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I bought an IOGEAR GHDMIAS4 4 Port Automatic HDMI Switch on Newegg.com last week to connect my Playstation 3, Xbox360 and TiVo Series3 HD to my television. My 2005 TV has only one HDMI port.

I’ve been walking around to the back of the TV for over a year plugging and unplugging my three HDMI devices. I’ve been doing this because I’ve read review after review about a variety of HDMI switches that are not able to send a 1080 signal (whether 1080p or 1080i) to the TV from the Playstation 3.

After reading this Macworld review, I decided to give it a shot. With Newegg.com’s 30-return policy, I figured I had nothing to lose. I attached the HDMI switch to my devices. I’ve been fooling around w/ the switch for a while now, and I have to say I’m very pleased with it.

IOGEAR GHDMIAS4 4 Port Automatic HDMI Switch product page

I subscribed to Suscom’s HD+DVR service last week, and I love it so far. The HD channels are crystal clear (using the component connections w/ some homemade RCA cables w/ 75-ohm connectors).

The service is provided via Motorola’s new Dual-Tuner DVR High-Definition Set-Top DCT6412. The interface is much nicer than their older digital cable set top box interface. The new interface utilizes the Pioneer Passport Echo app. It has a Seagate 5400RPM 120GB drive; good for recording 90 hours of standard TV or 20 hours of HTDV. I can watch a show and record another simultaneously, record two shows, pause live TV, etc. It doesn’t have the automated recording system like Tivo where it records shows it thinks you may like based on what you rate the shows you do record, but that’s okay because I would hate for it to record ballet or figure skating based on a previous recording of some arbitrary program that may have some related content.

The remote has a lot of buttons on it. It has so many buttons that I have to look at the remote sometimes to make sure I don’t hit something by accident when looking through the guide for a show or saving/erasing a recorded program.

Overall, I’m very pleased with it, I expect I’ll be using it a lot. I’ve already used it extensively to record Big Brother 6, Hi-def NFL preseason football, and syndicated episodes of Family Guy.

Other stuff:
Motorola’s serious looking DVR rolling out to Comcast
Motorola DCT6412 (Comcast DVR) 30-second skip
DCT6412 Firewire capture and HD/SD to DVD guide