I recommend this HDMI Equipment for OSSC + 4K60 18Gbps

[maxtherabbit]

cool I'm still not doing it

[Lux]

I had some problems with the Awakelion 5X1, with my LG TV turning black then showing noise, then black again and so on until I unplug the switch. It did not happen frequently but was enough to be annoying. I'm trying the SGEYR.

EDIT : I deleted a second post in which I said my Switch wasn't showing with the SGEYR switch I just received, I just made it work (I'm not sure how), I'll update if necessary.

EDIT 2 : Looks like the Switch can't show if you're using USB power (though it managed to show me God of War in HDR with USB power only, go figure). Using the proper power supply and it works now. Adding a nice thing with this switch is that it reverts to my Chromecast signal everytime I power off other devices, something my Awakelion wasn't doing.

[DirkSwizzler]

Adding a nice thing with this switch is that it reverts to my Chromecast signal everytime I power off other devices, something my Awakelion wasn't doing.

Yeah. The SGEYR, ViewHD Prosumer, and Vorke HD41 are all really good about falling back to another signal if there is one.

You'd think that was a basic feature of every automatic switch. Sadly not the case.

[Lux]

I played a bit of Control tonight on my PS4 Pro and noticed what looked like frame drops, I know Control isn't the best game in this regard but I'm incidentally replaying it because I lost my save so I already know how it's supposed to behave, and this is not it.

I captured nearly 15 minutes of my play and extracted the worst sequence here :
https://twitter.com/presenceinwired/sta ... 9246275585

Can't say for sure if it's the switch or if the game was somehow messed up by a recent update. I'm tempted to ask on the Discord. What do you think ?

[DirkSwizzler]

I'm highly reluctant to blame the SGEYR for frame drops. I've had multi-hour play sessions on mine with no issues.

That being said. HDMI is voodoo. If I were you, I'd run a few tests to eliminate variables.

1. Try unplugging everything else from the switch. Maybe some other device is waking up for a few seconds.

2. Try bypassing the switch with each cable. I've had more than 1 cable go bad in my setup. And I usually buy them in sets. So it's not indicative of the general ability of the cable when it happens.

[Wolf_]

Just had my TESmart 16x1 HDMI KVM 4k60hz switch arrive today and spent the day installing it into my rackmount setup and testing it out. So far so good. Man it sure is difficult always reaching to the power switches and then pressing the video switches, hell 6 of my consoles are component so I have to press ossc on the hdmi switch and then press the console on the extron switch! That's like... 3 buttons I need to press to play some of the consoles! Pretty wild but on the bright side I have 0 autoswitching issues, surge protection, and don't waste any power so I guess I'll have to live with all that extra effort.


(I can't wait for 2 of my analogue consoles to get replaced by fpga cores or get hdmi mods so I can get a 1u 4 port extron switcher and save 2u more of rackmount slots)

[maxtherabbit]

Just had my TESmart 16x1 HDMI KVM 4k60hz switch arrive today and spent the day installing it into my rackmount setup and testing it out. So far so good. Man it sure is difficult always reaching to the power switches and then pressing the video switches, hell 6 of my consoles are component so I have to press ossc on the hdmi switch and then press the console on the extron switch! That's like... 3 buttons I need to press to play some of the consoles! Pretty wild but on the bright side I have 0 autoswitching issues, surge protection, and don't waste any power so I guess I'll have to live with all that extra effort.


(I can't wait for 2 of my analogue consoles to get replaced by fpga cores or get hdmi mods so I can get a 1u 4 port extron switcher and save 2u more of rackmount slots)

My Extron is 1U and its an 8x4 matrix

[Wolf_]

My Extron is 1U and its an 8x4 matrix

Huh, is that one of the models that doesn't have built in audio? The best I could find for component video extron switches in 1u that also have audio is a 4 input model.

Oh well thanks for the heads up but a ps1 hdmi mod is right around the corner and they also have a ps2 hdmi mod almost done with development, and another guy is working on an xbox hdmi mod and a ps1 fpga core is probably coming in 2020 and the ps5 is backwards compatible with every previous playstation model (although how good it is remains to be seen) so I'm betting I'll be able to reduce my analogue consoles from 6 down to 4 or less by at least the end of the year. The way MiSTer gets developed for someone might just throw a cdi core at us out of the blue lol.

[maxtherabbit]

My Extron is 1U and its an 8x4 matrix

Huh, is that one of the models that doesn't have built in audio? The best I could find for component video extron switches in 1u that also have audio is a 4 input model.

Oh well thanks for the heads up but a ps1 hdmi mod is right around the corner and they also have a ps2 hdmi mod almost done with development, and another guy is working on an xbox hdmi mod and a ps1 fpga core is probably coming in 2020 and the ps5 is backwards compatible with every previous playstation model (although how good it is remains to be seen) so I'm betting I'll be able to reduce my analogue consoles from 6 down to 4 or less by at least the end of the year. The way MiSTer gets developed for someone might just throw a cdi core at us out of the blue lol.

It does have built-in audio - the video is on DE-15 connectors and the audio is 3.5mm stereo jacks inputs and phoenix connector outputs.

Otherwise the performance is the same: RGBS, RGBHV, YPbPr all supported

[ldeveraux]

That's like... 3 buttons I need to press to play some of the consoles!

There's a way to make a point without being a douchebag, and you haven't found it. We're still not wasting our time with your suggestions on power switches, just let it go already.

You spent a month praising this KVM's potential and your review is "so far so good"? Not likely to make anyone run out to buy one.

[bobrocks95]

Sorry for not looking through the thread, but any particular HDMI cable recommendations? I'm pushing 1440p at 120 Hz with my PC most of the time, and even with short runs a number of "high speed" HDMI cables around the house have been causing occasional signal drops. Unless my Yamaha AVR is the problem of course...

HDMI 2.1 future-proofing would be nice as well, if those cables are out yet.

[nmalinoski]

Sorry for not looking through the thread, but any particular HDMI cable recommendations? I'm pushing 1440p at 120 Hz with my PC most of the time, and even with short runs a number of "high speed" HDMI cables around the house have been causing occasional signal drops. Unless my Yamaha AVR is the problem of course...

HDMI 2.1 future-proofing would be nice as well, if those cables are out yet.

I think you want to do 1440p/4K, you want cables that advertise 18Gbps throughput, and it helps when they have an HDMI certification and/or are labeled "Premium High Speed HDMI Cable". I don't think brand really matters, unless you're trying to go beyond 5 meters, and then you're looking at "active" HDMI cables, which are, I think, basically HDMI over Ethernet cables with the transceivers baked into the connectors.

[DirkSwizzler]

I've been having fair luck with Securomax cables on Amazon for 4K60RGB. I have no data for anything higher bandwidth than that.

I do occasionally have one go bad and no longer able to carry 4K60RGB. But I think that's because I shuffle them around quite a bit during hdmi switch testing.

I've been told that 6 feet is optimal for a high bandwidth cable. But have no evidence to back that up.

From what I understand. An active cable is doing the same job as a repeater. Receiving the signal and re-quantizing the data to reset any introduced noise. So I'm not sure they make sense coming right out of a source or switch. But coupling one in after 6-10 feet may help. At the cost of longer black screen transitions when resolution changes.

[Wolf_]

That's like... 3 buttons I need to press to play some of the consoles!

There's a way to make a point without being a douchebag, and you haven't found it. We're still not wasting our time with your suggestions on power switches, just let it go already.

You spent a month praising this KVM's potential and your review is "so far so good"? Not likely to make anyone run out to buy one.

And there is a way to not be a dumbass but you haven't found that yet either. Also I don't care what you do, I've just given the best information possible to anyone that will listen. And I'm not done testing the switch yet. I'm going to invest in a time sleuth and ect to give it a proper rundown.

[ldeveraux]

That's like... 3 buttons I need to press to play some of the consoles!

There's a way to make a point without being a douchebag, and you haven't found it. We're still not wasting our time with your suggestions on power switches, just let it go already.

You spent a month praising this KVM's potential and your review is "so far so good"? Not likely to make anyone run out to buy one.

And there is a way to not be a dumbass but you haven't found that yet either. Also I don't care what you do, I've just given the best information possible to anyone that will listen. And I'm not done testing the switch yet. I'm going to invest in a time sleuth and ect to give it a proper rundown.

K byeee

[Gara]

At the cost of longer black screen transitions when resolution changes.

Has there been any experimenting with this? I'm curious how much delay is added the more convoluted a setup becomes. Perhaps some old discussions where they measure it? I'm having a hard time finding anything on Google besides scattered warnings.

[DirkSwizzler]

At the cost of longer black screen transitions when resolution changes.

Has there been any experimenting with this? I'm curious how much delay is added the more convoluted a setup becomes. Perhaps some old discussions where they measure it? I'm having a hard time finding anything on Google besides scattered warnings.

It's however long each device takes to resynchronize it's clock. Which in my experience is a little less than a second for most devices.

One of my posts in this thread detailed how I could shave a couple seconds off my total resync time by using fewer switches in serial.

[DirkSwizzler]

Small update. I discovered that my 1x4 recommended splitter garbles audio when handling PS4 Pro 4K60 HDR with 7.1 audio. The gofanco Prophecy HDMI Splitter 4K 60Hz HDR 1x4 - YUV 4:4:4, 3D, HDMI 2.0a, HDCP 2.2, EDID, 18Gbps, Auto Scaling, Low Heat, Cascadable, Firmware Upgradable, 4 Port 1 in 4 Out

Reflected in the main post. Haven't yet retested the other splitters that performed nearly as well.

I also went through all my test data up to here and copied it to the main post. Hopefully I can rewrite all the test data in a more legible way once the RetroRGB wiki is up.

[ReyVGM]

Question about the SGEYR 4K@60Hz 5x1 HDMI Switch.

Can you say a bit more about it?

-Does it auto switch to whatever device is on automatically?
-Does it auto switch automatically to a second device if you turn it on while a first device is also on? Does it auto switch back to the 1st device if you turn off the 2nd one?
-How many seconds do you have to wait between switching signals?
-If you have the switch on and you lose power, does it turn back on automatically when you get power back?
-I heard you can only turn the switch on/off with the controller. If I ever lose the controller, does unplugging it work the same? I won't damage anything?

[DirkSwizzler]

The SGEYR 5x1 switch powers up as soon as it's plugged in.

It always switches to the newest source that supplies 5v down the HDMI cable. Which most devices do as they turn on. But some devices also do this in standby mode. Not very many though.

If there are 2 devices sending a signal and the active one stops. The switch falls back to the other.

You don't *need* the remote to operate the unit. I toss all my HDMI switcher remotes in a bin and never use them.

How long you have to wait between switching signals is a bit of a complex topic. If you're just switching resolution on the same active device. I've found that most HDMI switches take a little less than a second to lock on to the signal again and forward the picture. But then whatever other devices are in the chain also need to resync after that. So your AV receiver might add another second, and your TV another on top of that.

Switching between active devices is a bit trickier because many devices still send 5v down the cable even if they're not outputting a valid signal. So if it's auto switching because a device is powering up or down, it could be many seconds based on device behavior.

Manually switching between 2 fully active devices should be pretty comparable to resolution switch time. But I haven't thoroughly tested this.

[ReyVGM]

The SGEYR 5x1 switch powers up as soon as it's plugged in.

It always switches to the newest source that supplies 5v down the HDMI cable. Which most devices do as they turn on. But some devices also do this in standby mode. Not very many though.

If there are 2 devices sending a signal and the active one stops. The switch falls back to the other.

You don't *need* the remote to operate the unit. I toss all my HDMI switcher remotes in a bin and never use them.

How long you have to wait between switching signals is a bit of a complex topic. If you're just switching resolution on the same active device. I've found that most HDMI switches take a little less than a second to lock on to the signal again and forward the picture. But then whatever other devices are in the chain also need to resync after that. So your AV receiver might add another second, and your TV another on top of that.

Switching between active devices is a bit trickier because many devices still send 5v down the cable even if they're not outputting a valid signal. So if it's auto switching because a device is powering up or down, it could be many seconds based on device behavior.

Manually switching between 2 fully active devices should be pretty comparable to resolution switch time. But I haven't thoroughly tested this.

This is going to be my set up:

Gaming consoles connected to the Switch -> Switch connected to a Receiver -> Receiver connected to the TV through ARC.

I'm only going to be switching between consoles, not between resolutions. I will always power off a console before turning on another one. None of the consoles have stand-by mode, so it shouldn't interfere with auto switching.

I read that you don't really need to plug this device to a power source? You only need to plug it in if you want it to scan the inputs or something.

[nmalinoski]

Question about the SGEYR 4K@60Hz 5x1 HDMI Switch.
...
-Does it auto switch automatically to a second device if you turn it on while a first device is also on? Does it auto switch back to the 1st device if you turn off the 2nd one?

Like the Vorke HD41pro, the SGEYR 4K@60 (and the 4K@30 ones) will fall back to the next sequentially-numbered device. For example, if you have active devices on inputs 1 and 3, with input 1 active, and you connect something to input 2, it will switch to input 2, as expected; however, if you then disconnect input 2, it will auto-switch to input 3, not back to input 1.

If you've only got two active devices, it'll effectively switch back to the previous one like DirkSwizzler said.

[ReyVGM]

Question about the SGEYR 4K@60Hz 5x1 HDMI Switch.
...
-Does it auto switch automatically to a second device if you turn it on while a first device is also on? Does it auto switch back to the 1st device if you turn off the 2nd one?

Like the Vorke HD41pro, the SGEYR 4K@60 (and the 4K@30 ones) will fall back to the next sequentially-numbered device. For example, if you have active devices on inputs 1 and 3, with input 1 active, and you connect something to input 2, it will switch to input 2, as expected; however, if you then disconnect input 2, it will auto-switch to input 3, not back to input 1.

If you've only got two active devices, it'll effectively switch back to the previous one like DirkSwizzler said.

Alrighty, thanks. I always power off each device, so that won't be a problem.

[jd213]

Thanks for this thread, wasn't expecting Shmupsforum to be the place where I'd find replacements for my expensive-ass HDfury AVR Key (audio extractor) that suddenly started having constant dropouts, or the mechanical 4K HDMI switch from Australia that suddenly stopped working with certain 1080p devices on my 4K monitor (it's mechanical, why the hell doesn't it work with just some devices!?), but life can occasionally have pleasant surprises I guess.

[ldeveraux]

Just had my TESmart 16x1 HDMI KVM 4k60hz switch arrive today and spent the day installing it into my rackmount setup and testing it out. So far so good. Man it sure is difficult always reaching to the power switches and then pressing the video switches, hell 6 of my consoles are component so I have to press ossc on the hdmi switch and then press the console on the extron switch! That's like... 3 buttons I need to press to play some of the consoles! Pretty wild but on the bright side I have 0 autoswitching issues, surge protection, and don't waste any power so I guess I'll have to live with all that extra effort.


(I can't wait for 2 of my analogue consoles to get replaced by fpga cores or get hdmi mods so I can get a 1u 4 port extron switcher and save 2u more of rackmount slots)

Any more experience with the KVM as a switch? I'm actually looking to upgrade my VGA KVM to HDMI and use it as a KVM, and this would fit the bill. An expensive bill, but still!

[DirkSwizzler]

I've been snowed in the last few days and had some time to experiment with my setup. First the cool news.

TL;DR:
The SGEYR 5x1 4K60 18Gbps units can be used as a basis for HDMI auto-switching star configuration for most consoles.

Longer:
The SGEYR 4K@60Hz 5x1 HDMI Switch HDMI Selector Switch 5 Port HDR IR Remote 4K HDMI Selector Box 5 in 1 Out Auto Switch HDMI Switcher 2.0 HDCP 2.2,Full HD has continued to fascinate me because it does something fairly unique among the switches I've tried. It can be *fully* powered by an active HDMI connection.

Originally I didn't want this because my PC was hooked up to my gaming rack while being the only thing not depending on the rack being powered. And whenever I turned it on, it would power a significant chunk of my HDMI chain just from my video card. And I was unsure if that was adding strain to my video card.

However. If we take that property and apply it just to devices that depend on rack power. My concern about strain is significantly reduced because I know the HDMI chain is already powered.

So, as an experiment. I unplugged DC power from my chained SGEYR switch that had older consoles on it. And removed my always-on OSSC from feeding into it. This caused the unit to remain off when none of those consoles were on. And to turn on when one of the consoles turned on. It then fed to my head switch which was a powered sgeyr 5x1.

I then hooked my always-on OSSC directly to the head 5x1.

When I powered on the rack, the OSSC showed up as expected.
When I powered up one of the consoles hooked up to the secondary switch. That secondary switch powered up, selected the console correctly, and signalled the main switch to listen to the chained switch.
When I powered down the consoles, the secondary switch powered off, and the main switch went back to the OSSC. SUCCESS!!!!
This setup worked with almost all of my consoles. So it's not bulletproof. But it worked with enough to be very useful.

Consoles that worked feedinginto the UNPOWERED secondary:
Launch model PS3 fat.
XBox 360 (unsure the model, one of the somewhat later revisions that didn't RROD as much)
Wii U
Nintendo Switch using the OEM dock hardware (transplanted into a non-sandwich dock)
XBox One X

What didn't work:
PS4 Pro. It looks like it powers off the HDMI port when switching resolution. So the switch looked like it was boot looping over and over.

I'll have to try more consoles later. My assumption is the PS4 HDMI output was needlessly overcomplicated and will probably be the only console that doesn't work.

For now I just need to keep my PS4 Pro hooked up to the head switch. And with the star configuration for 5 consoles. I can move my OSSC up to the head switch to avoid a hop there on resolution change. So I still have 2 more ports that can potentially be star configured if necessary.







Other less exciting data. I tried more switches and splitters.

Switches:
Fosmon 5 Port HDMI Switch, HDMI 2.0 Auto Switch, 4K@60Hz 5x1 Switcher Splitter Box with Remote Control Support 4Kx2K, Full 1080p, 3D HDR, 18Gbps, HDCP 2.2 for Apple TV, Fire Stick, HDTV, PS4, Xbox, PC
This one seems to have pretty good mode support overall. But I kept getting video & audio glitches (not full drops) in OSSC. But not 100% of the time. And I sometimes saw this in 4K modes. But more rarely.
There might be some specific incompatibility here that I'm not accounting for. Would be good if someone else can confirm the behavior. It did generally work with all the modes most of the time. So it's promising if the glitches aren't widespread.



Splitters:
SGEYR HDMI Cable Splitter 1 in 4 Out HDMI 2.0 Distribution Box HDMI Splitter Amp Supports 4K@60Hz HDR Full Ultra HD 1080P and 3D Compatible with Xbox
The big negative with this one is I can't figure out the EDID management. It has an EDID button. But the manual lists four states in binary notation making me think it was meant to have dip switches. I can't find any data on how it's supposed to translate to a single button. I asked a question about it on the Amazon listing and got no response. As far as I can tell the button does not rotate modes.
The default EDID was pretty limited and annoying. Only supported YUV420 for HDR. And only apparently supported stereo audio.
I *think* it worked fine with OSSC. But I didn't commit that to notes. It's definitely not good for 4K consoles.

weJupit HDMI Splitter 1 in 4 Out 4K 60 Hz, HDCP 2.2 HD Audio AC Adaptor, Support 3D/4K/2K/1080P, Compatible with PS3 PS4 Xbox FireStick Roku DVD Player Apple TV(1x4 1 Input to 4 Outputs, 4K@60Hz)
I just tried this last night for a bit. Seemed fine with OSSC. But it's even worse at EDID than the SGEYR. I couldn't get it to support 7.1 audio after 20 minutes of fiddling. I couldn't get it to support HDR. And the default resolution appears to be 1080p even though I could keep switching it back to 4k

gofanco Prophecy 1x4 HDMI 2.0 Splitter 4K 60Hz HDR Compact USB Powered Auto Scaling Wall Mount, YUV 4:4:4, 3D, HDMI 2.0a, HDCP 2.2, EDID, 18Gbps, Low Heat, 4 Port 1 in 4 Out (PRO-HDRsplit4P-LT)
This one has had pretty good results. Has EDID dip switches that make sense. Seems to work well with OSSC and PS4 Pro 4K60RGB.
The one hiccup is that switching to PS4 Pro 4K HDR with 7.1 PCM audio takes a *really* long time to sync while this is in the chain. Like 15-20 seconds long. Annoying, but that switch doesn't happen often. And the audio still works unlike the other gofanco splitter I'm using.



Matrix Devices:
I finally tried a matrix device to reduce hops. I'm generally hesitant to try matrices because of the associated cost. And, in general, most HDMI devices don't work as well as I need them to.

4K HDMI Matrix Switch 4 X 2 by Orei Switcher 18G UltraHD with Arc Supports Upto 4K @ 60Hz & 1080P IR Audio Extractor Arc EDID HDCP 2.- Remote Control - Full Matrix Selection
This one caught my eye because it has an automatic switching mode. However, it had a bunch of incompatibilities.
While the OSSC test pattern worked (pretty sure this is 480p). I fired up my NES. And couldn't get it to work with 480p or 960p with that.
I had trouble getting my sound extractor to work at all with it in PS4 4K60RGB.
And a bit annoying. It kept triggering my Samsung TV's device detection screen every time I changed resolution. Super annoying.

[Link83]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but do the SGEYR HDMI switchers work well when multiple are daisy chained together? If so is there a recommended short HDMI cable for connecting multiple units? Since the HDMI output port is on the side I have been trying to find a decent angled short HDMI cable for interconnecting two units.

Also, i'm guessing that if I powered the first unit with the +5V DC barrel connector, that should then pass on the +5V through the HDMI cable to each subsequent switch, meaning I should only need to supply power to the first switch in the chain, correct? Or am I best getting a DC barrel splitter and supplying them each with power individually?

Finally DirkSwizzler, I just wondered if you had looked at the Ugreen 4K 60Hz 1 in 4 out HDMI splitter?:-
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32958313397.html
Ugreen usually make some decent products, and the specs look good on paper...

[DirkSwizzler]

The SGEYR units chain well. I only chained a total of 2 together. But it worked fine. My current config has 2 of them without power separately chained to the Vorke HD41 so they support star chaining.

I'm confident that powering the last one in your chain will pass power up the chain. I just don't know if it's overworking the power supply or something.

For short interconnects I've been using Securomax 1.5ft cables

I have not tried that Ugreen splitter. It appears that it might downgrade video to the least common denominator which is not a feature I want for 2 reasons...
1. It usually means that a loss of sync on any sink will renegotiate sync for all the sinks.
2. I generally want to a for highest quality output and limit either at the source or just know that some displays won't work with some sources.
Thanks for the link though!

As an aside. Every piece of equipment I've tried always "looks good on paper"


Small update on the gofanco splitter trying to split ps4 pro 4k60 hdr with 7.1 audio. I swapped around my other equipment a bit. Namely putting my Vorke HD41 at the head of my switch chain and it appears to be a more normal resync time.

So there might be a subtle issue with the SGEYR units feeding into some splitters. Which is funny because the SGEYR's appeared to be better than the HD41 feeding into an HDFury Vertex 2.

HDMI is voodoo

[Elrinth]

It's great with all the detailed text. So many units tested here. I feel this needs an google excel(calc?) link with simplified visuals. Like tabs in Excel document for splitter, switch, hdmi cable, tv and capturecard.
Then per row of individual equipment a colour indicating the compatibility.
Perhaps sorted by most compatible stuff in the top aswell.

[DirkSwizzler]

I've been hoping the RetroRGB wiki opens up so I only have to organize it once.

But that's taken a bit longer than expected. So maybe I should switch to a google doc.

And I fully expect the OSSC Pro to make most of my notes obsolete as soon as I'm done converting.