Jan 02 2009
Essential Gear: HDMI Quick Switch
Pelican’s HDMI Quick Switch has been gathering dust at my local GameStop for over a year now. But this past holiday season, in light of more and more TV sets coming equipped with multiple HDMI inputs, the company chose to slash the $50 suggested retail price down to $30. At that price the tiny box finally felt affordable and I can assure you, it’s been worth every penny of thirty bucks.
If you’ve got an older TV with only one HDMI input and a growing array of compatible devices, this is the cheapest, simplest way to get two of them to play nice together. You simply plug in the two devices, then plug the lead into your TV’s HDMI input and the box does the rest. Through some kind of electro-magic, the switch knows which device is powered on and automatically switches to it.
There is one caveat to this setup. Some devices like internet-connected Blu-ray players which are still active even when turned “off”, may override the automatic switching capability of this little box. Thankfully, Pelican included a button to manually switch the signals but under most circumstances I haven’t had much of an issue.
I have both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 run into the HDMI Switch and the only time I have to manually press the button is when both consoles are turned on at the same time. I do this periodically to download content on one console while I play on another, but as soon as one is shut down the Switch does its job and jumps right over to the other input. In a world of increasingly shoddy products it’s amazing to find one that simply works exactly as described. If you’re short on HDMI inputs Pelican’s Quick Switch is one solution worth considering.
