James Delahunty
29 Apr 2009 22:36
According to an upcoming report from In-Stat, the next generation of Wi-Fi standard, 802.11n, will dominate the HD market. Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI), WirelessHD, and Ultrawideband (UWB) are contenders for wireless High-definition delivery systems within the home. However, In-Stat comments that "the ubiquity of Wi-Fi technology is proving unstoppable."
"802.11n is the next generation of the immensely popular Wi-Fi family. It promises data rates above 100Mbps and is backwards compatible," reckons In-Stat analyst Brian O’Rourke. "The installed base of Wi-Fi is immense, and effectively includes all mobile PCs, many mobile phones and a wide variety of CE devices. The primary drawback to 802.11n is expense, since it requires codec technology on both ends to transmit HD video. Neither of its primary competitors, WHDI and WirelessHD, require codecs."
In-Stat predicts that nearly 24 million digital TVs will ship with some type of Wireless HD video technology by 2013, but counts out Ultrawideband (UWB) as a major player in the consumer electronics area. WHDI and WirelessHD have great potential and are being pushed by startups, but they are expensive and power-hungry for now. Therefore, In-Stat predicts fewer than eight million devices containing either will ship in the time frame.