Though more computers have been landing in living rooms, digital TVs are adding new features to help them hang onto their role as the family's entertainment center, says a report released Tuesday by In-Stat.
As DTVs replace old analog sets throughout the world, manufacturers are beefing them up with new network features, including Internet access, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi, noted an In-Stat report called "DTV 2009: Declining Costs, Increasing Shipments, and Network Capability." In-Stat predicts that 36 percent of digital sets sold in 2013 will be network-enabled.
(Credit:
In-Stat)
Technologies for wireless high-definition, such as the competing 60GHz WirelessHD and WHDI standards, will also bring wireless HD streaming into households, forecasts the report.
"DTVs are competing with computers to be the entertainment hub of the home," said In-Stat analyst Brian O'Rourke in a statement. "Sets with Internet connectivity are already commercially available in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Models from Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony can connect directly to the Internet without a home computer."
With the conversion from analog to digital broadcasts in progress among major countries, DTVs are now the only TVs available in most of North America, Western Europe, and Japan, noted In-Stat. However, DTVs are still competing with cheaper analog sets in markets that have yet to make the switch.
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.
Mitsubishi's foray into wireless HDTV.
(Credit: Amimon)Mitsubishi will be joining the rarefied ranks (in TV anyway) of Sony and Samsung in offering wireless television.
Wireless chipmaker Amimon is set to announce Thursday that Mitsubishi will use its technology to send high-definition TV signals to its latest LCD TV without wires. It will come in 40-inch and 46-inch sizes. The 40-inch model will cost 300,000 yen (or $2,731), and the 46-inch model will sell for 400,000 yen ($3,642).
Mitsubishi's TV will have the chips embedded in the TV, and will come with a separate receiver unit that can send and receive uncompressed HD video signals up to 100 feet away. That means you can keep the receiver in a room downstairs or in a cabinet--no line of sight necessary.
Here's the catch--it's being released in Japan only this fall. However, it's likely Mitsubishi will broaden distribution of this TV. Wireless HD video is a category that Amimon--which heads a consortium of chipmakers and consumer electronics companies pushing for a whole-home wireless TV standard called Wireless HDI--and others have been talking up for a while.
But it's been a long time coming, and it will be even longer before this is a mainstream product category. Amimon said recently it sees that happening in three to five years.
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.
At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, Samsung showed off a plasma TV that got data from an 802.11(n) link.
At CES in January 2008, you should expect to see a lot of TVs demoed with WirelessHD, a wireless protocol with a lot more bandwidth.
Wireless TV? Are you out of your mind?
(Credit: CNET Networks)That's the world from John LeMoncheck, president and CEO of SiBeam, the chip company that has devised the spec and will come out with chips based on it. (I spoke to him a few days ago at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit). Several consumer electronics manufacturers will likely show off TVs and other devices containing WirelessHD chips.
LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), NEC, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba have all pledged support and undying love to the WirelessHD spec.
WirelessHD chips operate at 60GHz. Traditionally, it's used by the military for ship-to-ship communication. The signals will carry up to 4 gigabits per second--good enough for wireless 1080p--pass through walls, and travel far enough to connect the rooms in most people's homes. You could probably even do home X-rays with that.
WirelessHD, of course, isn't the only wireless protocol for consumer electronics devices in town. Last year at CES, Neosonik, Avega Systems and Amimon (which has a wireless HDMI chip) all showed off prototypes. Samsung and Philips also showed off 802.11(n) equipment. So there's lots of interest in the field. WirelessHD, though, does seem to have a lot of interest among major manufacturers.
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