Sigma Designs has been dabbling in wireless HD technologies for eons, so we aren't going to get too excited until we see this here system-on-chip (SoC) actually hit some products that we care about. Still, the CoAir is a fairly sweet concept, wrapping integrated wireless, coax and gigabit Ethernet capabilities into one single chip aimed at whole home networking. Put simply (or as simply as possible), this chip is the world's first to "simultaneously deliver multiple independent streams of video and data over coax cable, Ethernet cable and wirelessly without compromising quality of service and throughput." Based on the WiMedia standard, it can reach speeds of up to 480Mbps with UWB (ultra-wideband) wireless streaming, and room-to-room linkage via UWB-over-coax can peg those same rates. What we have here is a great basis for building a whole home server on, but until said device emerges and performs flawlessly, we'll just smile and carry on.

It's not often that we'll take time out to cover a single chip, but when said chip can handle "streaming of up to eight different concurrent single streams or four bi-directional streams of HD audio," we figure it's worthy of a mention. The STS DARR81 allows HD audio to be both transmitted and received with a single device simultaneously, and it also supports "5.1 and 7.1 surround sound, headphone and multi-room applications at the same time." Currently, we're not exactly sure what types of electronics will be housing these in 2008, but a slew of gear based on STS' technology will reportedly be showcased (and peeked by us) at CES next month.

[Via Embedded]

Although the rollout of LED-backlit LCDs is still in the early stages, Microsemi is banking on its latest breakthrough to provide "system-level solutions that accelerate the design of advanced LED-based backlighting for large screen LCD televisions." Dubbed DAZL! (Digital Advanced Zone Lighting), the chipsets reportedly produce unprecedented "uniformity of color, brightness, contrast, blur-free performance, and energy savings," and moreover, they reduce the number of components needed to build LED backlights. Currently, the firm is already testing the waters by sampling flat-panel manufacturers who supposedly plan on implementing its technology in their next-generation sets, so we'll just hold tight 'til 2008 and see exactly how dazzled we really are.

For those of you yearning for a little more oomph in your wireless HD options, Hisense and Metalink have heard (and answered) the call. The two firms are collaborating to unveil solutions to HD streaming that "enable the wireless transmission of multiple HDTV streams from centrally-located DTVs, PVRs and STBs to any room in the house." Based around Metalink's WLANPlus chipset, devices sporting the newfangled technology will be capable of supporting up to 300Mbps transmission speeds using both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands; moreover, Metalink claims that this creation offers "more than twice the reach of competing 802.11n solutions" due to its implementation of a Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoder combined with advanced Forward Error Correction (FEC) scheme and the use of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) technology. A lot of jargon, we know, but cramming chipsets that can handle a bevy of HD streams on a vanilla 802.11n network into gateways and access points makes perfect sense to us.

While Tzero has been at the forefront of ultra wideband technology for some time, the firm is upping the stakes even higher with its WiMedia-based TZC7200 ZeroWire chipset. The UWB semiconductor solution was designed to deliver "real-time high-definition video" either wirelessly or over cabling, and can even open new doors for "distributing entertainment content throughout the entire home using existing coax." Reportedly, this device can pipe multiple streams of HD video through your average cable network at the tune of 480Mbps, and it boasts application integration including IP, UDP, TCP/IP, multicast, and unicast. Notably, ZeroWire is "comprised of both a Radio Frequency IC (RFIC) as well as a baseband and media access control system-on-chip," and while the chipset is listed is being available immediately, you'll need to contact Tzero yourself to fetch the pricing details.

This is getting really tired.It seems like every time we're progressing towards a cheap and easy compromise to the Blu-ray / HD DVD format war hope is quickly snatched away and replaced with a stinging dose of harsh reality. This time the bad news comes courtesy of Digitimes, speaking to various Taiwanese optical disc-drive manufacturers, who reports they are not particularly enthused by NEC's just-announced dual format chipset. Despite its low cost, the prospect of manufacturing drives with optical heads for both formats and other costs is still too expensive to be worthwhile. The only good news seems to be that they did not rule out the future possibility of multi-drives -- perhaps once Ricoh's all-in-one laser is finished -- just not yet.