Splitters & Switches

So, what’s the difference? A question that is popping up every so often and sometimes a misunderstanding is the use of the terms. This week I’ll look at splitters and switches.

Video Splitters

The simple way of explaining it is a splitter takes a signal from one source and duplicates that signal to a number of outputs such as monitors or TV’s. e.g. you can connect a satellite receiver to a 2-port splitter and you can display it to two screens. We have a number of splitters available such as SVGA, HDMI…

SVGA Splitters – A range of both passive cable and active splitters available with various port outputs.

HDMI Splitters – A range of both passive cable and active splitters available with various port outputs.

SCART Splitters – While this is an old technology we still stock splitters with various port outputs

Video Switches

A switch is a number of inputs that can be switched to one display e.g. Blu-Ray player, Games Console and Satellite Receiver can be connected to a switch, from the switch is one cable connecting to a monitor, TV, projector etc. The switch then allows you to choose which device you want to show on the one display. You can only show one device at a time. We have a range of switches that I could write a book about so I will keep to the most common ones…

SVGA Switches – These are manual switches that are simply wired and have no chipsets. Basic but very reliable.

HDMI Switches – These are manually switched by either a button on the switch or a remote control, all HDMI switches need to be active with chipsets.

We have various other switches such as USB, SCART, serial, RJ45 that can be found in the splitters and switches section on the website but simply explained they take a number of inputs that can be switched between to provide one output. e.g.

USB Switches – These are usually used to switch between two computers to share one device such as a printer, we have a few avaliable which are manually switched

Matrix

A matrix is a little more complicated as it is both a splitter and a switch, you can choose what input can be displayed on what screen. We currently stock HDMI matrix such as…

HDMI Matrix – A small selection of various inputs/outputs.

Hope this has helped to understand the difference a bit more. Please do call us if you any questions regarding spliters & switches.