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Wireless HDMI Prototype Announced

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Sep 06, 2006 09:45 AM
from the thats-a-lotta-bits-in-the-air dept.
Displays Hardware
legoburner writes "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 backbone for the technology is ultrawideband, also used as a future replacement for wired USB. The Analog Device compresses data with the [lossy] JPEG2000 video codec, which is then packetized and encrypted, and transmitted via the Tzero MAC and PHY chip."
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  • Women! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:46AM (#16052217)
    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 1950s called. They want their mentality back.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by InsaneGeek (175763)
      Just because it was true in the 1950's and kind of has a caveman feel to it, doesn't mean there isn't a ring of truth to it. If you go over to http://www.avsforum.com/ [avsforum.com] you'd be surprised as to the number of posts talking about passing the spouse test regards to being esthetically pleasing on required cable hiding, etc.

    • Re:Women! (Score:5, Funny)

      by legoburner (702695) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:55AM (#16052309) Homepage Journal
      And with jpeg as the codec, they can keep their 1950s picture quality too!

    • It's true! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by paranode (671698) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @10:00AM (#16052361)
      My wife's only complaint with my home theater set up was all the wires and how best to hide them. She was totally against me using surround sound because of the wires. Finally I ran the wires under the flooring (it's complicated) and then it was no problem. So in reality these guys have a good point.
        • The speakers are powered by the speaker cable. These are the rear ones I'm referring to though, the rest is tucked away in an entertainment center cabinet.
    • The 1950s called. They want their mentality back.

      Which just goes to show how cool the 50's really were.

      Seriously, after decades of political correctness, we see that some stereotypes aren't always that far off. These guys aren't guessing that women want this, it's part of the feedback/research. My own experience (my wife and her friends) supports this. I know, my own experience doesn't offer a sample size large enough to reject the null hypothesis but it makes it a little easier to believe when I hear

  • Another Sony Delay.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by saboola (655522) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:47AM (#16052226)
    In other news, in an attempt to make the PS3 future proof, Sony has once again delayed the PS3 till 2009 so that they may integrate wireless HDMI. Wireless HDMI will not come standard however, but be part of the 1500 dollar "ZOMG" SKU.

  • HD compression? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MindStalker (22827) <jlarsen@@@fsu...edu> on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:50AM (#16052254) Journal
    Ok why would someone spend large amounts of money on an HD system only to have it compressed.

    On another note, what about the signal band already used by HD TV broadcasters, would a signal thats weak enough to stay inside your house be legal?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by legoburner (702695)
      Because they are posers and just want to look like they have expensive equipment? That would apply to quite a few people with top-of-the-range systems that I know of.

    • Most people's HD is compressed anyway (Score:5, Informative)

      by brunes69 (86786) <slashdotNO@SPAMkeirstead.org> on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:56AM (#16052321) Homepage
      If you get your HD from digi cable or dish (which 90% of HDTV owners do), then the signal has already been compressed in MPEG2 or MPEG4 on it's way down the pipe.

      Then again, this thing is just adding in another compress/decompress cycle - not good IMO.

        • Re:Most people's HD is compressed anyway (Score:4, Informative)

          by JonTurner (178845) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @11:15AM (#16053063) Journal
          >>If you get your HD from digi cable or dish (which 90% of HDTV owners do)
          >Only 90%? Seems more likely to be 100%.

          The other 10% is Over The Air (e.g. Antenna). If you're after the highest possible quality, this is what you want. OTA HD broadcasts are usually of higher quality than cable or dish. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's true -- The cable/sat company (re)compresses the signal, introducing visual artifacts. In effect, you're getting a second-generation copy.
    • Tell me, where in the world can you buy HD movies or watch HD TV programs that aren't compressed?

  • See! (Score:4, Funny)

    by yakhan451 (841816) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:51AM (#16052272)
    See! Sony's once again ahead of the curve, not shipping the PS3 with an HDMI cable.

  • Not really HDMI (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    HDMI, in its present incantation, is just glorified DVI with DRM. But, anyways, a wireless version of a video connection which is lossy is not the same as the video connection it purports to replicate. I would propose they call it HDMI Minus (or something like that) but HDMI is already a minus.

    If lossy is allowed, my regular CRT TV from 1998 could be called HDTV. It's just lossy, right?
    • I wouldn't say HDMI is a *complete* piece of garbage. I agree completely that the DRM puts a downer on it, but it is nice simply because of the size of the cable. As for the wireless iteration, yeah the loss on it is going to make it a no go for me, but it is nice to see someone finally step up to the plate on the concept. Like all technologies, this one will either die or improve over time. I personally am hoping it improves because anything that reduces the number of wires needed to set up a quality h

      • Re:Not really HDMI (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Pieroxy (222434) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @10:11AM (#16052445) Homepage
        I have learned that the wireless equivalents are always well under the performances of the wired ones. And I'm tired to see my image freeze every time someone walks between the Wi-Fi access point and the HTPC.

        Wireless is a no-go, in any of its incarnations today, save the input devices which don't need high data rate: mice, keyboards, remotes. All the rest is just on an emergency basis.
    • Doesn't it also include 2 channel audio?

  • JPEG2000 is not inherently Lossy (Score:5, Informative)

    by topham (32406) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:53AM (#16052286) Homepage
    JPEG2000 has both lossless and lossy modes.

    Did I miss something in the article indicating which they were using?
    • The article didn't indicate which, but I hope lossless is an option. I'm excited about this technology. It could be one more building block for a glasses-and-PDA-based desktop replacement.
    • The article states, "The Analog Device compresses data with JPEG2000 video code [sic?]".

      Though, they could just be stupid and really mean 'encodes'. Maybe they mean lossless..? I'm sort of dumb and always just think of lossless compression as encoding.

      Who knows.. I would guess they might have brought it up if the compression was lossy. Then again, I would guess they might assure readers that it was not lossy.. aahhh!! I don't know.
      • They do discuss how JPEG2000 compresses "without the characteristic blocky and blurry effects of the original JPEG standard."

        Sooo.. I guess it must be lossy if they're discussing that. They're essentially saying that it doesn't look as bad as the previous lossy compression method..
    • The need to use compression indicates that they at least have some fallback to lossy or lower framerate (it has to do SOMETHING if fed white noise). It doesn't have to be that bad, it's not like the original signal, in the video case, will ever be an uncompressed HD signal in itself. I wonder if they have considered any efforts to match the expected inherent compression artefacts; as we all know, lossy + lossy can sometimes be a very bad thing.
      • JPEG2000 works using a progressive encoding. If I were designing such a device, I would send as many refinements as possible in each frame, giving lossless quality on some scenes, lossy on others. You could also refine it slightly by allowing unchanged segments of the scene to have frame n+1 contain just the refinements.

        Either way, this seems like the wrong way of doing it. Most content that actually needs compressing is already compressed; decompressing it, then recompressing it, transmitting it, and

    • TZero is using lossless JPEG2000 (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So sayeth their presentation anyhow.

      http://www.tzerotech.com/site/demo/ [tzerotech.com]

  • Installation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by onion2k (203094) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:53AM (#16052288) Homepage
    "If we break this down, it's going to be less than an HDMI cable," Karr said. "Those are about $100 plus installation."

    People pay for someone to come and install a cable?

    "It's that whole 'plugging it in' thing! It's got me completely stumped!" ;)
    • Yes, people actually pay a lot of money to have simple things installed. It's not so much the physical installation though, it's all the settings, since most manufacturers don't ship the products pre-setup. Case in point, there are a number of Up-Converting DVD players that don't come out of the box with the HDMI port enabled. You have to go through menus (sometimes these procedures aren't even in the user manuals) to set it up.

      Now if you are a technical newbie, plopping down thousands of dollars at the
    • You can get hihg quality HDMI cables from monoprice.com [monoprice.com] for $12 or less.

      Only a complete retard would pay $100 for a cable meant to deliver a purely digital signal. Then again these are the same people Monster-brand products are amrketed to, so nothing surprises me.

  • Let me get this straight... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by squoozer (730327) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @09:56AM (#16052316) Homepage

    You rush out and spend god knows how much on the latest and greatest next gen DVD player, you throw away your perfectly good TV / projector / box that emits coloured light and buy a new one that supports HDMI (and HD). Finally, you then cough up more hard earned cash to buy a movie you probably already own on regular DVD for twice the price. You do all this in the hopes of getting a fantasic picture with amazing sound.

    Why, oh why, would anyone with two brain cells to rub together then install a wireless connection that uses lossy compression?

    Still, fair play for getting that many bits through the air. Personally, I won't be standing anywhere near the transmitter.

  • Ohhhh the audiophile victims.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by codefrog (302314) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @10:03AM (#16052387)
    I can already picture the audiophile products which will at no small cost somehow imbue the air in your living room with better wireless transmission characteristics...
    Maybe even a vacuum chamber so you don't degrade your digital transmission. It sure would suck to have your bits coming through the ether in low fidelity.

    Of course we all know that movies looked better on vinyl anyway.

  • The One Use for Ultra-Wideband... (Score:4, Informative)

    by loose electron (699583) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @10:18AM (#16052511) Homepage
    Remember - JPEG is a compression standard. By definition it is a "lossy" comnpression. Picture quality loss remains TBD. Need to read the details.

    This is a first generation UWB wireless interconnect. When the concept of UWB mas marketed around a few years ago, the claim was that it would be a low power RF communication method.

    Low power at the antenna, yes, at the power supply, no.

    However, the power consumed for all the signal processing in the receiver & transmitter is pretty huge. The channel bandwidth is 250MHz and uses OFDM modulation. The implication is gobs of juice to run an ADC to deal with that high bandwidth, and "must have" DSP to do all the signal processing. (OFDM requires rather fancy signal processing, which can not be implemented using a lower power analog method.)

    The net result - The "low power of UWB" may be true at the antenna, but the electronics require huge amount of juice to get the job done. Consequently battery powered applications are no-go. Now you got this fancy new wireless standard and a limited use for it, with all the applications needing to be plugged into the wall.

    IMHO? Poke a hole in the drywall at the floor, run the cables up thru the wall and into the display. You have to do that for the power cord anyhow, so why not? It's not like you are going to be moving the silly thing much after you install it!

    UWB won't see the widespread use of WiFi or Bluetooth.
    • Remember - JPEG is a compression standard. By definition it is a "lossy" comnpression.

      JPEG2000 (which TFA is talking about), on the other hand, defines both lossy and lossless standards.

      • JPEG2000 (which TFA is talking about), on the other hand, defines both lossy and lossless standards.

        Except that if they're using lossless compression, the bandwidth required would be more than just leaving it at MPEG-2/4. In other words, they're using lossy.

  • I'll tell you what... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Overzeetop (214511) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @10:44AM (#16052756) Journal
    How about we concentrate on getting systems which will modulate the original, compressed HD over coax so that 99% of the population who owns a house that is already built around the old way of doing things can still watch TV without fishing cable around?

    C'mon folks, there's a hundred usable channels with 19.x Mb/s effective bandwidth so we could *in theory* just pipe that HD signal from a remote box to the tv with the existing wires, let the ATSC STB (or internal tuner) demodulate and decode the content and display it. Hell, we could all have everything-everywhere in our houses with all the ugly gear stashed in the basement with this standard. *Analog is not the enemy* OTA HD works damned fine. Why fuck it up with expensive, unnecessary cabling?

    Disclaimer - yes I have an older home. I also have the DVD jukebox on channel 40, my Tivo on 45, my wife's tivo on 50, and a media server on 55. They get combined with the off air antenna and piped through an RG-59 coax to every TV in the house, with a Xantech IR sensor (DC coax return) at each TV. It works great, except that there's no HD. My parents just bought a new house, but can't put HD in the rooms because the builder ran (the standard) one coax to each TV location. Suprise...DTV requires 2 to get HD (I haven't verified this, mine are old TiVo units with two tuners, and need two cables).

  • Of course audio/videophiles aren't going to want this, but I'm can think of a few applications this would be convenient enough to offset the (minor, hopefully) quality loss. i.e. equipment cabinet or rack outside of main living room area. Fussing with extra-long HDMI cables or having to add repeaters into the mix can be a hassle for some.

    Also w/ JPEG 2000 the artifacts are going to be pretty minor. It's compressing each frame independantly so none of the weird MPEG-esque artifacts inbetween keyframes.

  • It's not how often it fails, it's *when* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ruprecht the Monkeyb (680597) * on Wednesday September 06 2006, @11:04AM (#16052955)
    FTA: "The standard calls for link reliability of at least 95 percent...." I think that's shooting kinda low, guys. My current setup has a link reliability of 99.99%. The only time it fails is when I go running across the room to eject the p0rn from the DVD player and trip over a cable. OTOH, if they can guarantee it will always fail during commercials, maybe they're on to something.

  • If only they just used 100baseT. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Animats (122034) on Wednesday September 06 2006, @11:10AM (#16053002) Homepage

    If the consumer-electronics people weren't so hung up on proprietary interfaces, consumer electronics could just use 100baseT for everything. More bandwidth than some UWB thing, can be extended to cover just about any house, cables are cheap, and interference isn't a problem. You can get a whole 100baseT/TCP/IP node in the RJ45 connector now, so low data rate sources like audio devices could play cheaply. Power over Ethernet could power some of the lesser boxes, like cable modems.

    That "30 meter UWB" link will turn out to be a huge pain. It probably won't work through walls especially ones with metal studs, so inter-room links in houses will fail. Even across a large classroom (an obvious application), there might be problems. The DRM probably won't allow multipoint distribution, so you can only have one monitor per Blu-Ray player, but that's another issue.

  • While I understand their desire to have a wireless standard, Are we not forgetting there is a whole home standard being devised around broadband over power lines? Could they not instead use something that would travel the power line digitally and make the connection? Perhaps BPL is a dead horse but I had not heard that it was so. The home standard was to allow devices to travel the wire path to make all sorts of connections. This would be a much better design IMHO.
  • I don't think the model is to transmit video data to the monitor. I think the idea is to include the groovy computer that wirelessly downloads HD TV content onto a hard drive that's IN the monitor. The DVD drive, as long as the format survives, will also be included in the 'console' which we call the TV. No video needs to be transmitted. Am I missing something?

    Think of it as a giant laptop on the wall (hopefully the non-TV components will be interchangeable). IO should be the only thing that needs to b

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Doctor Memory (6336)

      you are more likely to start seeing a degraded signal

      True, but only at the RF level. Since it's a digital signal (presumably with ECC, I haven't taken a look at the HDMI spec), you'll easily be able to either reconstruct the stream (using ECC) or ask that it be re-sent. And probably, if you're getting less than some threshold of signal strength, the devices probably won't sync up, so you'll look at the little blinking "SYNC" light and the manual will tell you to move the transmitter closer to the TV. Eit

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