March 15, 2007

Cool Weekend Project - Build an A/V Switcher

I really dig geeky do-it-yourself projects and Engadget has a really cool one this week. They've actually got a tutorial on building your own homemade A/V switcher that's well written with some great pictures. The review states:

In this How-To we'll show you how to wire up your own A/V switcher which you can expand and use any way you'd like, for composite, S-Sideo, component, even VGA signals. Sure, you can buy a newer, really expensive TV's with multiple inputs (even component), but for those of us whose credit cards aren't quite up to that challenge, more inputs for less cash would be rather desirable. Let's get started!
For this project's example we'll be building a 3 input, single output composite video, left / right audio switcher. This will allow us to, say, switch between SNES, NES, and the God of War II adapter (aka PS2) using the single input on the back of the TV. Quality. We'll also explain how to wire up a VGA or S-Video port as well.

What's really nice about the tutorial is that it gives you not only the name of the parts you need but the part number also. While the project might be a little complicated for the beginner, it's definitely a cool project for someone with a little tech savvy and some extra time on their hands. Be sure to read the entire DYI.

At Engadget.com