The Amity concept can be easily extended to splice the HDMI-CEC connections between some or all of the components of an A/V system.
Amity with many tentacles in the system has a few use cases:
- Orchestrating multiple display devices over HDMI-CEC.
In addition to the current TV/AVR splice, a second splice can be added between a secondary monitor and the AVR. Due to HDMI-CEC's architecture, only one port on the AVR is HDMI-CEC enabled. Amity can substitute the missing HDMI-CEC bus for the secondary monitor and control it, while orchestrating the rest of the system through the main TV/AVR splice.
- Support devices connected directly to the TV.
If Amity is spliced between all playback devices and the TV, then Amity can orchestrate the system without an AVR. This still doesn't allow Amity to control TV apps.
- Completely eliminate source thievery.
Currently, to stop source thievery, Amity employs two strategies. Amity minimizes bus chatter that may entice a device to demand source. For example, many devices demand source when they see the TV send a power on status. Amity doesn't announce any state changes that are not necessary to orchestrating the current activity. This eliminates nearly all source thievery attempts. But there are some exceptions where a device may still demand to be source. For example, when a Nintendo Switch is placed in its cradle. For these cases, Amity monitors the HDMI-CEC bus for source demand requests and cancels them, if necessary; first by fixing up the source to what it should be, and second by sending the thieving device a standby command. This stops the source thievery in its tracks but the display will still momentarily flicker as the AVR switches sources back and forth in response to the HDMI-CEC messages.
If Amity has its tentacles between all devices and the AVR or TV, it can silently drop the inappropriate source request messages, thus eliminating the flicker.
The Amity concept can be easily extended to splice the HDMI-CEC connections between some or all of the components of an A/V system.
Amity with many tentacles in the system has a few use cases:
In addition to the current TV/AVR splice, a second splice can be added between a secondary monitor and the AVR. Due to HDMI-CEC's architecture, only one port on the AVR is HDMI-CEC enabled. Amity can substitute the missing HDMI-CEC bus for the secondary monitor and control it, while orchestrating the rest of the system through the main TV/AVR splice.
If Amity is spliced between all playback devices and the TV, then Amity can orchestrate the system without an AVR. This still doesn't allow Amity to control TV apps.
Currently, to stop source thievery, Amity employs two strategies. Amity minimizes bus chatter that may entice a device to demand source. For example, many devices demand source when they see the TV send a power on status. Amity doesn't announce any state changes that are not necessary to orchestrating the current activity. This eliminates nearly all source thievery attempts. But there are some exceptions where a device may still demand to be source. For example, when a Nintendo Switch is placed in its cradle. For these cases, Amity monitors the HDMI-CEC bus for source demand requests and cancels them, if necessary; first by fixing up the source to what it should be, and second by sending the thieving device a standby command. This stops the source thievery in its tracks but the display will still momentarily flicker as the AVR switches sources back and forth in response to the HDMI-CEC messages.
If Amity has its tentacles between all devices and the AVR or TV, it can silently drop the inappropriate source request messages, thus eliminating the flicker.