14 DAY TRIAL // The Consumer Electronics Show is not only about well-known companies and their products. The event has attracted small businesses as well, and some of their products are really worth mentioning. This is the case of a small company called RTCcom that manufactures video switches and converters for multiple monitor video signal splitting.
All the company's products look like boxes, either big or small, so labeling them according to their size would not be so wrong as it may seem. The biggest product the company has showcased is the HS-66M HDMI digital matrix router that acts like a 36 x 36 port switch for video signal.
The matrix router makes it possible to transmit high definition video signals from multiple sources, (such as consumer audio-visual products and computers to feature DVI connectors) to multiple displays at the highest resolution. The HS-66M HDMI digital matrix router can be scaled up to a 36 x 36 port switch by installing additional blades.
Adding extra blades can make the router accept a wide array of connectors, including HDMI or even Displayport. The device will convert them and display them accordingly, while paying attention to the HDCP digital rights management restrictions, if present. The device has been announced back in May 2007, but will become available soon. There is no word on pricing yet.
Another nifty product from RTCcom comes in a smaller box and is responsible for taking HDMI over fiber. The box includes a pair of transmitters and receivers, each of them featuring a HDMI port on one side, and a fiber out on the other. They can send and receive the video signal over a maximum distance of a kilometer of fiber, while preserving the attached DRM specifications.
Similar products include DVI and HDMI over CAT5 converters that act just like the fiber converter mentioned earlier, but send data over CAT5 cables instead of optical fiber. These devices are useful if you decide to use the local Ethernet to distribute video content along the house.