WHDI Standard To Include 3D Streaming Followed by Version 2.0 Upgrade

The WHDI (Wireless Home Digital Interface) Consortium has promise an update to the WHDI standard; to add 3D streaming and support for all of the 3D formats supported by the wired HDMI 1.4a standard. The updated version will make it possible to stream 3D video around the home. Also to follow is a full upgrade of the standard to make it possible to stream HD and 3D content to and from low powered devices.

The update to support 3D wireless streaming is expected in the fourth quarter; with products incorporating the update could appear at CES in January.  The 3D update will be followed in the second quarter of 2011 by WHDI 2.0.

On top of the 3D streaming update, WHDI version 2.0 will have support for 2K x 4K HD (2000x4000 High Definition) resolution with up to four times the resolution of standard Blu-ray 1080p at 2,160x4,096 pixels, the consortium said.

The 2.0 standard will also enhance WHDI's benefits in portable battery-operated devices, the consortium noted. With 2.0, power consumption will be reduced to less than 1 watt from less than 2 watts. Combined with the greater ease of combining WiFi and WHDI on a single chip, said said Leslie Chard, president of WHDI LLC.  WHDI will migrate faster to such mobile devices as cellphones to stream stored HD video to a compatible TV or to play cellphone-stored games on a TV with no latency. "You can turn your cellphone into a Wii," he said.

Also to facilitate cellphone adoption, the 2.0 spec will permit WHDI processing on a cellphone's DSP chip, and with "small hardware modifications" to the cellphone, cellphone makers will need only load WHDI software onto their DSP chips to deliver WHDI at a "very reduced cost," Chard said.

WHDI 1.0 solutions for portable solutions have already appeared in the form of a USB dongle for laptops and companion adapter for TVs. Brightview offers one such solution in the U.S., and Asus has one in the works, Chard said. In the fourth quarter of this year, he said he expects top-tier PC suppliers to offer 1.0 dongles for laptops, notebooks and netbooks, with such devices arriving with embedded WHDI 1.0 in the first quarter of 2011.

source Twice