WirelessHD 1.1 Spec Adds 3D, Portables

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 5/10/2010

Sunnyvale, Calif. - The WirelessHD Consortium finalized the next generation of its WirelessHD in-room cable-replacement technology, which was demonstrated at January's International CES.

The original 4Gbps-throughput standard, designed as an in-room HDMI cable-replacement technology, streams uncompressed, copy-protected high-definition video up to 1080p.

The 1.1 spec accelerates throughput to more than 15Gbps to a maximum theoretical 28Gbps, adding enough bandwidth to stream all 3D video formats outlined in the HDMI 1.4a specification, the consortium said. The spec also adds support for 2K and 4K resolutions at 1080p video and high-speed point-to-point transfers of multi-gigabtye files from battery-operated portable devices in wireless personal area networks (WPANs). The 1.1 spec also supports A/V streaming of uncompressed 1080p video from battery-powered portables.

 When operating on batteries, portable devices must stream video and transfer files at a minimum 1Gbps when not plugged into household AC.  About 4Gbps is required for 1080p streaming, and suppliers could build battery-operated portables that stream uncompressed 1080p when not plugged into AC, depending on how they want to prioritize power consumption, the consortium previously said.

 "Enhanced video support and added data support makes WirelessHD technology the best option for wireless video area networking (WVAN) and wireless personal area networking (WPAN) applications," said consortium chairman John Marshall. Products incorporating WirelessHD 1.1 will be backward-compatible with WirelessHD 1.0 devices, he noted.

Both the 1.0 and 1.1 specs support DTCP copy protection and HDCP 2.0 protection, enabling streaming not just for display but also for copying.