Our friends over at EngadgetHD spotted another mildly interesting product at the CEATEC show in Japan. Hitachi is showing wireless HD camcorder transfer. Obviously a prototype, the camcorder reliably streamed high-definition content to a nearby TV, using DLNA.
As you know, there has been a steady push into wireless HD applications. It's definitely the technology du jour. In some cases, I guess it makes sense. In others, I'm not so sure.
Homeowners, rejoice. Finally, a digital solution standard is in the works to solve your home theater dilemmas. Industry giants are teaming up with AMIMON to create a standard that will bring wireless HD to homes, supposedly by the end of 2008. Let's be happy if it's by 2009. The new standard for Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) is from a special interest group consortium made up of AMIMON, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, and Sharp. It should be noted that Motorola is an investor in AMIMON.
WHDI will enable streaming of uncompressed HD video and video from source to displays, Blu-ray players to receivers, receivers to projectors, or better yet — room to room. No more unsightly wires, no more limits on where you put equipment. Whole house entertainment is a reality.
Belkin is introducing an amazing new product that can improve the appearance of many home theaters. Unsightly wires, or non-optimal placement of components can now be avoided. The Belkin FlyWire is a transmitter, receiver and remote control that wirelessly carries high-definition 1080p throughout a whole household.
This system will work with an array of products, letting you put A/V components in one room, projector on the ceiling, TV in another room, all without running a single A/V cable. OF course, you will need power for the unit.
What happens when you have the coolest new technology and no one cares? That seems to be what's happening with wireless HDMI. A report by ABI Research says sales for wireless HDMI systems won't hit one million until 2012, calling the market's current state as an "incubation phase." What's wrong with people? Don't they know a good thing when they see it? Or, in this case, don't see it?
Think you can’t have a flat-panel TV because you can’t get the wiring from your components to your TV? Is lack of running an HDMI cable keeping your Blu-ray player blue? Today, Sharp announced, “Yes!” or probably more accurately, “Hai!” to wireless HD video transmission. With their forthcoming X-series line-up of LCD sets, Sharp teamed with AMIMON to wirelessly beam 2-million glorious pixels through thin air.
WirelessHD may have just gained the lead in the standards war between it, WirelessUSB, and WiFi for the technology that will power our uncompressed high-def video streaming for years to come. SiBeam, a maker of a 60 Ghz fabless chip designed to the WirelessHD standard just received a cash infusion of $40 million, which will help the company get its chips into production, and into consumer electronic devices by the end of 2008.
Continue reading "SiBeam to Power Your Wireless Living Room" »
Every audiophile music geek dreams of taking a giant hard drive full of high bit-rate music and streaming it to every room in the house. But making it a reality is expensive and complicated.
Short of shelling out $1,000 or more for systems like Sonos that place receivers in multiple rooms, there's no great way to get the job done. Setups like the Squeezebox Duet cost $400 for one room, while the $99 Apple AirportExpress ties you to iTunes — not an audiophile's favorite piece of software.
Audioengine released a simple solution — two USB-thumb drive style gadgets called the AW1 — which serves as a wireless transmitter and receiver, bringing sound from any audio source (a PC, Mp3 player, even a television with 3.5 mm mini outputs or RCA connectors), to any receiver or powered speaker setup up to 100 feet away.
Continue reading "Get Your House Party In Sync with Audioengine's AW1" »
One of the buzzwords coming into the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show was the intriguing wireless TV. The idea is that you can shoot video or pictures from a digital video source to a TV without so much as an HDMI cable in between. But wireless TV may still be a work in progress as evidenced by demos on press conference day at CES. Samsung took the first stab, attempting to send recorded video of the press filing into the press conference room. What came on the TV instead was footage of luxury cars, a loop used to demo the company's new line of HDTVs. (Companies must hate when that happens in front of a room full of cynical journalists). Samsung did get the demo to work after an adjustment which may have been simply an input tweak.
Not so fortunate was Sony. When company officials attempted to show off the Sony's new TransferJet near-field media transfer technology from camera to TV, the screen displayed the message No File Available for Viewing. Sony chairman Sir Howard Stringer promised the company will get it right, and when it does, expect HD transfer capability with transfer speeds of 500 Mbps.--Rebecca Day
