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WirelessHD (WiHD) is a standard for the wireless transmission of high-definition video data content meant for consumer electronic devices. The standard is proprietarily owned by Silicon Image and is now backed by a consortium that currently has 40 members including LG, Samsung, NEC, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba and Philips. The WirelessHD standard is meant to be used for consumer electronic devices such as mobile devices, PCs and entertainment devices like TVs.
WirelessHD is also known as UltraGig.
Techopedia Explains WirelessHD
The WirelessHD specification uses a 7-GHz channel that is within the 60-GHz extremely high frequency (EHF) band so it can allow highly compressed or uncompressed digital transmission of high-definition audio/video data signals, making it the wireless equivalent of the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI).
Being in the 60-GHz band, WirelessHD requires line of sight between the receiver and the transmitter and even tries to get around this limitation by implementing beam forming, which is intended to increase the effective radiated power by utilizing wall reflections to find the best signal path possible. This means that WirelessHD-capable devices have to be in the same room, but do not necessarily have to be in the line of sight within a range of up to 10 meters.
The first-generation WirelessHD specification is able to achieve data transfer rates of 4 Gbits/s, but the core technology is slated to allow data transfer rates of as much as 25 Gbits/s, allowing it to scale very well with higher resolutions such as 4K and also pass better color depth information and range. In comparison, HDMI 1.3 and DisplayPort 1.2 achieve 10.2 and 21.6 Gbits/s, respectively, of transfer speed.
WirelessHD has the following features:
- Dramatically simplifies home theater installation by eliminating cables and the need to locate source devices near the display device.
- Operates in a different frequency band than common household WiFi and other radio signals to prevent interference
- Has extremely low latency
- Supports 1080p 60-Hz video and 7.1 digital surround sound
- Supports HDCP technology
