You've got to be kidding us. No, seriously -- this
has to be a joke. Just last month, we
witnessed in person a FlyWire unit beaming a 1080p Blu-ray signal wirelessly to an HDTV, and the results were nothing short of astonishing. For whatever reason, the
box -- which was officially
unveiled back at CES 2008 -- won't even be ready for next year's Vegas extravaganza. While we were told at CEDIA that the unit would begin shipping out in October (like, right now), Melody Chalaban, a marketing executive and spokeswoman for Belkin has informed
Electronic House that it "won't be able to make [its] anticipated deadline of the winter CES show." Unfortunately, she gave no indication of when it actually would ship, leaving us to wonder if the dawn of the wireless HD era is being
pushed back altogether.
Again.
Update: Melody herself contacted us to clarify a bit and provide some guidance for release. According to her, the FlyWire
is being delayed due to "compliance issues, and it will be available late January 2009."
posted Oct 23rd 2008 9:17AM
will you be able to like attach something to your TVs HDMI port (or some other?) and then send the signal wirelessly to that transmitter? or will you have to have a TV with a built in wireless card-type-thing.
this thing is going to cost over $1,000 according to engadget HD....so, unless your really hamperd down, not many of us are going to actually buy it
I believe there are two major barriers here:
One is the amount of processing grunt required to deal with a HD bitstream. If you don't compress it, the huge bandwidth requires a very clever radio. If you do compress you can use a cheaper, off the shelf radio technology (like 802.11n), but compressing full HD is no trivial matter. Either of these options requires expensive, powerful processing, hence the $1000 estimated price tag.
The second issue (which I suspect is causing the delay here) is the legality of wirelessly transmitting an HDMI signal. HDMI is interwoven with HDCP to stop the kiddies copying Blu-ray films (and eventually other forms of HD media like broadcast). HDCP is a world of legal hurt. Getting permission to put an HDMI port on a device is a world of legal hurt - you have to prove that you device keeps the video signal nice and secure. So, as you might imagine, a wireless product with HDMI in is a nightmare, because of the chance that people could eavesdrop on the signal and steal the picture - something the HDCP folks would not want.
The fact that no release date has been announced makes me sure this is a legal issue. As stated in the article, the tech has been seen working. Now they have to make sure that it doesn't enable piracy.
As for me, I don't see what's wrong with wires. :-|
Wait, samsung came out with tv that had this (or something similar) built in over a year ago.
just look,
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12760_7-9673322-5.html
That was a damn fine post puff, damn fine. +1 to you.
Maybe Monster is paying them to sit on it a while longer.
Avocent is already shipping, if you are willing to pay:
http://www.connectivity.avocent.com/products/emerge/
Note: no mention of HDCP there. See my whining rant above.
(It's not IMPOSSIBLE to make a wireless HDMI cable replacement - Avocent MAY have nailed it. It's just, as I repeatedly said, a world of legal hurt.)
leaving us to wonder if the dawn of the wireless HD era is being pushed back
/obscure?
They are waiting for more units to be shipped back in time from the future.
@ bob sakamano
Bob, Belkin displayed this unit at MacWorld 2008 earlier this year. You connect all your devices (BluRay, Xbox 360, PS3, cable/satellite, etc.) to the device and there is a wireless receiver that connects to your TV. The hookup, I believe (but not 100% certain) is an HDMI cable from that carries the signal from the receiver to the TV. It's quite impressive in person. I couldn't see any loss in the quality of the picture. I believe they were showing Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and it looked as good as if the player was connected directly to it.
In response to j_g_puff, speaking just to HDCP:
HDCP implementation on a product such as this can indeed by tricky, but does not necessarily have to be quite so painful as one may think. The encryption, like most similar cryptosystems, is based around private keys. There's a vested interest in keeping the keys themselves secure, hence the need for trust and signing lots of paperwork.
To make life easier for The Little Guy wanting to build an HDCP-compliant device, you can simply buy HDMI transmitter and receiver chips that have keys and license agreements as part of the deal. In this case, the developer that is using the chips, cannot even gain access to the private keys. They're hidden in the silicon, and as required by the HDCP licensing agreement, there is no user interface to access them. All HDCP authentication is done in the silicon, where it can internally use the keys, and the developer only has access to call the necessary authentication functions at the proper time.
Still though, even with this simplification of the process, it is not easy to make an HDCP-compliant wireless device. You need to worry about 1) a secure link from the wireless receiver to the TV over an HDMI cable, and also 2) a secure link over the air, via whatever proprietary wireless protocol you have. This can get tricky, especially if the wireless link is primarily unidirectional.
Some very good points, but all discussion about HDCP so far has missed one very important fact...
Belkin is using Amimon's technology for the wireless connectivity. Amimon has already applied for and received approval for wireless HDCP in the form of 'WHDI'. (HDCP allows for what they call 'Approved Re-transmission Technologies', of which several companies have already received approval.)
So, HDCP is probably not the issue causing the delay, the more likely explanation is that they are having difficulty meeting price targets and/or reliability is not quite there yet ...
@j_g_puff
The Avocent MPX series is fully HDMI and HDCP compliant. I worked on the project and we made sure to jump through all the hoops.
Nice! I realise that you probably won't read this (and also that you probably can't say), but how much effort was it to jump through the hoops? Did you have to submit everything for scrutiny, or was it fairly straightforward?
This is apparently yet another case of the 'powers that be,' i.e. 'legal issues' constraining Belkin's ability to get a top-notch video distribution system to market.
As an extremely happy (yet frustrated--see below) owner of their RemoteTV wireless SD video system, which delivered fantastic A/V quality w/ no fuss, I'm not surprised at their current situation. The RemoteTV system was top-notch, working as advertised--but they pulled it off the market in such a manner over 1 yr ago that I can only surmise was due to it being 'too good' and invoking pressure from content providers. It absolutely removed the need for secondary cable/sat boxes or cumbersome wiring installs. That, I think, peeved some folks off and they leaned on Belkin to kill the product. I bought my parents the set-up via an eBay reseller before the supply totally disappeared...and, again, it worked in their home like no other solution I've seen (transmits through 3 floors, allows remote-control of the source device, great PQ and plug-n-play).
I think the ONLY reason that Belkin is being "allowed" to bring their HD solution to market is under the tightest constraints from some very similar content/industry players AND under the pretense that its not priced to cheaply as to escape from being a niche product.
They're like Tucker, on in the A/V market.
Well, it's not the first one delayed forever...
I'm still waiting for Philips thing... prob a year ago...
If its going to be around $1000, as per Engadget HD, then very few are going to buy it......
I'd buy it for $1500. It saves me from buying a tuner upgrade that takes HDMI inputs for single unit switching. So I save $1500 on a new tuner, and can feed 3 HDMI (Tivo HD, DVD, PS3), component (XBOX360, Wii) and Svideo, using my existing 5.1 tuner for the audio. Worth every penny.
Now if the danged DMCA police would go away...