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On Tuesday, Tzero Technologies and Analog Devices announced that they have created a wireless HDMI interface for HDTVs, next-gen DVD players, and set-top boxes.
The companies' first wireless HDMI setup is a standards-based system, predicated on the standards set forth by Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony in July of 2003. Other wireless HDMI technologies introduced to date have been proprietary, both Tzero and Analog Devices alleged.
Wireless HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) enables wireless video and audio connections between all types of home entertainment products such as HDTVs, DVD players, set-top boxes, and game systems. It allows HDMI content to stream to several devices without a tangle of wires.
The backbone for the technology is ultrawideband, also used as a future replacement for wired USB. The standard calls for link reliability of at least 95 percent, packet error rate of less than 1 in one hundred million, interference resistances for microwaves and cordless phones, and the ability to process three or more HD streams at 10 meters.
"The primary thing that is the most challenging is linked with reliability," said Dan Karr, vice president of marketing for Tzero. "It needs to be good under all conditions. Wi-Fi serves this market very well, but in a video environment you can see that would be very problematic." The wireless HDMI system consists of a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter is a black box about the size of a laptop. Karr says that it is "bigger than necessary, and that's because it's new, but it will get smaller."
The transmitter integrates the Tzero TZ7000 chipset and Analog Devices' JPEG2000 compression integrated circuits. The Analog Device compresses data with JPEG2000 video code, which is then packetized and encrypted, and transmitted via the Tzero MAC and PHY chip. The chip transmits over the air to the receiver where the audio/video data with HDMI is decompressed and presented to the display device via the HDMI port.
JPEG 2000 is a relatively new image compression standard that was approved by the JPEG committee. It can operate at higher compression ratios without the characteristic blocky and blurry effects of the original JPEG standard.
"We pass the video through the JPEG2000 and then pass the video and audio through the Tzero chip," said Bill Bucklen, director for the Advanced TV Segment with Analog Devices. "You can't compress a content-protected signal so we've built a repeater function and because we encrypt the link, it's like we've taken a repeater and put them on the other side of the room."
Tzero and Analog executives say that wireless HDMI will make for much more aesthetically pleasing HD systems, which, according to them, will make women happier in the selection of home theater systems. "One of the things we are hearing more and more now is that the disinterested spouse is taking a more active role in selecting and hanging the television, typically that's the wife," Bucklen said.
"That's all well and good until you start dragging cables into the solution. HDI cables are expensive and bulky and we think that a wireless approach can give consumers the flexibility to put televisions where they want them." The Tzero wireless HDMI system will be demonstrated to electronics manufacturers, press and analysts over the next few months. It will be available for purchase in November. So far the companies have not yet set a final price.
"If we break this down, it's going to be less than an HDMI cable," Karr said. "Those are about $100 plus installation. We think that a TV manufacturer can build this into their system, mark it up with their market and an option to buy would be somewhere around $100. For stand-alone boxes, it will depend on how many things you can pull into that box. It would be nominally in the same range as what a consumer electronics company would integrate it for." |
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发表于 2006-9-6 19:53
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