January 4, 2008
WirelessHD arrives with strings attached
HDMI has helped to reduce the clutter of connecting cables around the television and WirelessHD may remove them entirely now it is finally getting off the ground.
Its "special interest group" consortium - led by LG, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba - has just announced Version 1.0 of its wireless specification for high-definition baseband video transmission.
The specification arrives nine months later than expected, but WirelessHD’s backers have had to convince the Motion Picture Association of America that the technology offers content protection and can be restricted enough so as not to beam movies across an apartment complex.
Intel has joined the group, which now includes 40 "early adopter and promoter companies".
“With the completion of the WirelessHD specification, consumer electronics manufacturers can focus on their WirelessHD-based product development efforts,” said John Marshall, chairman of the group.
Mr Marshall is also co-founder of SiBeam, the Silicon Valley company whose technology is at the centre of WirelessHD.
It is taking a similar position to Silicon Image, a Valley company that has developed HDMI.
"It will be interesting to see when WirelessHD comes out, how well it works," says Stevan Eidson, product marketing director at Silicon Image. He questions the quality of service of wireless and says HDMI is currently 10 times cheaper than WirelessHD.
The standard will also face challenges from other wireless technologies. While no WirelessHD products are yet available, Westinghouse will show off a television at the Consumer Electronics Show next week connected by Pulse-Link’s ultra-wideband (UWB) technology.
