HDMI switcher that works with existing equipment

Here is an interesting idea, an external HDMI switcher that will learn the component source controls of a given remote so that the existing remote for your receiver/controller can operate the switcher, instead of just its own inputs. No having to use macros.

So for instance, if I push the DVD component button on my remote the HDMI switcher responds and uses that input as well as the receiver/controller picking the correct audio input, if I choose the TV component on my receiver/controller that is the HDMI input chosen on the switcher.

Think how transparent and useful this would be!

I think a more elegant solution and I believe other companies have done this is to control the switcher with the Rcvr or Pre/Pro's RS-232 port.

More elegant for what? There are hundreds of models of AV receivers and controllers out there in use, the point is to make them work seamlessly with an HDMI switcher, not to add RS-232 ports and software to the hundreds of models without support for either.

If you want a switcher upgrade for an existing Outlaw product maybe (forget about the older ones though), but even then, the market size would be too small and the narrow solution too expensive and limited in utility (with the same end result as a switcher with an IR receiver).

Better to sell a more general purpose switcher that anyone can buy and use with any receiver/controller, market size matters.

There are HDMI switchers with remote controls (yet another remote control or macro for a learning remote) that really don't get the job done seamlessly in real world use.

This would fit well with their own products and the marketing channel fits. The switcher could easily be assembled from existing components by a contract manufacturer (how all their stuff gets made) with a minimum of design work and would solve a broad problem with a large market during the transition to HDMI.

I guess you could make a switcher that used a "learning" IR interface. I just don't see anyone trying to add a huge set of IR codes to a switcher trying to cover numerous devices and combinations of inputs. The whole HDMI switcher market is going to be fairly short lived IMHO since users are going to want it to handle audio also. Well if Outlaw builds one make sure you get royalties

I think a switcher such as westy describes would have to operate similar to the Radio Shack switch box that I got for my mother-in-law a few years back: you can teach it IR commands from other devices so that (for example) the DVD power command switches it to input 2. That's the only manageable way to do what westy describes, and in that scenario it isn't much more complex than the existing IR-controlled HDMI/DVI switchers.

I know that audio is out of the question since no legacy device could handle the encryption. So it would by definition be video only.

It wouldn't have to be preprogrammed (although it wouldn't hurt) it just has to have the ability to map learned commands to inputs.