Tune in to wireless video

Tune in to wireless video
New technologies are sprouting up to offer more options for wireless TV
Craig Mathias Today’s Top Stories or Other Wireless Networking Stories
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June 26, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Video, whether wireless or not, isn't usually considered important in enterprise environments. And, despite a lot of discussion about using wireless to distribute broadcast/cable/satellite video in the home, it isn't all that common yet either.


But I think video is going to become a lot more important. With respect to wireless WANs, for example, many cellular carriers have at least some form of video-entertainment service for sale. Video has the highest potential information content of any medium in common use today. And, from a wireless networking perspective, doing a good job with video usually means doing a good job with any other form of traffic.


Video is, after all, the worst of both worlds -- it has lots of large data objects, and, in the case of streaming video, it's time-bounded. Headroom is important, and wireless networks aren't known for having headroom to spare.


For today, I want to focus just on video distribution in the home, but the tools and techniques being developed here will find their way, over time, into corporate video applications. Residential video is obviously a huge market opportunity. People still watch TV even though, with 500 channels to choose from, there is never anything good on. Regardless, the TV is usually located nowhere near the cable supplying the video. There's also an increasing interest in being able to watch TV while mobile. For example, I connect my SlingBox to one of the six WLANs in my house (if radio really does cause cancer, I'm a goner), and watch it on PCs everywhere, even outside.


While I mostly use MIMO-based Wi-Fi, there's an intensifying debate over what the best wireless technology for video is. I recently spent some time on the phone with ultrawideband (UWB) chip builder Tzero Technologies Inc., which is focusing on video distribution within the home. UWB has the advantage of having a lot of potential bandwidth available -- up to 7.5 GHz. in the U.S., although much less than that is required, even for uncompressed video. The High Definition Multimedia Interface(HDMI) only requires 1.5 Gbit/sec. for 720p HDTV video, and about double that for 1080p. Tzero believes, consequently, that UWB is ideal for HDTV-class video distribution, and there are a few other UWB companies also producing video-oriented products.

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Recommendations: 42 — Recommend this article