Aaron Parecki

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  • TESmart 8 port HDMI matrix

    3 out of 5
    Loud beeps when switching, and windows-only app control
    TESmart 8 port HDMI matrix Aaron Parecki 2020-12-01T07:40:09-08:00 permalink
    First of all let me say that this does work fine as an HDMI matrix. You press an input button followed by the output and then it will route the signal between those two. You can send one input to multiple outputs and change them all pretty easily from the buttons on the front.

    However, I'm knocking off two stars for the following reasons.

    It loses one star for having *extremely loud* beeps when you press the buttons to switch. Apparently it can be configured to turn off the beeps though, which takes me to losing the second star.

    The app for configuring the switch only runs on windows. The whole thing is controlled over the network anyway so it's theoretically possible to control it from a Mac but they don't provide a program to do that.

    The other problem I had with this, which isn't necessarily this device's fault, is how it handles HDCP. The device "supports" HDCP meaning it will tell devices plugged into it to send an HDCP signal. When you send one of those sources to an output, that output is then also an HDCP signal, so your TV or whatever at the other end will also need to be able to decrypt the HDCP signal. For using it with TVs this is usually fine. However I was hoping to use this with some devices that don't support HDCP like an HDMI recorder and livestreaming encoder. Normally I can plug my computer or iPhone HDMI output into these devices and they advertise that they don't support HDCP so the computer will not encrypt the output and it works fine. But with this, the matrix sits in the middle telling the computer to send an HDCP signal and then the output isn't accessible to the streaming encoder at all.

    Between the complications of using HDCP sources and the loud beeps and lack of software control on a Mac I ended up returning the device.
    Portland, Oregon • 36°F
    Tue, Dec 1, 2020 7:40am -08:00
Posted in /reviews using quill.p3k.io

Hi, I'm Aaron Parecki, Senior Security Architect at Okta, and co-founder of IndieWebCamp. I maintain oauth.net, write and consult about OAuth, and participate in the OAuth Working Group at the IETF. I also help people learn about video production and livestreaming and dabble in product design.

I've been tracking my location since 2008 and I wrote 100 songs in 100 days. I've spoken at conferences around the world about owning your data, OAuth, quantified self, and explained why R is a vowel. Read more.

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