I didn’t until recently, to be honest; I did research Wireless HDMI products a couple of years back from a company called IO Gear and a commercial relationship never materialized.
In recent times, an electrician reached out to me – As they say in the States and had the following issue.
A 30 foot HDMI cable was installed during some refurbishment of an old farmhouse about 3 years ago – the cable guy attempted to connect his digital set-top box to the remote flat screen and nothing worked.
It turns out that the cable was not damaged, however, there is a repeater unit located on the cable, which should have been positioned near the source but instead was installed at the TV display.
In other words, the cable was installed the wrong way around by accident.
Anyway, I got the task of identifying a solution.
So, started a little bit of research on the topic of Wireless HDMI, and here is what I found out.
- The term Wireless HDMI is used to describe a technology whose purpose is to send uncompressed high definition video and audio content over the air.
- It turns out that there are three separate standards in this space – WirelessHD, WHDi, and Wi-Fi 802.11n.
- For those of you who are interested in the techie stuff; the frequency bands used by these various wireless HDMI products range between 60, 50, and even 190 GHz…
- The form factor of Wireless HDMI products ranges from USB style sticks to full-featured transmitters and receivers.
- Pricing seems to range for a wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver pair between $300 and $500. For those of us in Euro Land that would be €250 to €400; depending on the exchange rates.
- All of the Wireless HDMI products on the market support uncompressed video and 7.1 channel audio.
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Most products available are one to one; in other words, there is a limited choice when it comes to multi-room wireless HDMI products on the market.
TYPICAL WIRELESS HDMI APPLICATIONS
Here are some the reasons why you might want to go beyond this blog post and investigate the Wireless HDMI marketplace:
- If you aspire to send HDTV from a Blu-ray player, set-top box, or media center to another location and want to avoid the headaches associated with chasing walls to run thick HDMI cable.
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If you have a specific application, such as locating a TV on chimney breast than Wireless HDMI could very well be the killer solution.
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If you are confident that signal strength will not be compromised through obstacles located between the Wireless HDMI receiver and transmitter.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I think Wireless HDMI has some merit; it can be useful in some situations. It is a relatively young technology.
From my own perspective, I will continue investigations into this stuff in the background and am in Skype talks at the moment! with one of the top three Wireless HDMI players with a view to adding one of their solutions Gerard’s Rolodex suite of products over the coming months.
If you can’t wait and look for a wireless HDMI solution now, I would be inclined to buy one of these DVDO wireless kits.
Anyway time for a fry up and maybe a Cappuccino…