Major electronics companies jointly announces WirelessHD

LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic), NEC
Corporation, Samsung Electronics, SiBEAM, Sony Corporation and Toshiba Corporation jointly announced that they are working as a special interest group called WirelessHD to develop a specification for a wireless high definition digital interface (WirelessHD(TM) or WiHD(TM)). It will enable high definition audio video (A/V) streaming and high speed content transmission for consumer electronics (CE) devices.

The migration to high definition content along with the proliferation of digital source devices will intensified consumers desire to simply and flexibly connect to high quality, high definition displays and consumer electronics systems. In-Stat
notes that global sales of devices with a high speed digital A/V interface is expected to grow from 60M units in 2006 to 495M units in 2009.

Brian O'Rourke, a senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR, stated, "Emerging as the first consumer electronics industry initiative for wireless uncompressed digital video transmission, WirelessHD will provide consumers wireless flexibility and ease of use while preserving the benefits traditionally associated with popular wired
alternatives for point-to-point display, such as HDMI and DVI."

John Marshall, chairman of WirelessHD, said, "The availability of high definition wireless connections stands to eliminate the morass of cables, switches and other complexities needed to support the variety of devices consumers have and will continue to buy, such as HDTVs, HD disc players, digital video cameras and game consoles. With high definition wireless links, media streaming and transmission from any source to any display or recorder is simplified by removing the need for a hard wired connection."

WirelessHD