Philips makes wireless HDMI

Author: Brett Thomas
Published: 12th January 2007
Comments (9) Stumble
Philips makes wireless HDMI

"Feel the power" - Philips demonstrated its wireles HDMI solution.

A lot of CES 2007 has been about the TVs (as you'll see in our upcoming feature article recapping the show next week). Home theatre is an incredibly important avenue for PC innovation, but all the 1080p TV stuff has left us a little shy of awesome PC launches. Of course, it's hard to live up to last year with Vista, Core 2 Duo, X-Fi and the 8800...but Philips still managed to develop something really geek-tastic - wireles HDMI.

The system passes uncompressed HDMI signals, thereby eliminating the worry of artifacts that could degrade image quality by compression. It operates in the 3GHz-4.4GHz range, so it doesn't interfere with either WiFi or most cordless telephones. Best of all, since it's radio transmisison, it requires no line of sight and works up to 25ft - the perfect transmitter for a projector set-up!

Of course, that's not to say it's without its downsides. The demo had a few kinks where it just couldn't pass the data quite fast enough, leading to one screen only being rendered most of the way down every so many frames. Also, because the device is radio-based, there is a potential for interference. Finally, it only works currently as a single input to single output - we'd love to see it evolve to being able to run multiple displays, or send multiple (switchable) signals to one TV.

The current version, pictured here, is pre-production - we're hoping they'll get these kinks ironed out before release, but it certainly looks promising. Do you have a thought on it? Drop it in our forums.



Philips Wireless HDMI
Quote DougEdey 12th January 2007, 15:27
Does it require an extra power socket because if it does then I'm afraid that it's useless.
Quote Renoir 12th January 2007, 16:03
Anyone know what technology this is based on?
Quote atanum141 12th January 2007, 16:11
i can bet Sony will start producing a copy of this item and call it its own and the whole world will prise it @ being so damn smart its allways been like this when Phillips invents the goods and Sony takes the credit.
Quote mclean007 12th January 2007, 16:42
Quote:
Originally Posted by DougEdey
Does it require an extra power socket because if it does then I'm afraid that it's useless.
Presumably it could be built into TVs and sources (be they HD-DVD/Blu-Ray/DVD or terrestrial/satellite digiboxes or consoles) and take their power from the device they're built into?

This is pretty amazing when you consider what it is doing - UNCOMPRESSED HD video, even at the lower end of the resolution scale (say 720p at 30fps) needs 720(lines)*1280(columns)*24(bits per pixel)*30(fps) bits / sec = 632Mb/sec (+sound +overheads) over a wireless link. Crank it up to 1080p at 60fps and you're staring down the barrel of 3Gb/sec. That is hardcore.
Quote yodasarmpit 12th January 2007, 17:05
Quote:
Originally Posted by DougEdey
Does it require an extra power socket because if it does then I'm afraid that it's useless.
Why would that matter?
It will be sitting in the corner with your reciever,dvd etc away from the TV, thats sort of the point to remove all the cables away from the TV.
Quote DougEdey 12th January 2007, 17:09
If it needs an extra power supply, you'll be looking at one each end, so thats two plugs required, if like me, your room only has two sockets at each location and you are renting then the maximum number of sockets you can get out is limited.
Quote yodasarmpit 12th January 2007, 17:28
Quote:
Originally Posted by DougEdey
If it needs an extra power supply, you'll be looking at one each end, so thats two plugs required, if like me, your room only has two sockets at each location and you are renting then the maximum number of sockets you can get out is limited.

You have a point
Quote:
I guess the point is in order to go the wireless HDMI route you will to connect a transceiver to both your video source and monitor, whether it's a TV or a projector. Unfortunately, the transceivers will require power, so you'll need to plug them into an outlet. They are HDCP-compliant.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9672488-1.html

I suppose what it could mean is only 2 cables, 1 for the TV and 1 for the reciever, rather than TV,DVD,Satallite etc
Quote DXR_13KE 12th January 2007, 23:29
nice..... were do you plug your TV? plug the receiver there. were do you plug your HD-DVD/BRD reader? plug the transmitter there.
Quote El_Shekador 14th January 2007, 06:29
Does the conversion / deconversion to and from a radio signal cause any delay in the video? Assuming they fix the current glitches, that would be the only other thing that could keep me from buying this when it is released.
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