I’m sure it must cost more for manufacturers to add HDMI ports, and yes, I concede the point that most consumers will not use more than the one or two ports that appear on most TVs or AV units. But there are plenty of us out here that want to use more than that, right? Enter the HDMI Switch.
Two years ago when I was speccing our home theater system, I looked into HDMI switches and it was shocking. Basic 2 to 4 port switches went for anywhere between $800 and $2,000. The industry was young, and we’d already hit our budget for the theater so I decided to bide my time. I knew that with the advent of the HDMI game consoles that a more affordable switch would enter the market eventually and the switch from niche need to mass appeal product would drive down costs. Luckily that time has finally come.
Enter Psyclone and their PSC47 HDMI Selector switch at only $199 for a 4 port switch. But wait, there’s more. This switch not only handles HDMI but also digital optical audio. What’s not to love, right?
Price
I’ve seen cheaper 2 port switches, but I just can’t get interested in them. I know I have enough equipment to immediately occupy 3 of the ports and while I could make do with only 2, why not go all digital and have a port leftover. Always leave expansion room for that next piece you’ve been longing for.
Availability
I was hesitant to mail order a switch because any Google search will tell you that there’s a huge number of folks out there with switches that turned out not to work with their equipment. In particular, the PS3 is extra troublesome it seems, and of course I want my PS3 hooked up. So I wanted a switch I can try out and easily return if it’s not going to get the job done. Luckily for me, Best Buy carries the PSC47. So I could get it and try it out with some confidence.
HDMI 1.3
Lots of these compatibility issues can be resolved if you stick with HDMI 1.3 switches, because the more detailed standards help overcome many of the compatibility issues. If any of your components are 1.3 and you get a non 1.3 switch, you are probably in for some hassles. The Psyclone switch is 1.3 so that’s another box checked off on my requirements list.
Discreet Remote Codes
Another item on my requirements list is that the switch must have discreet remote codes. What does that mean? Well, some switches have plus or minus keys to rotate through ports. But when you are using a universal remote to control many pieces of equipment, you need the ability to reliably choose which port is active. So the system must be able to receive a command to “go to port 3” for example. Without discreet codes for switching to exact ports, there would be no reliable way to program one button on the remote to start the DVD player, turn off the VCR, and switch to HDMI port 3 all at once. The PSC47 has discreet codes for direct port switching, as well as plus and minus port switching, gain control and power.
I’m using a Universal Remote MX-850 and I was able to learn the codes from the PSC47 remote in under 5 minutes and get the switch integrated into my universal remote.
Putting It In Place
Hooking it up was a snap, as one might expect. Pop it onto the rack, plug it into the conditioned power supply, hook up the cables and you are pretty much done. Depending on your devices and how they were configured previously you may need to tweak a few settings. For example, my PS3 had been outputting via composite cables pending getting the HDMI switch.
Working With an AV Unit
My only troubles came with I started configuring my master AV unit, a Denon AVR-2708 for the changes. Where previously I had each of the units on different inputs and could configure each separately, now that was no longer the case. When they were separate inputs, I could designate that my DVD player is outputting 5.1 audio and the Blu-Ray player was outputting 7.1 audio. But now, they would all be coming in on the same cable and unfortunately the 2807 will not let me choose the same input port for more than one group of settings. That means that I have to choose one setting and everything from the switch will be treated the same way. I’m not wild about that but it’s not a deal breaker. While I’m sure that many AV units have this same problem, most people will likely not be using the switch in conjunction with AV units instead of feeding to the TV directly.
HDMI –VS- Optical
Due to a complexity on one system component, I really needed to use Digital Audio on that component. I didn’t “need” it on the others. Due to the nature of the settings on my master AV unit (see above) I was unable to verify this, but I got the impression that if you use Optical audio from the switch to the AV unit, you had to use it for all of the components. That wasn’t a problem for me, as I was planning to pick up a few more optical cables and go all optical digital audio anyway.
The PS3
The piece I was most fearful of hitting compatibility issues with was the PS3. After a quick reconfig on the PS3 to the new cabling arrangement, everything worked great!
HDMI Switching and HDCP Tokens
It’s important to keep in mind that a HDMI switch does not work like the traditional component AV switches used in theater equipment or game switches. In component switches, the single is simply redirected to a new path and the signal is completed. HDMI equipment has more complexity. Each device in the HDMI chain from start to finish (the DVD, the switch, the master AV unit and the projector or TV) has a chip. When you power on the DVD, it is going to locate the chip on the next piece in the chain (the switch in our case) and complete a handshake. Think of it like a dial up modem looking for a receiver. If that handshake gets dropped, the signal is interrupted. Resetting that signal usually is done by powering off the device and then powering it back on to reinitialize the handshake. A HDMI switch must maintain live handshakes to each shared input component plugged into it and then renegotiate a handshake to the unit it is outputting to when you change ports on the switch.
What does all of this mean to you? If you wind up getting stuttering in the picture or audio, or if you lose the signal entirely, you probably need to reset the handshakes. In most cases this can be done by powering off the device having troubles so that when it powers on, it can create a new handshake to the switch. I suspect that many problems that people encounter with HDMI switches are actually handshake issues that are misunderstood.
Costs and Cables
The switch cost $199 and comes with one HDMI cable. This is reasonable as the manufactuer can assume that if you have a DVD, PS3 and DVR already using HDMI, you probably have cables already. I much prefer a $199 switch with one cable over a $299 switch that has 4 cables of which I need only one. The other cost factor for me was in switching to all optical digital audio. Tally up the cost of a set of HDMI cables, even the cheap ones, and the 5 digital optical cables, and the cabling cost alone can rival the cost of the switch itself. Switches are now affordable, but cabling costs still needs to come down in general, in my opinion.
Final Thoughts
The Psyclone PSC47 is getting the job done. It met all of my requirements, even though I was more demanding that it’s intended audience of gamers. It is switching my PS3, DVD, Direct TV DVR and HD Home Theater PC all flawlessly. The digital optical sound is coming through clearly and the system integrated into my universal remote with only 5 minutes of effort. Give the opportunity to start over, I’d buy the same switch again.
If you have any questions about the switch or have any comments or info to share, please leave a comment below.
