Seamless Switching.

Do you think there’s a way to change between inputs on the monitor without it disconnecting from the other input? I go back and forth between USB C and display port and the time it take’s for my computer to recognize the screen get’s annoying. It takes about 15 seconds, not anything crazy but makes you think twice about it before you do lol.

As far as I see it, there’s potentially 2 issues here that need addressing.

The first is that the Spectrum is super slow when switching video inputs. It can take several seconds to detect the new signal, sort out HDCP, etc. It is (by a long way) the slowest display I’ve ever used when it comes to this side of things.

Part of me wonders if there’s a bug in the firmware where it’s going through the handshake process multiple times. I’ve certainly noticed that the USB hub can turn off and on a couple of times, so it seems possible that the video handshake is also happening multiple times.

The second is that the Spectrum effectively disconnects any video input except for the active one. For example, if you were to change the input from HDMI to DP, the device with the HDMI signal would act as if the cable was just disconnected and the device with the DP cable would act as if the cable was just connected.

This is both a good and a bad thing. It’s good if you’re using the Spectrum as a second display, because you don’t end up with Windows sitting on a display you can’t see. However, it’s bad because disconnecting the display causes all of the windows on it to move to an active display, which can mess up desktop layouts.

For the displays that stay connected, I don’t know if they keep the entire video signal alive or if they just maintain the signal that says a device is connected. It seems more likely that they just continue to say they’re connected, and they’re able to handshake quickly when you switch inputs. The alternative means keeping a separate HDCP session going for each connected input, and that might be difficult or might increase the hardware costs significantly.

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