WirelessHD (WiHD) is an effort to define a specification for high definition signal transmission for consumer electronics products, that will be part of the next generation wireless digital network interface. It's goals are similar to wireless HDMI. The standard aims to provide transmission of uncompressed HD video and audio signals. The core technology promotes theoretical data rates of up to 20Gbps, making it future proof for example, for post-1080p resolutions.
The signals will operate on the 60GHz frequency band, which currently requires line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver, which is not practical for WiHD aims. The overall goal will be to create non line-of-sight, point to point and working at a distance of 10 meters or more. The standard will help to rid homes of the messy cables that pile up as more consumer electronics equipment is purchased.
Intel Corporation, LG Electronics Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic), NEC Corporation, SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., SiBEAM, Inc., Sony Corporation and Toshiba Corporation are the members that have joined together to create WirelessHD.
In January 2008, the consortium released the WirelessHD 1.0 Specification for adoption at an annual fee of $5000 USD.
According to the official Spec, WirelessHD is unique in that it:
• Employs the 60 GHz band that has the spectral availability to achieve multi-gigabit data rates,
initially up to 4 Gbps, necessary to reliably distribute high quality, high definition
uncompressed video. In addition, the 60 GHz band has high allowable transmit power to
achieve these high data rates at distance.
• Is application specific to A/V multimedia display
• Is supported by global CE manufacturers
• Will employ industry standard encryption schemes for secure communications
• That mandates universal control techniques so that users can easily build and
manage their wireless video area network (WVAN).
