Wireless HD: Not quite there yet, but on its way

At CES 2009, at least 4 different wireless HDTV protocols will be discussed. But most of these aren’t quite ready for the big time.

Vendors are already out there pitching their plans to demo products at CES aimed at sending HDTV wirelessly throughout the home. According to some industry analysts, however, at least some of the four competing wireless approaches are still “incipient”, which means they’re in their infancy and still not fully defined.

The Parks Associates analyst firm will host a panel discussion at CES with companies advocating each of the specifications: SiBEAM, a backer of Wireless HD; AMIMON, a supporter of WHDI; Pulse-LINK, representing HDMI; and ProVision, an 802.11n advocate.

The IEEE’s 802.11n is currently “the only standard capable of cost effectively transmitting interactive HD video signals across all rooms in a home,” contended Professor Andrew Nix, co-founder of UK-based ProVision, in a statement today. This is the case mainly because its more established in terms of its development and usage.

Meanwhile, WHDI and Wireless HD are both gaining considerable support among major vendors, noted Steve Wilson, an analyst at ABI Research, in a separate statement issued this week. Hitachi, Broadcom, Motorola, Sharp, Samsung, and Sony have all joined the WHDI Special Interest Group (SIG), which is supporting a 5 GHz wireless platform.

It’ll be interesting to see how this battle shapes up. One day we may be using this technology to watch HD content wirelessly all through a house, and that will be a fine day indeed.