Electronics Giants Shoot for Wireless HDTV Standard This Year

A new industry standard for wireless in-home multi-room connectivity of media—including uncompressed HDTV—ought to be completed by the end of this year, a group of major electronics companies said.

Amimon Inc., which makes the chip at the center of the Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) technology, has joined with Hitachi Ltd., Motorola Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp. and Sony Corp. to develop the standard. They said they “intend” to complete the standards this year.

WHDI technology involves a video-modem that operates in the 5 GHz unlicensed band to enable wireless delivery of uncompressed HD video. The group says WHDI allows secure, encrypted HD video delivery through multiple rooms and other potential signal obstructions, such as people and furniture, while maintaining quality with less than one-millisecond latency.

TV Technology columnist Doug Lung reported last year that Joint Source-Channel Coding (JSCC)—instead of conventional data transmission methods that treat each bit as equally important—lets Amimon’s WHDI system transmit data rates between 250 and 800 Mbps using a 20 MHz channel in the 5 GHz band over short distances inside a house.

The group says it wants to enhance the current WHDI technology to enable wireless streaming of uncompressed HD video and audio among various devices from TVs to PCs to game consoles and set-top-boxes, regardless of manufacturer.

“The development of the new standard will ensure that when consumers purchase CE devices and take them home, they will enjoy a fast, easy and hassle-free wireless connection that delivers the highest quality,” said Yoav Nissan-Cohen, chairman and CEO of Amimon, based in Israel with offices in Japan, Korea and Silicon Valley.