WirelessHD is a technology of convenience which is going to become much more common as consumer appreciation grows. Consumer have already show that they appreciate less cables can control complexity with the HDMI cable based DLNA connectivity (and control) solution. What the WirelessHD specification sets out is a wireless network for media streaming between AV devices without any cables. You just have to set the set top box, game console or other AV device within the 10m range and plug it into the power socket. No cable confusion necessary.

WirelessHD is based on SiBEAM Inc chipsets embedded with their OmniLink60 technology for directional 60GHz millimeter wave radio. Most significantly will transmit Full HD (1080p) video uncompressed (no deterioration in quality – no compression artifacts). It also simplifies the control of multiple devices by providing a high-speed wireless digital interface for users to connect, play, transmit and port their HD content in a secure manner. The intelligent device control system automatically discovers each device in the WirelessHD network and makes them controllable from a single remote control.

As WirelessHD only works between compatible (support standard) devices there will soon be a range of transmitter/receiver accessories to retrofit existing AV and computing products. WirelessHD can connect together a wide variety of digital media sinks (players) and sources (storage) including DVD players, projectors, HDTVs, game consoles, digital cameras, personal computers, portable media players and video recorders.

As mentioned, Wireless HD range is 10m and importantly non line-of-sight. WirelessHD compatible devices have directional connections that adapt very rapidly (less than one millisecond) to changes in the environment such as someone walking through the radio beam path. This is achieved through dynamic steering the antenna beam at the transmitter while at the same time focusing the receiver antenna in the direction of the transmitter. Capture of direct path, reflections and other indirect paths is made possible by this dynamic beam forming and beam steering configuration.

Currently WirelessHD achieves Full HD streaming with a data rate of up to 4Gbps. However, there is significant room for performance improvement with theoretical data rates as high as 25Gbps leaving open the possibility of handling even higher resolutions in the future.

Plugging in only the power cable sounds so good. But what if we didn’t even have to do that …..

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