Pros: Great Idea, Attractive Price
Best Uses: Bookend, Brick, Doorstop
Describe Yourself: Power User
Primary use: Personal

not recommended

I was excited to see this unit on the market. Finally, an affordable SPDIF audio injector for HDMI! Unfortunately, my experience with this has been terrible! Maybe I got a bad unit, but at least some of these issues are clearly design flaws, others may be faulty hardware. Read this review carefully before you buy one of these. This device does not pass data two-ways. The computer or other DVI source cannot read the EDID info from the TV or other display device. It simply sees the HDMI converter as the end video device, and it's always on. This means you cannot tell if the display device is on or not, so if you have an output switcher involved or want the computer to sense if the display device is on, both will think it's ALWAYS on. This can be frustrating. It also means that EDID data does not get passed back to the computer or other DVI output device. While most TVs have no problem with standard HD resolutions, the reality is that many may have trouble with what a computer wants to output. In most cases where you want pixel-accurate video output on a display, the only real solution is to plug the display directly to the computer, use SwitchResX, PowerStrip, or DisplayConfigX (depending on your OS) and extract the exact settings and EDID data, than force them when connected via the Apogee adapter. The lack of two-way data can also complicate color management and other things that depend upon reading EDID data from the display. It also basically makes just plugging your friend's DVI-equipped notebook into your TV impossible; the EDID data not being passed means you have to spend a bunch of time with setup. Also, if you have multiple adapters, even if they're hooked to very different display devices, your computer won't be able to tell which is which and show the proper resolutions; your only choice is to enable all resolutions you need to use with all display devices that are hooked up via this model of Apogee HDMI converter. If this were not enough, the box appears to add a slight flicker to the signal. It's not noticed most of the time, but perhaps once an hour or less, you'll see an on-screen "flash" of white, almost like the cable was jarred. Yes, the cable was tight; I tested many cables, all on and way over HDMI 1.3a specifications, from 3 ft to 75 ft with identical results. I tested directly with the output device too, and verified the settings were the same. And, to top it all off, the box appears to alter digital data passing though it. Every attempt to pass AC3 and DTS audio failed, including "disguising" it as stereo. Don't get me wrong, the audio sounds fine, but if you try and pass anything but LPCM over SPDIF, it's not going to arrive at my destination. The manual says very little you could not guess by looking at the box. There's a mystery switch on the box. I have no idea what it does. I would love suggestions. The box has very bright LEDs on it which can be annoying if the box is visible while watching a movie. You may find you want to cover them. However, they do indicate whether a device is active or not on that side. Too bad they didn't bother to pass that data down the DVI feed. Finally... with all these issues, Apogee's technical support won't even respond to multiple inquiries, which included my phone, email and mailing address. It's possible that some of these problems are due to a faulty unit. But I'll never know, since Apogee won't talk to me.