WiMedia and Mercedes to demo in-vehicle, HD streaming over UWB

In what the WiMedia Alliance calls a "first of its kind demonstration," DaimlerChrysler Research will roll-out a Mercedes-Benz R500 SUV at CES next week all dolled up in Intel's and Alereon's Ultrawideband (UWB) USB technology. The demonstration will pump high-definition video from a handheld mobile device to an array of factory installed headrest monitors for the middle and third row passengers. Great, let's hope they fare better that we did with the Belkin's CableFree USB Hub which wasn't quite up to the task of streaming HD with a paltry 6.35Mbps measured. Belkin's box packs Freescale the very first implementation of Wisair's UWB, a member of WiMedia, the favored child of the Bluetooth SIG. So let's hope they can demonstrate something a bit closer to the "480Mbps and beyond" transfer speeds they like to boast about. You know, so your kids can someday sit zombied in the backseat watching their videos on a 7.1-inch, 1080p display just as the Good Lorf intended.

[J.P. @ Jan 4th 2007 8:10PM]

Don't foget that there are more UWB methods other than just wireless USB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_USB). Which is what the belkin device uses. This does not necessarily use the entire bandwidth UWB or UWB radios can provide. There are other access methods under development in addition to the proprietary solutions that some of the vendors use (Tzero, Intel, Alereon). Most likely the demonstration will use one of these proprietary transports and then be able to use the entire bandwidth available. However aside from the transport, the method in which the radio itself was manufactured and the drivers/devices using it will probably contribute most to the effective bandwidth.

[Gregg Rasor @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:50PM]

Obvoiusly Thomas, who wrote this original article, hasn't got a clue as to who's UWB was in the Belkin box tested in December 2006. It's a WiMedia member's reference design, one that is NOT WiMedia registered or certified. Freescale completely exited it's UWB business in May 2006. Get your facts straight.

[Thomas Ricker @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:54PM]

Gregg,

Are you saying that Belkin switched? The Belkin CableFree Hub was demonstrated to me March 2006 in Germany at CeBIT by an engineer from Freescale.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/12/live-from-cebit-ultra-wideband-uwb-is-here-almost/

Also, the Belkin press release states Freescale

http://www.belkin.com/pressroom/releases/uploads/01_03_06CableFreeUSB.html

You sure you've got your facts straight?

Thomas

[Gregg Rasor @ Feb 2nd 2007 11:26PM]

Thomas, Sorry for the original flaming response, but Belkin is using the Wisair wireless USB reference design. You can find more information at http://www.mobilehandsetdesignline.com/howto/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=IICSV4DUIBS2UQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=196801390 . I know that Freescale completely left the UWB business because I was Director of the Ultrawideband technology Center in Motorola Labs from 1999 until 2004, which ultimately became part of the Freescale UWB operation. Freescale’s UWB operation was completely shut down early in 2006. There was no public announcement based on the potential embarrassment associated with such a bad decision on an extremely high visibility technology. The DS-UWB technology was created by XtremeSpectrum that was subsequently acquired by Motorola and transferred to Freescale, was part of the 2006 cable free USB demo by Belkin at CES. The XSI 110 chip set (Trinity) supported REAL data rates of 70 Mbits/second at 10 meters, after accounting for protocol overhead. The Multiband OFDM solution by Wisair used in the current Belkin product may have significantly worse performance as compared to the Freescale solution, but is not as bad as the original Engadget review played it up to be. That testing by Engadget was flawed, since they did not isolate the actual MAC/PHY performance and measure the data throughput at the USB application interface layer. As you know, USB 1.x supports 12 Mbits/s, while USB2.x high speed supports UP TO 480 Mbits/s. However, almost no devices on USB 2.x systems, including high speed disk drives, actually operate close to the 480 MBit speed. They typically top out at something just over 200 Mbits, and that’s using wires! Moreover, USB has no concept of isochronous data delivery, which is necessary to get data delivered “in time” to create unbroken playback of multimedia content. There is no quality of service for data delivery, or medium bandwidth reservation in USB either! Thus, USB, whether wired or wireless, will NEVER be able to properly deliver video and audio content at the quality levels expected by both consumers and manufacturers. Note that there were no USB vendors demonstrating streaming HDTV at CES this year. However, there were several 1394 (FireWire) vendors showing FW400 and FW800 implementations that blow the doors off of any USB implementation. There was also a converged 1394 over coax, 1394 wireless and gigabit Ethernet demonstration shown by Pulse~LINK, transporting several robust streams of real 1080p HDTV content simultaneously. See http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/16915.html#null It was very impressive, particularly compared to the WiMedia Mercedes that you were not permitted to enter! Remember also that USB is a spoke and hub network architecture, and the whole shared mess can only run as fast as the slowest member of the communication channel currently opened between peers. Frankly, the WiMedia stuff may mature in a few years, but right now it’s not ready for prime time. Even the Tzero muliband OFDM implementations streaming a single channel of unknown quality HDTV video and claiming to be WiMedia “registered,” was not WiMedia compliant because WiMedia has not completed their testing suite as of this writing. Any other questions?

[Thomas Ricker @ Feb 3rd 2007 3:22AM]

Gregg,

Now that's how to comment on Engadget! I stand corrected and have updated the post. Thanks much.

Thomas