As in, if I have a 5 in/1 out switch with various devices hooked up to a single monitor and I was to swap it around (don't ask) so that one device could potentially display to one of five output options, would the switch get really upset and refuse to co-operate in reverse? My thinking is that the switch isn't stroppy enough to care which direction the signal is flowing in, as long as device sends, monitor receives. I realise I could test this, but re-cabling everything for an obvious No answer is a proper faff. Bonus question: if I had two switches in series so that one of five devices in to the first could ultimately choose which of five screens to show on, would they play nicely together or get all primadonna-like and refuse to work on the same team?
It would more than likely refuse to cooperate because HDMI switches are electronically different to HDMI splitters, which I think is what you would want in this situation. Switches take multiple sources to one output. Splitters take one source to multiple outputs.
Cheers noiz (appreciated as usual!). I'd visualised the switch being more like a train track where the routing is selective but only one in/out operates at once, whereas I understand a splitter to work across all the outputs simultaneously (such as for display presentations to different screens/locations at the same time). I don't need simultaneous output like this, just the option to display on my main screen or shift the output to secondary screen when main is being used for something else. Thinking about it though, unless I use a different input on the main screen, the above won't help as both sources will be sharing an output, which will either be on main or secondary. I'd need a different setup or gubbins to be able to have all sources wired to both screens and then select what I want to display where, wouldn't I? I'll try and sketch a (laughable) diagram...
You want a HDMI Matrix box. Somethink like https://www.amazon.co.uk/HDMI-Matri...mzn1.fos.23648568-4ba5-49f2-9aa6-31ae75f1e9cd
That's the fella! Nice work indeed, comrade! I had no idea such things existed, but I am now much happier. Problem solved.
