GigaOM » WHDI

Amimon’s Notebook Module Enables Wireless PC to TV HD Transmission

Chris Albrecht — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:17 +0000

Chipmaker Amimon today announced the availability of its WHDI modules that can be used in both note-and-netbook PCs. WHDI-enabled PCs will be able to wirelessly transmit uncompressed 1080p/60GHz HD content to television sets with the WHDI chipsets. According to Amimon, together, the new solution enables users to view all of the content on their notebook on their TVs including web video, flash media, photos and PC games.

Of course, this blissful wireless pairing is heavily dependent on having a WHDI-based TV (though Amimon says that the new modules will work with non-WHDI TVs through an HDMI adapter). WHDI is one of many standards including Wireless HD, WiFi and WiGig that are all competing to be the dominant wireless HD standard.

Amimon has raised $50 million in funding to date and says that notebooks with the new WHDI modules will be in the market in 2010.

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Amimon Raises $10 Million

Chris Albrecht — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:30:25 +0000

Wireless HD chip maker Amimon announced today it has raised a $10 million Series D round of funding. The round was led by Stata Venture Partners, and included “all significant investors” from earlier rounds, including Argonaut Private Equity, Cedar Fund, Evergreen Venture Partners, Walden Israel and Motorola Ventures, the strategic venture capital arm of Motorola.

Amimon’s technology allows you to transmit wireless HD content like movies and games from devices to your TV, no wires needed. The company, which backs the WHDI wireless HD standard, has now raised $50 million in funding. Competitor SiBEAM, which uses the WirelessHD standard, has raised roughly $78 million. Quantenna, which uses WiFi for transmission, has raised $42 million. And if that wasn’t enough, Amimon faces big rivals in the WiGig Alliance, backed by heavyweights such as Intel, Dell and Broadcom.

Devices using the Amimon chipset are predominately in Europe and Japan. In April, the company released its second-generation chips, which Amimon says can wirelessly deliver full uncompressed 1080p/60Hz HD content around the home, with a range of 100 feet — even through walls — with a latency of less than 1 millisecond.

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802.11n To Win The Wireless HD Video Sweepstakes

Om Malik — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:32:34 +0000

Given that the wireless networking technology Ultrawideband (UWB) is on its deathbed and WirelessHD and WHDI are yet to gain any real momentum, it seems that the winner of wireless HD video sweepstakes is going to be 802.11n which can stream data at 100 Mbps. In a recent survey, Scottsdale, Ariz.,-based research group In-Stat comes to these conclusions:

UWB will not be a major factor in the consumer electronics market. Many chip companies are leaving the market in late 2008 and 2009.
Nearly 24 million digital TVs will ship with some type of Wireless HD video technology in 2013.
WHDI and WirelessHD are being promoted by startups, but they are new, expensive and power-hungry, which is generally not a recipe for quick market success.
WHDI and WirelessHD will see a slow start, with fewer than 8 million devices with those technologies shipped in 2013.

Given the ubiquitous nature of WiFi and the price advantages that come with it, we wouldn’t be surprised. Despite Stacey’s best efforts, I have often struggled to keep up with the growing number of Wireless HD standards. This confusion is to the advantage of WiFi, which is now part of the popular lexicon. The only downside is that you need to encode and decode the video on both ends of the stream, a distinct disadvantage to WHDI and WirelessHD.

One thing against 802.11n — despite the throughputs, the quality of the signal is almost always a game of chance. I constantly grapple with that in my apartment and have to switch to hardwired ethernet to transfer big files or watch video off my Buffalo Linkstation Mini.

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