Review: AV Pro Edge ConferX AC-CX42

AV Pro Edge hails from Sioux Falls in South Dakota, home of hunting and fishing, and cutting-edge AV distribution products, so it would seem. Its catalogue has a wide range of extenders, matrix switches, DAs, specialised cables, and more, with product for 8K video down to bandwidth-stingy JPEG compression over gigabit networks.

I’ve got its ConferX 4×2 matrix switch in for a look — the AC-CX42.

CALLING CONFERENCE ROOMS

As the ConferX name intimates, it’s designed for conference rooms, in the main, as well as being suitable for certain museum and classroom applications.

A look at the back panel will quickly give you the gist: making up the four inputs are three HDMI ins along with an HDBaseT input, which allows more remote inputs to join the party (up to 70m at full 4K). There’s an HDBaseT output as well, to overcome distance issues of a display. AV Pro Edge has a range of HDMI, Displayport and even VGA wallplate options, as well as transmitters and receivers to place at the other end, and this unit handles power-over-HDBaseT to simplify the install.

To round out the back panel line-up there’s I/O for audio, including a mic input, infrared remotes and RS232 control.

HIT SELECT

The front panel is a simple affair with a HDMI and HDBaseT output select button. 

The ConferX has some flexible auto source switching features. Logging onto the web GUI is probably the best way of setting that up to your own requirements. It does mean the unit can be entirely set ’n’ forget if you have a predictable in-room scenario. There’s a supplied remote, if needs be, with the words ‘HDMI Matrix’ writ large on it to avoid confusion.

ULTRA HI DEF

There are a couple of other features worth noting. This is a HDMI2.0 device and supports full 4K60, 4:4:4, 18Gbps video signals.

Being a true 4×2 matrix, each of the outputs is entirely independent of each other, allowing the display of two different sources simultaneously.

This is a presentation device, so there’s no nifty USB-based, videoconferencing features, and it does have more than its fair share of competition in this category but AV Pro Edge is a strong contender with plenty of runs on the board and a fine reputation.