-

Wireless displays


The last two standards for monitors, HDMI and DisplayPort, didn't exactly have us all rushing out to upgrade our PC screens and graphics cards, so it's a safe bet that DVI will remain the cabled interface of choice for some time to come. What about connecting a monitor to your PC without wires though?


That's something that could be worth shelling out for. Two different technologies were on the show floor at CES, which should be available en masse this year.


The first, WirelessHD is being pushed by the usual line-up of TV and DVD player manufacturers as a replacement for HDMI. It uses a short range, high bandwidth in the Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) spectrum to transmit HD video and audio from a set-top box or media centre to a TV screen.


The idea is nothing new, Philips have had a kit out for a while that does the same thing, but WirelessHD is a proper standard and should ensure maker A's TV works nicely with maker B's Blu-ray machine and so on.


Perhaps more relevant for us, though, is Intel's new Wireless Display, or WiDi. It's designed specifically for laptops in order to remove the hassle of cables when you want to dock them with a proper screen, and like WirelessHD sends the video signal to a receiver box.


Unlike WirelessHD, WiDi can't handle protected content and the like, but it is much simpler since it requires no new hardware inside the laptop. Instead of using a separate transmitter, WiDi is a software layer on top of the existing Wi-Fi chip, so it's much cheaper to produce. Providing there's no latency introduced to the picture refresh rate, this could be a killer.

0 komentar:

Posting Komentar