports available.
In order to connect your various HDMI systems to your HDTV, one way, obviously, is to upgrade to a HDTV which now most likely has 4 or more HDMI ports, but that also results in significantly lighter weight of your wallet.
A more affordable way is to utilize an HDMI switch, which can hook up various HDMI gizmos 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) obtains HDMI signals from several HDMI sources and sends the data to your HDTV, occupying only 1 HDMI port. It acts as an agent to take multiple HDMI signals for your HDTV, despite that your HDTV has only 1 or 2 HDMI port(s).
Using an HDMI switch, you can hook up various 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 equipment 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 frequently used and most budget friendly ones (due to mass production) are 3-port HDMI switches.
On a 3-port HDMI switch, you will see 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 generally a LED light on every input side to show which source is selected.
An HDMI switch generally offers automatic switching, and allows you to override and manually pick your source; some enhanced HDMI switch can have a handy remote control to help make switching HDMI much simplier and easier.
Automatic HDMI switching
A great HDMI switch will have to have this automatic switching feature.
Once you turn 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 that second source. If you turn on another, it’ll jump to this third device.
In most instances, 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 very 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 need to manually choose your desired HDMI source.
An HDMI switch with manual overriding feature would probably have a button on it, which will let you to manually pick your desired HD source by pressing it.
For example, if the switch is now on Input 1, your pressing the button once will let you select Input 2, pushing it again allows you to change to Input 3.
HDMI switch with remote
A remote control would be a lot more handy when you could just sit back and relax on your couch, and select whichever input by pressing on the remote control, than running over to the switch and push a button on it.