CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

So, I went and ordered another +2 year old digital projector. This time I kept the purchased to under a grand and I'm curious to test with the JVC for the same source (video path). I went looking on Monoprice and they have a powered 1x2 HDMI splitter.

I'm guessing as long as the electronics maintain a reasonable replication of voltage levels so that a Binary 0 remains a zero and a Binary 1 a one then the two displays should receive the same identical signal/stream. Of course, I have no real world experience in this area and wondered if anyone else did.

ChrisWiggles · Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 6:08 am Post subject:

HDMI switching and splitting is a nightmare.

However, if it's working, it's working 100%. If all you need to do is split a signal, start with the cheapest widget you can. If it works, GREAT! If it doesn't, then start to spend more money on other attempts.

Also FYI: you will get the lowest common denominator of all the displays input resolution capabilities. So ideally you'd want identical displays, or at least identical resolution capabilities that you're trying to get (like 1080p60, or whatnot).

A simple 2-way split is not likely to be a nightmare.

If you are trying to matrix-switch and distribute among more than 2 displays, then prepare for nightmare. An that's where you really DO want to make sure that all the displays are EXACTLY identical models if at all possible, or at least the same generation of identical displays (of say different sizes only) to help ensure that they all behave the same way if at all possible.

As far as whether it's working: HDMI is all or nothing. If you have a picture with no obvious sparklies, flashing lines, or snow, then you're getting 100% of everything. Some odd glitching to look out for specifically when switching is weird communication, or funky colors while switching or turning one display on or off, things like that. Sometimes boot or splash screens will come up and the display will sync to the wrong colorspace, etc, and that is a switching/splitting/distribution problem that something isn't completely playing nice with everything else. But as long as the picture you care about looks normal, then it should be 100% fine. It either works or it doesn't, basically. There is no "degradation" that happens to the image at all.

CIR Engineering

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

Yeah, I'm just looking to take the HDMI video from the Denon 3311CI and feed it to two 1080P digital projectors (JVC RS20 and Sont VW60). Nothing fancy and the cable runs rather short.

ChrisWiggles · Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 5:35 pm Post subject:

Yup, if it's simple and cable runs short, try the cheapest solution first. I would expect a high probability of success.