Perfect for those who don’t need the high speed of digital or who are bridging the transition between analog and digital.
By Frederick J. Ampel
April 29, 2013
This guide covers products that are largely analog signal-oriented and can be used in many older facilities or those with no need for the high speed, pure digital HD, DVI, HDMI capabilities offered by the next generation of products. Essentially these products are bridging a transition zone between analog signal and the rapidly expanding use of all digital signal systems.
It is important to understand that all manufacturers offer a wide range or family of products in these categories (both digital and analog), so it is impossible in the space available to cover every variation feasible from each company. Therefore a representative unit is showcased. I encourage you to visit the company website and explore the menu of options available to meet your needs. Links have been provided for this purpose.
The need to route, assign and direct multiple video and audio signals to multiple destinations is an often overlooked but crucial part of any installation’s infrastructure. When there are multiple sources that need to be connected to multiple and often rapidly changing destinations, the device of choice is a matrix switcher, also referred to as a matrix router.
What are Matrix Switchers?
In the simplest sense, matrix switchers route multiple audio/video sources to multiple audio/video destinations. These devices accept audio/video signals from a range of input sources — computers, cameras, video playback systems, disc players, etc. — and send their signals (route the output) to different destinations, such as projectors, monitors and video conference codecs, other computers, etc. Matrix switchers can be found in almost every type of facility, including but not limited to corporate boardrooms, command and control centers, classrooms, restaurants, event and meeting facilities and more.
You can think of these devices like a set of diversion arms and gates on a conveyor belt at a Fed Ex package sorting facility, Hundreds of packages go by every minute, each with a different
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