Sunnyvale, Calif. – The WirelessHD Consortium finalized the
next generation of its WirelessHD in-room
cable-replacement technology, which was
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.
