Tzero Technologies has teamed with Analog Devices Inc., which makes semiconductors for signal processing, to introduce what the firms say is a standards-based wireless HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface). The wireless HDMI system is designed to enable wireless video and audio connections between HD sets, DVD players, set-top boxes, game consoles, and other next-gen products.
Tzero, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., said it has devised ultrawideband technology that generates wireless HDMI connectivity that delivers the same quality as wired products.
The wireless HDMI system, both firms said, is designed to help eliminate some of the costs associated with hard-wired HDMI cable connections, permitting the use portable devices that could carry and display HD content wirelessly anywhere in the home or office. The wireless HDMI interface should meet all manufacturers' requirements for link reliability and packet error rate and unlike proprietary offerings, they said, the standards-based platform is guaranteed to coexist with similar devices and is immune to interference from other wireless networks and household appliances.
One major HD connectivity firm, Gefen, said it plans to base some of its future products on the Tzero/ADI design, which consists of a transmitter and receiver and integrates the Tzero TZ 7000 chipset and ADI's JPEG2000 compression ICs. On the transmission side, video data is compressed using ADI's ADV202 JPEG2000 video codec, combined with audio, then packeted, encrypted and transmitted with the Tzero MAC and PHY chip.
The RF chip transmits over the air to the receiver, where A/V data with HDMI is decompressed and presented to the display device via the HDMI port.
