A Video Matrix switch isn’t the sort of thing to get excited about. It’s usually one of those black boxes that get’s installed in a communications cupboard, and gives you access to a sky box or Blu-Ray player on your TV’s around the house. Most Matrix switches these days offer distribution of HD Video over a single Cat6 cable, and the the Neo Matrix from PulseEight does what you’d expect in terms of switching, however it also has a trick or two up it’s sleeve.
The key difference that PulseEight have is that they are key adopters of the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) protocol. Effectively this allows yout TV remote control to not only control your TV, but if you’re connected to a PulseEight Matrix, it allows simple selection of the Matrix inputs as though they are inputs to the TV, AND control of the connected device. This may not seem staggering, however with most TVs being compatible devices, this works a treat, vastly simplifying control of the system.
In our opinion, simplicity of operation is key to a good system, and the PulseEight matrix simplifies things considerably.
Below is a simplified example of the use of a Matrix switch showing two sources (satellite receivers), and two TVs. The Matrix switch means that each TV can select either of the satellite receivers. The system shown below is only using 2 inputs and 2 outputs (2×2). PulseEight Matrix switches offer 4×4, 6×6 and 8×8 versions in lite (up to 70m distance) and Pro (up to 100m distance) flavours.
Watch the Video below to see an example of how it works: