The Hall Technologies EM-HD-NCP acts as an HDMI monitor by emulating the EDID found in a typical HDMI LCD and by asserting the HPD (Hot Plug Detection) to the HDMI video source. Most PCs and laptops require a special handshake from the display before they output video. This handshake involves reading the EDID table from the monitor.
The EDID contains information such as Native or supported resolutions and Video Formats. Some older equipment may not support the EDID properly and the end result is that you often can't get video from your PC to external display.
If you connect the HDMI output of your laptop to a "dumb" HDMI Switch, you laptop will notice when you switch away from that input since it will notice a disconnect. This interrupts and affects the video on your laptop, especially of you have extended your desktop. You can use the EM-HD-NCP to "fool" your laptop into sensing that it is connected to a monitor regardless of which input is selected on the HDMI switcher.
The EDID Emulator is tiny device that plugs to the HDMI port on your source device and you simply plug the cable from the monitor to this unit.
The EDID in the unit is pre-programmed with many standard resolutions with native set to 1080p. If you need to specifically program the EDID from a unique LCD into the Emulator, that is possible too with the use of USB-EDID-PRO2 (sold separately).
Please Note: This device does not support HDCP (content protection). You can use this device to force the source to not encrypt video with HDCP unnecessarily when permissible.