Radiient Select-4 HDMI Switcher
RADIIENT SELECT-4 HDMI SWITCHER Extend Your HDMI Devices
March 2007 By Jonathan Takiff
HDMI has been a blessing, but sometimes a curse to early adopters. Now most definitely improving the big picture is the Radiient Select, a four input HDMI switch/repeater that's worth its weight in gold, let alone its (recently reduced) $299 asking price.
A step up from (analog) component video and optical/coax digital audio connections, an ultra-wideband, High Definition Multimedia Interface carries both audio and video signals in their purest, unadulterated digital form. Better yet, HDMI uses a single, two-way cable terminated at both ends with a slide-on, multi-pin connector. That sure tidies up a home theater array. And in its latest, 1.3 iteration, HDMI adds capacity for two features now starting to pop up in high def disc software, HD displays and A/V receivers: The Deep Color process defines color in higher bit-length words, achieving millions more shades which the human eye is actually capable of differentiating. On the audio side, DTS-HD Master and Dolby Digital TruHD codecs finally deliver multi-channel movie audio (up to 7.1 channels) boasting lossless encoding and sampling/ bit rates that rival SACD and DVD-Audio.
But there’s a price to pay for this enhanced eye and ear candy. Your A/V system will need some upgrading, to accommodate those high def, HDMI signal sources you covet: satellite and cable TV boxes, HD disc players and recorders, the PlayStation 3 game system, plus digital still cameras and HD camcorders. For starters, how will you connect them all to your big screen display or projector, when the set only has one or two HDMI inputs?
My initial effort at integration, feeding HD satellite TV and HD-DVD signals through a first generation A/V receiver featuring HDMI switching, proved a disaster. While I could sometimes hear the soundtrack of the source product, the images blanked out after a second on my connected TV. HDMI has on-going “handshaking” issues—content guards that often also engage Intel’s HDCP (high bandwidth digital content protection) software. Literally every two seconds, HDMI with HDCP connected products must communicate back and forth that they’re authorized. And then, for added safety sake, both devices change their data encryption keys. Yes, every two seconds.
Intermediary switching products also need to identify themselves properly and keep the signals flowing two ways, without creating inadvertent road blocks.
Thus, the potential for hiccups in this process is enormous, if the technology isn’t implemented properly. Toshiba’s first generation HD-DVD players with HDMI/HDCP are notoriously testy, for example, stopping a disc cold if you momentarily switch inputs on the connected TV and interrupt the two-way data flow. In fact, Best Buy has had so many issues with “failure to communicate” HDMI products that the retailer is now forcing all its vendors to submit their HDMI-ready goods for compatibility testing.
A step up from (analog) component video and optical/coax digital audio connections, an ultra-wideband, High Definition Multimedia Interface carries both audio and video signals in their purest, unadulterated digital form. Better yet, HDMI uses a single, two-way cable terminated at both ends with a slide-on, multi-pin connector. That sure tidies up a home theater array. And in its latest, 1.3 iteration, HDMI adds capacity for two features now starting to pop up in high def disc software, HD displays and A/V receivers: The Deep Color process defines color in higher bit-length words, achieving millions more shades which the human eye is actually capable of differentiating. On the audio side, DTS-HD Master and Dolby Digital TruHD codecs finally deliver multi-channel movie audio (up to 7.1 channels) boasting lossless encoding and sampling/ bit rates that rival SACD and DVD-Audio.
But there’s a price to pay for this enhanced eye and ear candy. Your A/V system will need some upgrading, to accommodate those high def, HDMI signal sources you covet: satellite and cable TV boxes, HD disc players and recorders, the PlayStation 3 game system, plus digital still cameras and HD camcorders. For starters, how will you connect them all to your big screen display or projector, when the set only has one or two HDMI inputs?
My initial effort at integration, feeding HD satellite TV and HD-DVD signals through a first generation A/V receiver featuring HDMI switching, proved a disaster. While I could sometimes hear the soundtrack of the source product, the images blanked out after a second on my connected TV. HDMI has on-going “handshaking” issues—content guards that often also engage Intel’s HDCP (high bandwidth digital content protection) software. Literally every two seconds, HDMI with HDCP connected products must communicate back and forth that they’re authorized. And then, for added safety sake, both devices change their data encryption keys. Yes, every two seconds.
Intermediary switching products also need to identify themselves properly and keep the signals flowing two ways, without creating inadvertent road blocks.
Thus, the potential for hiccups in this process is enormous, if the technology isn’t implemented properly. Toshiba’s first generation HD-DVD players with HDMI/HDCP are notoriously testy, for example, stopping a disc cold if you momentarily switch inputs on the connected TV and interrupt the two-way data flow. In fact, Best Buy has had so many issues with “failure to communicate” HDMI products that the retailer is now forcing all its vendors to submit their HDMI-ready goods for compatibility testing.
