The WHDI Mirror

Tag Archive Television

Smart Technology at Its Finest

Uri Kanonich / October 24, 2012 / No comments

We were recently speaking with a media friend of ours about the struggles that gaming consoles are facing. He brought up a valid point, suggesting that “it seems to me that if a tablet like iPad could just build a wireless HDMI transceiver inside, and if all televisions had this feature built in, it would be a game changer — just tapping a button to turn your mobile device into a TV gaming console without extra messy hardware or expense (or latency)” and we completely agree.

Considering we all have smart phones and they are now a source for receiving content, it’s important to have the same latency and quality as a TV or PC would have. Intel has recently made the push to enhance their Wi-Fi Display technology, but it still has too much latency (300ms initially) which brings up quality issues because of the compression, making it impossible to play games.

WHDI is a much better solution in terms of latency (less than 3ms) and quality (same as an HDMI cable plugged in) and we have proof to back that statement up.  We teamed up with Lenovo to show several WHDI-embedded demonstration tablets at CES 2012, and the reviews were positive across the board.  We showed no latency game play and movies at 1080p.  Although the initial focus has been on building a “smart” TV (which is essentially Wi-Fi connectivity plus some ability to run a closed silo of apps), this has been met with limited success, as it forces users to work through the TV interface, rather than use the interface, controller, or whatever platform of choice (which is what a truly “smart” TV would allow). It’s evident that TV manufacturers are starting to differentiate a bit more by enabling connectivity, but still have quite a ways to go in order to achieve that. For example, Wii U is a gaming console that will be available this year. It will include an HDMI cord and a new controller that is touch screen which will essentially allow a player to continue playing games by displaying the game even when the television is off.

We’re getting there and right now WHDI offers the best quality for wireless video and with the almost no latency, it is the only option for gaming.

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Category: WHDI, Wireless HDMI / Tags: , , , , , , ,

President of WHDI presents on Next Generation Entertainment Home Experience: WHDI is ready for prime time

Uri Kanonich / October 16, 2012 / No comments

Today, October, 17 Leslie Chard, President of WHDI will present at a panel at Digital Hollywood in Marina del Rey, Calif. Les will discuss the next generation home entertainment experience and how consumers are viewing content from all devices; smart and connected televisions, tablets, PVR, smartphones and the PC.

Les will impress upon the audience that by providing the highest quality HD connection, WHDI can turn any portable device into your personal video player and game player.  This compliments existing OTT/Smart TV systems, by ensuring that the user can get any content, from any device, using their UI of choice.  Consumers are not forced to use a Smart TV user interface that they are not used to, and they won’t miss out on interactive or gaming content on their portable devices.

His session will also refer to successful examples of WHDI use in wireless endoscopy and education, but what better proof to offer Digital Hollywood than the fact that WHDI technology now powers professional cameras from IDX and Red and monitoring and production tools from Teradek and TVLogic.  Wireless puts the power of control in the director’s hand.

This session is specifically for innovators and executives who focus on the future of home entertainment technologies from all devices.  Leslie will join other experts from the entertainment experience and content industry such as Microsoft Mediaroom, Cisco and with the analyst moderator, Rick Doherty from Envisioneering Group. Les will present from 9:00-1015 am in the Video, TV track II session on Salon II.

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Category: Digital Hollywood, WHDI / Tags: , , , , , , ,

WHDI In Action

Uri Kanonich / June 13, 2012 / No comments

Want to see WHDI function in a virtual living room? Well, some of our friends put together a demonstration video that can show you just that. Take a look!

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Category: HD video, HDTV, High-Definition audio, home entertainment, Smart TV, WHDI, Wireless HDMI / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Let Go Of The Wires

Uri Kanonich / May 23, 2012 / No comments

There seems to be a perception out there that a completely wireless living room is still a “thing of the future.” Well, this could not be further from the truth. A completely wireless living room is possible right now and is probably better than you think it will be.

There is such a thing as the “status quo bias,” which means that people are generally inclined to prefer things as they are and fear change. This bias can lead to assumptions that new advancements are perpetually in a state of unreadiness. We see this often when it comes to the wireless living room. However, we have good news. We are ready! With WHDI technology, the wireless living room is possible and what’s better, it delivers the full promise of wireless technology — not having to think about how your devices are connected. That means not having to worry about weak signals or poor performance or subpar video and audio. No wires to trip over, no signals to adjust, just your devices, in their best quality, mirrored to your TV.

That is here! We can do all of this now. WHDI is not a technology of the future, it is a technology of the present, so get onboard!

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Category: AMIMON, HD video, HDTV, High-Definition audio, home entertainment, WHDI, Wireless HDMI / Tags: , , , , , ,

Why Custom Installers Need WHDI: Remember Audio?

Uri Kanonich / April 27, 2012 / No comments

WHDI is dedicated to meeting the demands of the real A/V consumer. Other similar technologies are not; it’s that simple. Our dedication is one reason we are the market leader and the difference is apparent.

Consumers have been disappointed with the offerings from other technologies lately. The offerings all have holes. One of the main holes is audio. Wi-Fi Display, for example, does not support HBR audio, so if you get a movie from a device via WFD, you will not have the same experience you would get through an WHDI or HDMI enabled source. Why does WFD ask consumers to sacrifice for wireless? The technology needs to be built from a consumer perspective and, like we have said before, audio is very important.

How can you say you care about customer experience and ignore audio? There is something fundamentally out of touch with a lot of the solutions for wireless marketed out there. If audio isn’t being served, then certainly even more advanced issues are not even being addressed. 3D, through walls, the limits keep expanding and if you are stuck at audio, you are falling behind.

The focus in the market now is on the increasing number of content sources and how to get these to the TV. Content sources include direct streaming from the Internet to the Smart TV or other IP device (STB or other display), as well as the rise of other device content sources, such as laptops, tablets and smartphones. These devices are not just for consuming content, they are for delivering it to the TV. Many laptops, phones and tablets have HDMI outputs, and many more smartphones are including MHL outputs that are designed to deliver HD content to the TV. Clearly the interest in mirroring content is there. However, interest in using a wire to do so is clearly not there. It is inconvenient for watching movies and impossible if using your phone or tablet as a game or interactive content controller. The future is in getting all these devices mirrored to the TV wirelessly and WHDI will be there to do just that, always focusing n the demands of the A/V consumer.

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Category: High-Definition audio, home entertainment / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Falcon Launch

Uri Kanonich / April 13, 2012 / No comments
AMIMON, WHDI founding member and the market leader in wireless HD and universal mobile connectivity, will launch Falcon, a wireless transmitter/receiver system kit for the professional camera and monitor market, at NAB 2012, April 16-19 in Las Vegas.

At NAB 2012, visitors at the AMIMON booth (#SL14005) will experience Falcon in action, wirelessly transmitting from multiple cameras to multiple monitors. Both transmitters and receivers support HD-SDI and HDMI interfaces.

Traditional methods for Wireless Display uses compression/decompression to transmit high resolution video over the air, suffering from latency and picture quality degradation as a result of the video compression process. However Falcon transmits the video using smart modem technology which preserves the quality with zero latency.

Falcon supports any video resolution, including 1080p at 60Hz and 3D. The wireless video/audio transmission is encrypted according to the studio requirements using RSA, AES algorithms. Falcon operates in the 5GHz unlicensed band, requiring no line of sight between the camera and the monitor.

Falcon requires no special configuration or SW driver installation. Simply connect the transmitter to the HD-SDI output of the camera and the receiver to the HD-SDI input of the monitor. This plug-and-play operation makes it the ultimate solution for the most demanding internal and external studio production environments.
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Category: AMIMON / Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Triple Threat

Uri Kanonich / March 29, 2012 / No comments

Lost in the (justifiable) fervor of the desire for wireless video mirroring is the other half of what comprises home entertainment: audio. Remember audio? Without it, your HD video content amounts to nothing more than beautiful slideshows. Some wireless video solutions seem to have forgotten about this necessary component of home entertainment, business presentations, etc., which got us thinking, doesn’t audio matter?

Of course it does! WHDI remembers audio, which is why we have made sure WHDI technology supports High-Definition audio, 5.1-channel surround sound, in addition to 2D and 3D video resolutions up to 1080p. Oh, and it can go through walls. And, you know what? That all matters!

WHDI stands alone as the only wireless HD content mirroring technology that offers the full triple threat: audio, 3D video and the freedom to mirror through walls. It is that range of service that sets WHDI above the rest, because it accommodates all needs and does not limit any functionality of your devices when you mirror them. You get full quality audio and video, 2D and 3D, so anything your device can do, your big screen can mirror, with amazing quality. You don’t need a barrage of solutions, tailored to each type of activity you are trying to mirror, or worse you don’t need to stop mirroring to use other functions. Any content you want to use, WHDI technology can mirror. That is why it is the only true triple threat on the market. We mirror everything.

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Category: 3D video, HD video, High-Definition audio, home entertainment, WHDI, Wireless HDMI / Tags: , , , , , ,

Bring The Stream Back In

Uri Kanonich / February 14, 2012 / No comments

It’s no secret that it is a good time to be in the streaming media business. We live in a world where “on demand” is the norm and products that are not delivered precisely when consumers request them are struggling. From groceries, to meals, to bills, to reminders, to social interactions and finally to media, everything these days is designed to be available how and when the customer desires. This new reality is reflected in content consumption habits.

People demand personalized content more than ever before because they have the technology that allows them to make such demands. As we described earlier, mobile technology has changed the way people access content, but it has also changed the foundation of what it takes to successfully provide content to users. Now, mobile is important, but so is “on demand,” and the proof of this is how big companies like Netlix, Hulu and Amazon are in the media marketplace.

Despite recent missteps by Netflix, they remain a force in the media world without parallel. They reinvented an industry. They brought streaming to the forefront. Their legacy will remain, regardless of whatever other bonehead decisions they may or may not make in the coming years. Available, streaming content is now what people expect.

Access to “on demand” content has often meant sacrificing devices that were not in the Internet loop, like the TV, or alternatively just keep viewing this great “on demand” content on the ‘lousy’ small mobile screen  Sure, some cable providers have offered “on demand” packages, but only for their own limited ‘closed’ content. The variety of their content was nowhere near what was available online. The TV was out of luck. Unfortunately for TVs, the need for “on demand” content is only going to grow. SmartTVs attacked the problem from another direction, but then again provides limited format support, typically using dedicated applications and, most importantly, it doesn’t connect to your new mobile streaming machine. Fortunately, WHDI is coming to the rescue, offering a way to bring these sources of content to the big screen.

Forget about fancy converter boxes or brand-specific hardware, WHDI allows you to mirror all of your streaming sources to the big screen. Neflix, Hulu, Amazon, whatever and from whereever. If you can stream it, you can see it on your big screen. This is already the way people get content, now it’s time to reincorporate that with their favorite place to view content. It’s time to bring the stream back in.

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Category: home entertainment, Tablet, WHDI, Wireless HDMI / Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Mobility That Changed My Life

Uri Kanonich / February 2, 2012 / No comments
Mobile devices have changed the way people get their content. They have changed the nature of the content made, the way in which it is transmitted and the way it is available to be viewed. Over the next four weeks, we will be looking into where people get their content, what they expect from their content and how that is effecting consumer behavior. At the end of the month, you can find us at Mobile World Congress, where we can talk about the subject in person!

First, let’s look at the devices that started this revolution in consumer behavior. The iPhone hit the market only a few short years ago, in the summer of 2007, but it did not take long for smartphones of every variety to become a ubiquitous part of modern life. With smartphones came an adjustment in the demands put on data and content. Where before, laptops offered a degree of mobility, smartphones offered virtually unlimited mobility. Then came tablets, which combined the mobility with a more viewer-friendly experience. People got used to getting high quality content, when and where they wanted.

So where is the TV in all of this? It is still there, but out of the loop. TV’s biggest problem is that it can’t move. However, that is also its biggest advantage. It can’t move because it is the biggest, best picture quality in the household; it is still the king of the household’s media. Pulling the TV back into the loop means connecting it to all the content that came out of the rise of the smartphones and tablets. Mobile devices rely on Internet content, and Internet content has become a crucial part of our culture. So, in order to get the TV back into the loop, it needs to be connected to the content that resides in our mobile devices.

Well dear TVs, if you can’t beat them, join them. WHDI allows TVs to connect to the mobile devices people have fallen in love with and come to depend on since the summer of 2007 by mirroring the content in the devices to the TV. TV stays king, mobile stays the means of finding and storing content. TV is back in the loop.

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Category: HD video, HDTV, home entertainment, iPhone, Mobile, Mobile World Congress, Smart TV, Tablet, WHDI, Wireless HDMI / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Three WHDI-Enabled Products Honored with 2012 CES Innovations Awards

Uri Kanonich / January 26, 2012 / No comments

We are pleased to announce that three products using WHDI technology have won CES Innovations 2012 Design and Engineering Honoree Awards at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month in Las Vegas.

Since 1976, the prestigious Innovations Design and Engineering Awards has given consumer technology manufacturers and developers an opportunity to have their newest products judged by a preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, independent engineers and members of the trade press.  These three winning products utilize WHDI technology to change the living room experience with outstanding and consistent full-HD 1080p picture quality equivalent to wired HDMI™ cable, low latency, multi-room availability and low power consumption.

The three WHDI products featured in the Innovations Design and Engineering Awards Showcase at CES 2012 are:

Atlona LinkCast Wireless HD Audio/Video System

Atlona’s LinkCast Wireless HD Audio/Video System allows home theater enthusiasts, gamers, laptop users, and more to connect multiple HDMI-based devices wirelessly to an HDTV or projector using WHDI technology. The LinkCast Wireless HD System won the prestigious CES 2012 Innovations Design and Engineering Award in the Multi-room Audio/Video product category, given by top consumer technology manufactures, developers and trade experts. The LinkCast includes an A/V base station, one LinkCast System Expander and a remote control. Up to five devices can be wirelessly connected to one LinkCast Wireless HD System supporting pass through of up to 1080p and 3D.

IOGEAR Wireless HD 3D Media Kit

A CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award honoree in the Home Theater Audio/Video Accessories category, IOGEAR’s Wireless HD 3D Media Kit brings much-needed convenience and flexibility to wireless home entertainment and multi-room streaming. Now 3D or HD content can easily be sent to a second room or a single floating TV without the mess of cable runs or purchasing a second set of devices. With a WHDI-powered wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver, the Wireless HD 3D Media Kit is capable of connecting analog and digital devices and streaming Full HD 1080p with 3D support, along with 5.1 digital surround sound audio up to 100 feet away, through walls and ceilings.

ScreenCast AV 4 Wireless AV-to-HDTV Adapter
ScreenCast AV 4 wirelessly connects your home theater equipment to your HDTV via a transmitter connected to the device’s HDMI connection. The powerful transmitter enables you to locate AV equipment up to 100 feet away within a room, or hide them in a closet or adjacent room at a reduced distance.
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Category: Atlona, Belkin, CES, IOGEAR, WHDI, Wireless HDMI / Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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