Audio/Videophiles, need a reliable HDMI switcher

Bronco

Bronco

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Okay, here's the deal. I need to connect a new Sony Blu Ray/DVD player (BDP-S570) to a 1080i Philips LCD HDTV with a few years under its belt. As fate would have it, the TV only has one HDMI connection that could hardly be more inaccessible and is already filled by the input from the DirectTV HD DVR. Thus it would appear that an HDMI switcher is in our future.

I started to do some online research today, and wow, what a mess. Not surprisingly, the A/V enthusiast sites are all too eager to recommend units costing anywhere from $350 to $600. Amazon, on the other hand, features countless switchers in the $20 to $120 range, but even the highest rated of these have 20 horrible reviews for every 60 good ones. My brain is filled with HDMI 1.3 and HDCP 2.0 incompatibility and non-compliance issues. Uuuuugggghhh.

I got excited for half a second when I discovered the Oppo HM-31. It's reasonably priced, the highest rated switcher on Cnet and you could hardly find a less than glowing consumer review online. And, of course, it's been discontinued with no replacement. Great.

So, what say the BFC experts? There are no home theater or integrated audio components to complicate the issue. Three ports would probably be sufficient, but five is fine as well. The highest priorities should be placed on reliability and compatibility. It'd be nice if we could keep the price around or under $100, but if there's some major crap/quality threshold that's north of that figure, I'm willing to listen.
 
I'm no pro and I wouldn't make a recommendation except for the fact that there are no other replies.

Having said that, in a previous live I worked for a high end home AV company as the telephone / network installer. They used Gefen switchers with mostly positive results. They installed crap sometimes so YMMV.
 
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HDMI is a nasty animal, Bronco. It does not like to be split, switched, or handled like analog. There are some technical reasons why: primarily, the signal contains embedded copy protection (HDCP) that is very good at detecting what is being done to it.

As a result, there are two types of HDMI switchers: cheap ones that try to cheat the rules, and as a result either work very poorly or have a painfully long delay between switching (and I'm talking 10 seconds), or pricey ones that deliver a clean, untarnished signal.

Remember: a lot of cheaper HDMI gear downgrades the signal, converts it to analog, does what you need it to do, and then reconverts it back to a digital signal--which results in a lot of lost fidelity. That's sadly one of the reasons most terrestrial high def signals wind up arriving at 720p at your TV set, and you wind up with video quality about as good as a DVD and no more.

I'm not sure what you'll get for $100 or less--but I hate to say it, the odds favor "crap."
 
Thanks for the input, guys (no pun intended :) ).

Watchful said:
I'm not sure what you'll get for $100 or less--but I hate to say it, the odds favor "crap."
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When this Blu Ray player is hooked directly into the TV (and you play the right movies) the results are spectacular. I certainly don't want to sacrifice that in the name of frugality. I just like to limit my intake of snake oil to the maximum extent possible. If all this boils down to there being legitimate performance advantages to the higher priced units, then I'm willing to listen. Are there any particular products you're familiar with that you could recommend?

A friend suggested today that I look and see if the TV had a DVI input. He said that a simple HDMI to DVI adapter might do the trick with no degradation in signal quality.
 
Bronco said:
Are there any particular products you're familiar with that you could recommend?
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All my experience is commercial, and Crestron is the way to go there. Unfortunately, trying to get that stuff on your own is expensive and frustrating.

I usually avoid anything sold at Best Buy or from Monster, simply because the markup is ridiculous. I hate to say, but keep looking and reading reviews.

Bronco said:
A friend suggested today that I look and see if the TV had a DVI input. He said that a simple HDMI to DVI adapter might do the trick with no degradation in signal quality.
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That's totally correct for video only. DVI = HDMI minus audio and control. It's purely the video portion. So if you run an HDMI to DVI cable, you'll also need to run red + white audio with it--and hope your TV can understand that your video and audio are two inputs coming from the same source and need to be combined. I gotta warn you: not all televisions can do that.
 
I bought some time ago nameless 3x1 HDMI switch with remote for around $10, it works great. I have DVD player, media player and Moxi DVR connected to it - no problems at all.
 
Just to close the loop on the Monoprice HDMI switcher that I referenced above, I received it today and set it up. Seems to work fine. Remote control is nice for switching. Remember, though that you'll need one extra HDMI cable since you are effectively adding a component. I wish I had thought of that and ordered two cables from Monoprice. Now I'll have to pay through the nose at Fry's...
 
I was in the Audio/Video Industry for 8 years and sold Krell, Bryston, Rotel, B&W, Dynaudio and various other uber high end companies. When setting systems up, you would set the switching up as coming from a reciever or Preamp. I am not a huge fan of the stand alone switchers unless you want to spend some money on something nice. Also, check into some of the large scale professional companies that do alot of audio/video switching. Many professional pcs are lesser priced, but still decent quality.
 
I have the three and four port units from Monoprice. I don't notice any difference in the video between using and not using the switch on a 1080p 120Hz LCD. I run the audio on an optical cable, so I can't comment on the audio quality.
 
Do you have a receiver and stereo system set up? Any modern one is going to be an HDMI switch as well.

I bought a cheap Sony surround sound system at costco (I think it was $300?) and it not only makes a world of difference when watching bluray discs, but it also is a 4 port HDMI switch that supports HDCP.

I think that's how most people get around the limited number of ports on a TV, their receiver is the switch.

You'd also get the benefit of listening to 5.1 channel sound, which is great.

Here's the link to the thing I bought at costco, now $249: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Produc...=1&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1

Most of the bad reviews are from people who couldn't manage to connect it correctly, which is both amusing and sad at the same time.

Note that it can't decode DTS HD-MA or Dolby TrueHD audio tracks: Make sure your bluray player can decode these. Mine can (it's a PS3).
 
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