RCA/S-Video Selector

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

Hey guys, I am currently out on a market finding a new RCA/S-Video selector, mainly because the one I have right now is currently failing on me and I don't have anymore ports to use (I currently have 4 ports).

So yeah, is there any good ones out in the market worth getting, the ones I am mainly looking for are the ones with at least 6 ports, anything more than that is ok with me.

[Betamax001]

I don't think I have ever seen a AV Selector that has more than four ports. If anyone finds one I would be interested as well.

[Hatta]

You can get them with more than 4 ports, but they're professional products and you'll pay out the ass for it. Buy 5 of the cheap ones, plug 4 into the 5th one and plug that one into the TV. That's 16 ports at the push of 2 buttons. Not pretty, but it works.

I'd really love to find a schematic for building my own AV switcher. The only one I've been able to find is Ben Heck's that's built around digital bus switches which may or may not be suitable for carrying analog data. They're SMD chips too, which really sucks to work with.

[wip3outguy7]

Buy 5 of the cheap ones, plug 4 into the 5th one and plug that one into the TV. That's 16 ports at the push of 2 buttons. Not pretty, but it works.

Wouldn't that degrade the video signal? Like big time?

[Hatta]

Not really. Most of these cheap switch boxes are just mechanical switches. A plain mechanical switch should not alter your signal at all.

[coastercrazy10]

In theory the only way the switchboxes are affecting your setup is the length of wire. Over rather long cable lengths video quality will lag, but reasonable lengths (3-6' between console to box, box to box, box to tv) won't noticeably lower the video quality. My setup at home uses daisy-chained switchboxes and the video quality isn't noticeably different than a direct connection since the signals are digital. Daisy-chaining too many RF switches will degrade video quality since it's analog, however.

-CC10

[CRTGAMER]

Maybe divide up the inputs of your TV with the best possible output of each console. Three switch boxes.

1. HDMI
2. Component
3. S-Video/Composite

[Anapan]

I haven't seen one with more than 4 ports that was affordable or consumer grade. I did find a cheap, good one that allowed me to hook up many consoles at once tho. I got a Philips ph61150 automatic switching a/v selector for $14 at Princess Auto. It has 4 inputs, but each one has Component, S-video, and Composite, along with the stereo RCA sound. By using y-splitters for multiple sound inputs, I've been able to hook up many more than 4 sources. Combined with the different inputs on my TV and a cheap Intec G5295 multi-consle cable, I managed to hook up 9 consoles, a VCR, and a DVD player at once. I suspect something disastrous would happen if I turned on all the consoles at once, but as long as I don't try it, it all works great without any noticeable signal degradation. I can turn on any console, and the AV switch automatically connects it to either Input 3 (retro), or 4 (component) on the TV.

(y cables are mostly behind the consoles)

[zxqdms]

It's just RCA, but this one on ebay has 8 ports: http://cgi.ebay.com/Video-Audio-RCA-AV- ... 19bdf663b7

I have one that is very similar to the one in that auction. The main difference is that the one I have doesn't have that graphic on the top. And maybe the numbers on the front are different, it's hard to read them in that picture. The seller (can't remember who) that I got mine from was from Hong Kong as well.

[Dakinggamer87]

I use the Pelican System Selector Pro it handles A/V- component, composite, ethernet, S-Video works great. I use a few of them in my gaming room.