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Goodbye, FlyWire: The now-cancelled product will never see store shelves.

(Credit: Belkin)

Belkin will not be releasing its FlyWire wireless HDMI accessory.

CNET has learned that the company has decided not to offer the FlyWire for sale. A Belkin spokesperson confirmed the product's cancellation, saying that "its retail price of $1,499 would be out of line given the current state of the economy."

The FlyWire was introduced at CES 2008. The unit was a transmitter/receiver combo: the transmitter toggled between multiple audio and video sources (HDMI and analog), which were then wirelessly beamed to a receiver. Since the tiny receiver required only AC power and utilized a single HDMI output, it could be stealthily mounted behind wall-mounted flat screens or ceiling mounted projectors, eliminating the need for long unsightly cable runs. At one point, Belkin was mulling two versions: an initial high-end, multiroom-capable $1,499 version for multiple AV sources, followed by a less pricey single-source transmitter.

Early demos of the FlyWire impressed us--enough that we nominated it as a finalist in the Home Video category for Best of CES 2008. (It was edged out by the Dish Network DTVPal DVR.) But the FlyWire's premature death is just another indication that wireless HDMI technology is all but stillborn at the consumer level. Other notable no-shows, at least so far: the Philips wireless HDMI kit (introduced January 2007) and the Monster Express HD System (announced summer 2008).

After two years of telling us, wireless HD video systems makers are now showing us how this works in actual products.

A few weeks ago, we brought you a demonstration of how the WirelessHD video standard works, and now competing standard WHDi is up.

Noam Geri, VP of marketing for Amimon, the chip company that's behind the WHDi wireless standard, gives a brief overview in the video below.

WHDi is already in use, just not in the U.S. quite yet. Sharp is selling a wireless video adapter for its Aquos X-series LCD TV in Japan already, and Sony is selling a WHDi-enabled Bravia in Japan and Europe.

More recently, Mitsubishi said it would be using WHDI, which sends uncompressed, high-definition video signals over the unlicensed 5-gigahertz band throughout an entire home, in a wireless TV it's making for the Japanese market this fall.

Besides TVs, companies like Belkin and Gefen are also making wireless transmitter/receivers for multiple audio and video sources using Amimon's chipset.

Belkin's FlyWire was originally due in October, but has been pushed back to January, where it will have a lot of company at CES. The people behind both the WHDi and WirelessHD standards say there will be many more companies showing products for the U.S. market at the super-size electronics show.

Here, Geri shows off a Blu-ray Disc of Lost displaying wirelessly on a Samsung monitor at a speed of 1.5Gbps.

Is the promised land of wireless high-definition video nigh?

Backers of the top two wireless video standards, WirelessHD and WHDI, say the first quarter of 2009 will see actual consumer electronics products using them.

After years of talking about different standards, there's been more movement in this industry of late, but we're still waiting for the floodgates to open where all the top-tier manufacturers have TVs with a wireless HD connectivity option.

Recently Mitsubishi said it would be using WHDI, which sends uncompressed, high-definition video signals over the unlicensed 5-Gigahertz band throughout an entire home, in a wireless TV it's making for the Japanese market this fall.

Sharp already has a wireless TV in Japan using WHDI, but here in the U.S., there are several products that have been previously promised to us this fall: wireless dongles from Belkin, Gefen, and Sony, and embedded wireless capability for HD video in an IDX camcorder. TVs from Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Sony should be next.

Competing standard WirelessHD transmits an HDMI signal over the air using the 60-Gigahertz spectrum up to 20 meters away, or basically within one room of a house. Samsung, Panasonic and Toshiba have promised products using WirelessHD. Expect to hear more about this at CES in January.

In the meantime, here's a video demonstration of WirelessHD from the chairman of the WirelessHD consortium, John Marshall. He stopped by the CNET office to give us a quick runthrough on how it works. Here he is showing a Blu-ray movie using a PlayStation 3, SiBeam chipset in an HDMI adapter, and Samsung monitor without any wires from the video source to the monitor.

The backers of Wireless Home Digital Interface plan to announce they are officially banding together Wednesday. But we're still months, or even a year from true, interoperable devices that can send high-definition video between themselves.

Wireless Home Digital Interface, or WHDI, sends uncompressed, high-definition video signals over the unlicensed 5-Gigahertz band. The backers of it say its immune to obstructions like walls and can deliver a signal that covers an entire home--that means setting up a set-top box in a basement and connecting it wirelessly to a 1080p TV in an upstairs bedroom.

But we've been hearing this stuff for years. Several different standards have been proposed, and consumer electronics vendors have even announced products, but they've been very slow to trickle out to the market.

One of the few wireless HD video devices that's made it to market.

(Credit: Belkin)

There's been more movement in this industry of late (Sony, and Sharp have released wireless HD video products this year, and Belkin is promising something for October), but we're still waiting for the floodgates to open where all the top-tier manufacturers have TVs with a wireless HD connectivity option.

Amimon, the chipmaker behind the WHDI technology, says that time is next year. WHDI can count Hitachi, Motorola, Sony, Samsung, and Sharp among its charter members, and once the standard is completed later this year, consumers will have many more options for wireless HD video products, according to Amimon's chief executive, Yoav Nissan-Cohen.

"This year you buy products that solve the problem you have, like Belkin's FlyWire kit," said Nissan-Cohen. It doesn't yet meet the standard's goal of having any source using WHDI be able to connect to any screen, but he says that's fine for now.

"Next year you can get multi-vendor, interoperable devices," he said.

Though Nissan-Cohen says the WHDI standard is following along the same path and attempting to build a consortium the way the HDMI standard did--lining up the technology and key hardware players one by one--we've been hearing "next year" for a while now when it comes to this space. Plus, WHDI isn't the only game in town.

In fact, it's got several competitors. WirelessHD is one: it uses the 60-Gigahertz band to send high-def video between devices, though it is limited to one room and can't go through walls. But it does have some of the same vendors on board, like Sony and Samsung. There's also ultrawideband solutions, but they've had more trouble getting off the ground.

Still, Nissan-Cohen of Amimon says next year you'll see TVs that have wireless receivers built in for a premium of approximately $100 to $200 (right now an add-on WHDI dongle costs about $400 or $500). And in a three to five years, or when shipping volumes reach 10 million or higher, the wireless HD device should only cost $10 extra to have the technology inside. By then, he says it will be the "default option to every TV and every source device."

I certainly hope so, but for now, we'll take this one with the requisite grain of salt.

Belkin FlyWire: A wireless HDMI product that's due later in 2008.

(Credit: Belkin)

HDMI has certainly had its growing pains, but the connection is finally beginning to deliver on its original promise: a single-cable solution for delivering high-bandwidth, all-digital HD video and multichannel audio. HDMI is nearly universal in the home video market, present on all current HDTVs and Blu-ray players, as well as nearly all HD-capable cable and satellite set-top boxes; DVRs; game consoles; AV receivers; upscaling DVD players and recorders; and network video streamers such as the Apple TV. In fact, you realize just how convenient HDMI is when you come across a product without it--I'm looking at you, Nintendo Wii--and then have five cables (three component video wires plus two-channel stereo) instead of one crowding the back of your home entertainment system.

But one aspect of the HDMI promise remains unfulfilled: wireless HDMI. It's an attractive idea, especially for anybody with a wall-mounted flat-panel TV or a ceiling-mounted projector: have all of your HDMI-capable gear running into an AV receiver or HDMI switcher with a wireless HDMI transmitter, and have the TV equipped with a matching receiver--thus allowing you to have all your AV sources across the room from the actual display. We've been hearing about it for years, but to date, there are few--if any--products that you can actually buy. Here's a quick update on the wireless HDMI products we've heard about to date--including when (or whether) we can expect to see them: