Ralink and Celeno team up on HD WiFi home networking wares

wifi posts

Industry watchers In-Stat didn't mention which variant of WiFi based HD streaming it expects to win out, but just based on the install base 802.11n should be the leader. UWB? DOA. WHDI and WirelessHD? Too expensive, too power hungry, too new. WiFi isn't perfect however, requiring codec support on either end to work with HD video but that's not expected to hold back the 25 million TVs with wireless hardware In-Stat sees shipping by 2013, but for the rest of the details you'll need $3,495 for the research report or a time machine.
As the wireless HD world continues to turn, Celeno Communications is back with news that it's already field testing OptimizAIR WiFi based hardware. Promising 1080p video at distances of up to 120 feet through walls and floors to WiFi-capable devices, its MIMO technology is expected to see "massive deployment" by this summer, with IPTV customers likely to get the first shot. We're still concerned at a lack of vendors lining up behind it, though backwards compatibility certainly gives a leg up on Wireless HD, WHDI and the rest. Making a note in the calendar to check for possible product rollouts once the weather warms up seems like a reasonable next step.
G2 Microsystems burst onto the scene at CES with its Intel My WiFi Personal Area Network demonstration, but evidently it had a little more going on than that. Engineering TV managed to catch up with the team and get a closer look at a prototype WiFi remote that could certainly prove useful in a home theater setup. Put simply, a WiFi module was embedded with a relatively standard Philips universal remote, and from there, users could snatch album art, tune into internet radio stations and tap into web-connected home servers in order to control home audio or pretty much anything else. There's no telling when G2 will land a serious partner willing to push out a WiFi-infused controller, but judging by the looks of things, we'd say it's just about ready for primetime.
The wireless HD world is as mangled as ever, with a variety of formats vying for supremacy and the general populace turning a deaf ear to the whole concept (by and large, anyway). According to ProVision co-founder Andrew Nix, 802.11n is the "only standard capable of cost-effectively transmitting interactive wireless HD video across all rooms within a home." Oddly enough, his company will be supporting Pulse~LINK, SiBEAM and AMIMON, backing the HDMI, Wireless HD and WHDI standards respectively, so we're curious if it will be trying to push its WiFi-favoring ways onto these guys. Or, of course, it could bust out its own WiFi-based solution at CES while sticking tight to the others for mere business reasons. We'll agree that a one-format solution would likely aid adoption, but haven't we already seen that WiFi isn't exactly the most stable protocol to handle continuously streaming high-def material?









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