HDMI over wireless

[vaking]

I am making changes to my first floor layout. Part of it - relocating TV from one room to another and mounting that TV flat (like a picture) on an interior wall. That wall has no cable input and honestly I don't want to see any electronic boxes next to that TV. This brings this discussion to a question about transmitting HDMI wirelessly. My cable currently comes into the corner of the room where TV used to be. From that place I may marginally have a direct line of sight at a distance about 20' to the new TV location. Marginally means there is a wide (about 6') opening between 2 rooms and cable entrance in one room and the new TV location in the other are diagonally opposed to each other. I looked at what is available today and I see several devices but they all fall into 2 major categories:
One category uses standard Wifi frequency (same as 802.11N - 2.4 - 5 Ghz). Another uses very high frequency - about 50 Ghz. High frequency offers higher bandwidth and higher signal quality when it works - but it requires direct line of sight and is finicky to obstructions, even when people walk accross the doorway. Low frequency devices have longer range and more stable transmission - but lower signal quality. They also seem to be able to interfere with existing Wifi access points and cordless phones in the house. Lower frequency devices also seem to offer ability to use Infrared remote to control remote signal sources - the call it IR blaster feature.
I wonder if anybody here had experience with transmitting HDMI over Wifi and can share any knowledge.
Thanks in advance,

[JimD]

Alex,

This is not exactly what you are asking but might be useful. One of the inputs for my HDMI TV comes from my blue-ray player. It is wired by HDMI cable to the TV but it also streams Netflix. As you may know, Netflix streaming is not HDMI but is better than old style TV signal. My desktop where the modem is attached is located on the floor above the TV and blue-ray player. There are multiple walls inbetween. My modem is a "g" not a "n". My guess is my modem would not support a true high fidelity signal. But an "n" might.

My son used to use the same modem in the basement apartment. It had probably degraded some. But I don't think one room away there would be any noticable degradation with or without a line of sight. We went two stories away and it worked.

Jim

[LCHIEN]

Alex, when you said HDMI over Wifi I was curious because true wifi 802.11b/n has a standard non-proprietary bandwidth in the 54 MBit/sec range and HDMI requries 165-340 Mbits per second for uncompressed 1080P video.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_HDMI

says that wifi based HDMI wireless uses compression which agrees with you comment about lost signal quality and my bandwidth concerns. The other means listed in the wiki article say 5 GHz and 60 GHz transmission schemes which is the only way to get wide band transmission HDMI would seem to require.

[vaking]

Thanks Jim,
I am familiar with setup you are describing. I know I can have Blue Ray player or TV itself equipped with "wireless Internet" connect to Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Amazon, etc and stream Internet content to the TV. I believe in this setup N or G will not make much difference because even G has speed that is faster than even my FIOS, so the bottleneck is not the wireless bandwidth here. Unfortunately I realized that all the Internet sources are getting loaded on "shows" etc and I don't watch this stuff. I watch little TV but when I do - it is either news or movies. As a result I realized that I would much rather watch news and movies on regular cable (Verizon in my case) and cancelled my Netflix for now. So my objective is to get cable content, not Internet content to the TV without running cables.

[cabinetman]

Maybe your cable supplier has customer feedback that might be pertinent. I would think wireless would have limitations that would unnerve me.

.

[jseklund]

I am not directly answering your question here, because I know little about wifi/hdmi transmission, but I am wondering if your problems can be solved in other ways?

What I am getting at is that if you can do it wirelessly, you can do it with a wire (OK, maybe there are some minor acceptions). If you want to place the box in one room and have the TV in another, you can run the wires to the basement and up inside the wall to the TV...

I have even seen people put DVD changers or mythbox-type setups in a basement or closet and have nothing near their TV.

You could make an outlet box behind the TV that has an HDMI jack and a plug next to it, and run a wire from that jack to wherever, and then just plug the TV into the jack with a short cable and no wires would ever be seen.

That's how I'd approach this...

[LinuxRandal]

My understanding, while limited, is HDMI has digital restrictions built in, which requires some sort of two way key, communication. Any signal you sent, would have to be responded to, or it wouldn't be HDMI but some other format. Otherwise the HDCP (copy protection) which is already encrypted, would need to be just passed through, without being encrypted further, by a transmission device. (You could use DVI, same specs, separate sound, no copy protection, but this still puts a box by the tv)
While looking for something I remembered seeing, I found they do have at least one device that has both a transmitter and receiver for HDMI. Still, this places a box, by your tv. Might as just do a small wireless computer, that mounts to the vesa holes, with a pass through for the mounting bracket, then.

The thing I was looking for, was a commercial where they sent a video from a mobile phone to a tv (was thinking Sharp), but I couldn't find it or what the tech was.

You probably can tell I am more then a little out of tv's.

[JimD]

This article suggests what you want to do is possible and recommends a couple systems for about $200 that he says will work:

http://pcpowerzone.com/howtochwitve.html

Jim

[sailor55330]

This isn't really about HDMI and wireless, but more about HDMI in general. I have recently begun to get messages on my TV screen (Direct TV) stating that my TV is not equipped to decode the program's content and that I need to revert back to Component video instead of HDMI. BS--My TV is less than a year old and is a 50 Vizio---it's pretty current in the tech realm.

I talked to Direct TV and learned that the source programmers (HBO, Showtime, various cable channels) are experiencing an increased amount of pirating issues via HDMI going straight from the receiver boxes to the internect via computers. As a countermeasure, the programmers are encoding the signal so that it won't play via HDMI any more. As a result, I dropping all of my pay channels as I don't feel I should be penalized for having new technology.

Just another piece of info around HDMI.

[LCHIEN]

I'm not a fan of HDMI. Its more complicated than it needs to be to get the signal from your source to your display. In fact, Component video which is 20-30 years old is technically every bit as good from a visual point of view as HDMI. I have to say it does give you a one plug solution instead of four or 5.

HDMI adds a layer of complexity and cost that makes everybody pay in terms of inconvenience and cost for the benefit of the studios.

Everything's got to be perfect for it to work. My DVD and TV must be turned on in the right order or there's no sound. I suspect the HDMI handshaking is to blame.

I recently bought a 2-3 year old Blue Ray DVD player like one I have already. Why? Because the one I have allows me to play BR DVDs to my HD projector which is a few years old but perfectly good but only has component video inputs. DVD players made after I think Jan 1, 2011 are required by license to output only 480i from any output other than the HDMI. So many don't have component outputs and the ones that do the outputs are severely crippled for which I have to pay extra cost.

[gerti]

I'm not a fan of HDMI.

The cables are more convenient than dealing with all the component wires and plugs plus the additional audio wiring, now all in one small cable and plug. But I agree: the HDMI handshake sometimes does more harm than good.

And somehow the HDMI standard managed to completely ignore closed caption. TiVo now needs to actually modify the image and embed the text into it in order to get it displayed on the screen. That means an extra decompression/compression cycle which can't be good for image quality.

[jseklund]

Not to get totally off topic here - but I have to agree about not just HDMI, but the state of things as a whole. The industry is biting the hand that feeds them. HDMI is inconvenient for many things, and the cable companies compound the issue. Now, just to watch TV I have to have a seperate box that decripts the channel and that box controls the channels. If you want to setup a Mythbox or anything of that nature with cable...good luck.

In another industry, I look at Apple, and I am amazed at how this company has moved everything back to 1989 and convinced people how awesome it all is! In 1989, you couldn't upgrade your computer, fix it, add storage or memory, etc. If you could, it was a proprietary part that cost $500. After years of work to create standards in hardware and provide more flexibility, Apple comes along and wipes it all out and everybody wants it....

I would think that with TV and Movies going the way they are (internet based, less pay for TV, more free stuff) they would try to make it more flexible for the user in order to win customers....instead, they make the product worse.

[vaking]

Loring,
Component output is analog. For wireless transmission digital signal seems a better choice. Generally - we live in a digital age, I am afraid your attempt to stay with analog transmission will not last long even though I understand your logic why.

802.11G was limited to 54 Mbit/sec. 802.11N can go higher - up to 600 Mbit/sec in theory. So this technology does have the bandwidth to handle HDMI. They don't use 802.11N directly because 802.11N has some backwards compatibility requirements. 802.11N access point will have proper bandwidth only if you configure that access point not to be compatible with older, 802.11G devices. In other words - in current environment it makes sense to build a dedicated pair of transmitter-receiver just for HDMI signal not trying to fit with 802.11N standards. Since there is no standard for explicit hdmi over wireless - vendors make proprietary implementations.

DVI was the first real option for digital video signal. It gained popularity as connector from PC to monitor, it never really picked up for TV. HDMI is DVI + digital audio + Digital rights enforcement (HDCP). In this form it became popular for TV. HDCP was added by legal requirements. Technology companies did not add that because they wanted to, they had to do it because of government requirements. It is no wonder that HDCP is the hated part but it is not a technology problem. Remember the old wisdom: "There can be managerial solution for technical problem but there cannot be a technical solution for managerial problem". HDCP is not a technical problem and it will not have technical solution. It has to be resolved legally/administratively. HDCP is a PITA but we cannot expect a technology company to solve it until users/providers of digital content solve their disagreements in court.

[vaking]

Not to get totally off topic here - but I have to agree about not just HDMI, but the state of things as a whole. The industry is biting the hand that feeds them. HDMI is inconvenient for many things, and the cable companies compound the issue. Now, just to watch TV I have to have a seperate box that decripts the channel and that box controls the channels. If you want to setup a Mythbox or anything of that nature with cable...good luck.

In another industry, I look at Apple, and I am amazed at how this company has moved everything back to 1989 and convinced people how awesome it all is! In 1989, you couldn't upgrade your computer, fix it, add storage or memory, etc. If you could, it was a proprietary part that cost $500. After years of work to create standards in hardware and provide more flexibility, Apple comes along and wipes it all out and everybody wants it....

I would think that with TV and Movies going the way they are (internet based, less pay for TV, more free stuff) they would try to make it more flexible for the user in order to win customers....instead, they make the product worse.

I am not an Apple person, every computer I have is a PC. Nevertheless I disagree with you strongly. Apple computer was never upgradeable. Historically Apple computer was sold to people who knew what they wanted from it. It was used for digital editing/image processing, Photoshop work, etc. In other words - it was used as professional tool. As opposed to it PC got a reputation as universal device. It became a Jack-of-all-trades, sort of swiss army knife that can do a lot of things. The problem with swiss army knife is that it can do a lot of things but none well. You will never see professional mechanic using swiss army knife instead of a screwdriver or taylor instead of scissors. The thing that changed is that now companies and people started to use computers for real and they now depend on those computers. It means computers now need to be a lot more reliable then they were in the hands of users. Computers are becoming either consumer appliances or professional tools and neither are upgradeable. Anything upgradeable by user is a hotrod, never a real product. Upgradeability is dead and Apple has nothing to do with it. It is a result of natural product maturity. The more people depend on their computers, the less flexible and more complex computer becomes, no user serviceable parts inside. And that applies to software too.

[jseklund]

Vaking - those are good points.

I will grant that Apple has a reputation for being superior for graphic arts type projects.

The problem is, the computers apple makes for these types of projects are not the bulk of their sales. Ipads, Iphones, Ipods - these are the hype products that are certainly meant to be "jack of all trades" products - and they don't fit your model.

What is more reliable - a computer with a battery that can be replaced because it fits a standard, or a computer which is toast once the battery dies?

The argument that proprietary parts are more reliable doesn't resonate with me, but I hear what you're saying...

edit - your argument also seems to be how many people feel about "modern cars" ...as they become more complex and more reliable they are less user serviceable....this is certainly not the case.