- no additional remote - my wife can't stand the little tiny buttons on the harmony, she doesn't want to walk through "activities", she just wants to press power/play/DVR guide/etc
- My "old" Sharp only has 2 HDMI inputs, but that's no reason to replace it. I need a switch.
- My actually old Onkyo does 7.1 but doesn't do HDMI. I like it, and back to #1, I never got the built in composite video switch to work right with the harmony. I like the Onkyo and it works well, I don't want to replace it either.
- All my video sources have toslink, so no problem. I was worried for a while since the mac mini only seems to have a headphone jack, and some of the forums claimed that it did not support digital audio. This was not true, you just need a mini toslink adapter and it is grand. The mini toslink adapter plugs into the headphone jack, with the optical link passing throught it. pretty cool.
Cons:
- As stated above, the audio switch function does not cross-convert. So you can't use it to convert HDMI audio to toslink, for instance. I ran into this, as it took me some time to figure out how to hook up my mac mini via toslink, so I had to mess with the receiver remote to switch audio input sources. All better now, see mac mini audio discussion above.
- OK, I'm having a little problem. The autoscan feature works, but my Aquos TV and set top box end up negotiating 480p resolution sometimes, depending on order of power up. Octava support via email has been great, they actually asked me good questions, and they have promised a new firmware build in a few weeks. If they come through, I'll be impressed, I've rarely have a technical exchange with tech support where I don't end up fixing the problem myself.
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I also own one of these units and I like it.
Pros:
- no additional remote - my wife can't stand the little tiny buttons on the harmony, she doesn't want to walk through "activities", she just wants to press power/play/DVR guide/etc
- My "old" Sharp only has 2 HDMI inputs, but that's no reason to replace it. I need a switch.
- My actually old Onkyo does 7.1 but doesn't do HDMI. I like it, and back to #1, I never got the built in composite video switch to work right with the harmony. I like the Onkyo and it works well, I don't want to replace it either.
- All my video sources have toslink, so no problem. I was worried for a while since the mac mini only seems to have a headphone jack, and some of the forums claimed that it did not support digital audio. This was not true, you just need a mini toslink adapter and it is grand. The mini toslink adapter plugs into the headphone jack, with the optical link passing throught it. pretty cool.
Cons:
- As stated above, the audio switch function does not cross-convert. So you can't use it to convert HDMI audio to toslink, for instance. I ran into this, as it took me some time to figure out how to hook up my mac mini via toslink, so I had to mess with the receiver remote to switch audio input sources. All better now, see mac mini audio discussion above.
- OK, I'm having a little problem. The autoscan feature works, but my Aquos TV and set top box end up negotiating 480p resolution sometimes, depending on order of power up. Octava support via email has been great, they actually asked me good questions, and they have promised a new firmware build in a few weeks. If they come through, I'll be impressed, I've rarely have a technical exchange with tech support where I don't end up fixing the problem myself.
Hi. Did you consider getting the Psyclone PSC47 4-port HDMI and Toslink Switch instead? If so, what swayed you to the Octava?