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Electronics Firms Hopeful For New Wireless HD Developments

Posted on: Wednesday, 23 July 2008, 13:30 CDT

Key electronics industry giants announced on Wednesday that they plan to all get behind a new technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home, thus replacing clusters of video cables in homes.

In the new consortium, Sony Corp. (SNE) (SNE) and Samsung Electronics Co., along with Motorola Inc. (MOT) (MOT), Sharp Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. (HIT), will develop an industry standard around technology from Amimon Ltd. of Israel called WHDI, for Wireless Home Digital Interface.

"If you have a TV in the home, that TV will be able to access any source in the home, whether it's a set-top box in the living room, or the PlayStation in the bedroom, or a DVD player in another bedroom. That's the message of WHDI," said Noam Geri, co-founder of Amimon.

The creation of a broad consortium will allow consumers to be able to buy WHDI-enabled devices from different manufacturers and have them all work together.

TV sets equipped with Amimon's chips are expected to be available in stores next year, costing about $100 more than equivalent, non-wireless TVs, Geri said.

The process of streaming high-definition video wirelessly has been difficult for many companies to master. It can be done with the fastest versions of Wi-Fi, a technology already in many homes, but that requires "compression," or reduction of the data rate, with picture quality degrading as a result.

As a result, many consider radio technologies to be the better answer. A leading contender is WirelessHD, centered on technology from SiBEAM Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif. It uses an open portion of the radio band, at 60 gigahertz, for ultrafast transmission of uncompressed video, but it could be years away from commercialization. Its range is limited, meaning that it would be used for in-room links rather than whole-house networking, like WHDI.

Sony is hopeful for WirelessHD capabilities as well, and is supporting WHDI to have “wider options,” according to a statement.

WDHI uses a radio band at 5 gigahertz that's used by some Wi-Fi devices, which means it can take advantage of research in that field.

Before transmission, Amimon's chips separate the important components of the video signal, the ones that really make a difference to the viewer, from the less important ones, like tiny variations in color over a small area. It then gives priority to the important parts, while putting less effort into getting the fine nuances to the receiver.

That means the transmission works over relatively long distances, albeit with lower image quality as the distance increases.

Samsung sees WDHI only lasting until the higher-picture-quality WirelessHD becomes more prevalent. The company believes WirelessHD will be the "ultimate solution in the long run," said JaeMoon Jo, Samsung’s vice president of TV research.

Also, another technology called ultra-wideband, or UWB, requires less compression than Wi-Fi alternatives, but is limited in range. Monster Cable Products Inc. plans to introduce a kit that produces a wireless video link using UWB.

Kurt Scherf, an analyst at Parks Associates, noted that wireless video technologies have been talked up for years, but haven't lived up to their promises so far. Professional audio-video installers surveyed by his firm aren't excited about wireless, because they're afraid of reliability problems.

Still, he said, WHDI's range should give it an edge, since it allows the technology to do more than just replace a cable in the entertainment center.

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On the Net:

• AMIMON
• WirelessHD

Source: redOrbit Staff & WIre Reports

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