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Wireless HD Now on TV (in Japan)
Transferring wireless, high-definition content is a puzzle that hardware vendors have long been trying to solve. It’s hard to cram that much data into a fast wireless stream using unlicensed spectrum such as Wi-Fi or Ultra-wideband, but plenty of companies are trying. However, for any technology to win out, getting consumer equipment manufacturers to put the proper chips in their products will be key.
Today Amimon, a silicon startup pushing a whole-house wireless HD technology called WHDI has managed to hit that customer milestone by getting its chips inside the latest Sharp X-series of televisions to be released in Japan. Customers have the choice of spending from $3,000 to $4,600 on a plain X-Series TV or adding about $875 and making it wireless using Amimon’s WHDI technology.
That’s quite a premium to get rid of wires, but people will likely pay it. As well as the price premium, the wireless receiver box that attached to the TV adds about 50 percent more fat to the TV’s 1.5-inch depth. The wireless version of the TV also comes with a transmitter box that a consumer plugs their DVD player, camcorder, camera or whatever else into so they can stream the wireless content to the television.
More Ways To Get Mobile TV
By the look of things, you’d think U.S. consumers were demanding ways to watch TV on their mobile phones. But studies show, again and again, they’re not. But a few equipment vendors in the WiMax space are throwing the facts under a truck and rolling out end-to-end WiMax television networks for mobile handsets. These are for over-the-air broadcasts similar to the DVB-H networks of Europe and the MediaFLO networks in the United States as compared to services such as MobiTV.
Yesterday, UDCast said it was teaming up with LG Electronics and Harris Corp to deliver a WiMax-based mobile TV network. It has experience building and deploying DVB-H networks, which failed to catch on here in the United States. It joins NextWave Wireless, which has also announced its product, built into combined equipment from Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and other partners, to deliver WiMax TV to mobiles.
Such networks would allow carriers to deliver several broadcast television channels to mobile handsets, so users can watch the latest baseball game or episode of The Office as it airs. It would compete with Verizon’s V-Cast Service, which is based on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO network, and similar offerings coming from AT&T. For WiMax-based services, potential service providers in the U.S. include Sprint for its yet-to-be-launched Xohm service, Clearwire and some rural WiMax players such as Xanadoo.
Now that WiMax has its own mobile television offering, we’ll see if anyone wants it.
Wireless HD on the Horizon?
Wires aren’t evil, but home networking technology is seeking to eradicate them anyway. For those of you who are eager to disconnect your TV, but unwilling to compromise with compressed video, companies Amimon and Belkin may have a solution for you by September.
What’s on offer is a wireless network based on the WHDI standard pushed by Amimon, a semiconductor startup. According to Noam Geri, the company’s co-founder and VP of marketing, the wireless hub from Belkin should be out later this year with Amimon’s chip inside. The plan is to get TV manufacturers to eventually integrate Amimon’s chip directly into their products. Read more of this story
MySpace Adds HD Video
Following last week’s move by Dailymotion to bring high-definition video to the Web, MySpaceTV is launching an HD video player for the social network with a trailer for Iron Man. The trailer for the Marvel movie starring Robert Downey Jr. as the comic book hero, can be found in all it’s HD glory at MySpace’s Trailer Park. About two minutes, the trailer is small enough to load quickly and play without halting or pixelating on my cable connection. All in all, it looked pretty sweet.
MWC: Mobile Video Isn’t All That
This week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona hasn’t just been about battling mobile operating systems and the latest chips for cell phones, it’s also about content. For the first time ever, the GSM Association threw a party at the event focused solely on mobile entertainment, “Mobile Backstage.”
While there have been big announcements such as Nielsen talking about tracking online video, and the launch of mobile ad networks such as MMcast, the content news at Mobile World Congress is still a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing (what? too literary?). Mobile video has taken off in a few places such as South Korea and Japan, but for the most part, press releases outnumber the viewers.
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