FAQ

• What is the WHDI standard?

• Why was the WHDI Consortium formed?

• What is WHDI LLC?

• What is the benefit of the WHDI standard to Consumers?

• What is the benefit of WHDI to the industry?

• Can you give a few examples of how consumers will use WHDI?

• When will we see WHDI-enabled products?

• Many wireless products are sold as a locked pair of transmitter and receiver. Is WHDI a closed system like these products?

• Can you give some of the key features for WHDI?

• Why uncompressed vs. compressed video transmission?

• How does the Video Modem Work?

• What is the relation between WHDI and - HD?

• Can WHDI meet the requirements of mobile/portable devices?

• What is the relation between WHDI and DLNA?

• What is the relation between WHDI and 802.11n?

• Will WHDI co-exist with 802.11a and 802.11n?

• Can other companies join the WHDI Consortium?

• What is the royalty for joining WHDI?

• There were previous press releases about products utilizing WHDI technology. What is the relation to the WHDI standard?

• What is the copy protection used in WHDI?

• Is WHDI secured? Could someone eavesdrop or hack a WHDI home ecosystem?

• Does WHDI run into problems in high-density environments e.g. apartments complexes?

• Can anyone have access to the technical specification details?

 

 

What is the WHDI standard?

WHDI stands for "Wireless Home Digital Interface." The WHDI standard is a new standard for multi-room audio, video and control connectivity established by the WHDI Consortium (which is made up of Amimon, Hitachi, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sharp and Sony). The WHDI standard enables HD source devices such as BD players, STBs, PCs and even mobile phones to wirelessly deliver uncompressed video content to HD displays throughout the home. WHDI enables a wireless HD network, where consumers can easily bring home new HD sources and add new HD TV's without having to worry about configuration or wiring.

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Why was the WHDI Consortium formed?

The WHDI Consortium was formed to enable widespread adoption and interoperability of wireless sources and displays, manufactured by numerous vendors, utilizing the WHDI technology.

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What is WHDI LLC?

WHDI LLC is the Secretary of the WHDI Consortium, responsible for licensing, promoting and enforcing the WHDI standard (including the WHDI Specification and WHDI logo).

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What is the benefit of the WHDI standard to Consumers?

HD video is coming to us from more and more sources. HD used to be limited to just the Set Top Box/TV or the Blu-Ray player. Now it is also coming to us through the PC and laptops, media servers, game players and even mobile devices such as smart phones. What is more, consumers are now adding more and more HD displays in the home to view this content. WHDI is the only standard that allows consumers to build a wireless HD video network in their home - easily accessing all of their HD content from any device, and enabling HD displays throughout the home, without the need to run A/V wires.

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What is the benefit of WHDI to the industry?

The WHDI standard benefits all players in the HD ecosystem. As discussed above, consumers obviously benefit by being able to more easily consume HD content. By creating a wireless HD network in the home, CE, PC and mobile device makers can sell more and higher value added devices that deliver additional HD connectivity and services. Also, since consumers can more easily consume the latest HD content, content producers and distributors will also benefit as WHDI will lead consumers to purchase more high-value HD content and increased data services. WHDI will also enable new HD distribution channels by allowing mobile devices and PC's/notebooks to easily share HD content.

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Can you give a few examples of how consumers will use WHDI?

Here are a few examples:

• PC's and laptops: wirelessly connect a laptop or the office PC to the wireless HDTV in the living room - consumers can now easily access all of the latest HD content and games coming to their computer.
• Mobile: wirelessly play HD content and games from your smart phone to your TV.
• TV Everywhere: with WHDI, consumers can add an HDTV to a bedroom or kitchen without running wires.
• Game players: Playing a game on the living room TV when the gaming console is actually located in the bedroom.

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When will we see WHDI-enabled products?

The first WHDI standard based products are targeted to be available to consumers in Q3 of 2010.

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Many wireless products are sold as a locked pair of transmitter and receiver. Is WHDI a closed system like these products?

No. WHDI enables open interoperable systems. Many of today's wireless products are indeed "closed" - with these consumers can only connect one display to one source, and cannot add additional sources or displays, or connect products from multiple manufacturers. While many of these devices are useful (e.g. thin-screen TV's or wireless dongles), they do not reach the true potential of wireless. With the WHDI standard, manufacturers can now bring to the market "open" systems where any device can connect to any other device, regardless of the manufacturer. Consumers just need to look for the WHDI logo - these products that will all automatically communicate with each other.

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Can you give some of the key features for WHDI?

• Wireless transmission of uncompressed 1080p 60Hz
• Range of 100 feet and through walls
• Practically no latency - less than 1 millisecond
• Low power modes for battery operated devices.

The WHDI specification incorporates a unique wireless video-modem approach that maintains superb video quality and robustness. In noisy wireless conditions where other wireless technologies would severely degrade, WHDI-enabled products maintain a robust link with virtually no loss of visual quality.

Click here for more details on WHDI technology.

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Why uncompressed vs. compressed video transmission?

A key problem with compressed video is that high quality compressed video is not always available to the user. Every HD DVD player, HD satellite/cable set-top-box, or HD PC outputs uncompressed video. So the most natural solution is sending this uncompressed video as is to the TV, monitor or projector for display.

Most wireless technologies aren't capable of delivering uncompressed video, due to its high bit rate, so they have to compress the signal, send it wirelessly and then decompress it again. Because this process takes time, latency is added to the transmission; it is more expensive; and video quality is degraded. Moreover, when you use compressed transmission, you lose the ability to fully capture the look and feel of the source device interface. If you want to use your i-phone interface on the TV, you really need an uncompressed signal.

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How does the Video Modem Work?

The WHDI video modem takes the uncompressed HD video stream and breaks it into elements of visual importance. The various elements are then mapped onto the wireless channel in a way that gives elements with more visual importance a greater share of the channel resources, i.e. they are transmitted in a more robust manner. Elements that have less visual importance are allocated fewer channel resources. The result of this unique video-modem approach is that any errors in the wireless channel are not noticed as they only affect the less visually important bits. Very high rates of video information can be transmitted because the human eye can tolerate the errors that fall on the less important bits.

Traditional wireless technologies (such as WiFi) do not differentiate between the least important and most important information, and thus cannot deliver the bandwidth or robustness of WHDI

Click here for more information on the video modem.

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What is the relation between WHDI and - HD?

Both standards support wireless delivery of uncompressed HD video, however these are two very different standards utilizing different spectrum bands and communication methods which enable different features and capabilities. WirelessHD operates in the 60 GHz band which has limited range and restricted to in-room connections; additionally it's subject to obstacle interface e.g. glass. Unlike WirelessHD which operates at the 60GHz band, WHDI operates on the 5GHz unlicensed band which propagates easily through walls and other obstacles, enabling robust multi-room wireless delivery of HD video.

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Can WHDI meet the requirements of mobile/portable devices?

Yes, most certainly. Low power modes of WHDI can enable implementations that meet the requirements of mobile devices. Moreover, with WHDI it is possible to implement software based transmitters that use existing device hardware. This low cost solution is especially attractive to mobile devices where space is at a premium. Finally, as noted below, it is also possible to build single chip WHDI/WiFi solutions, resulting in significant cost and space savings. No other wireless standard can match WHDI's performance with this level of integration.

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What is the relation between WHDI and DLNA?

WHDI and DLNA are complementary protocols. DLNA defines the delivery of compressed media over an IP network (wired or wireless) whereas WHDI enables delivery of uncompressed HD content/video from HD video sources, such as gaming consoles, PCs, BD players and set-top-boxes to displays (TVs and projectors).

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What is the relation between WHDI and 802.11n?

802.11n is a specification for general purpose wireless data delivery. WHDI is specific to wireless delivery of video, audio and control. 802.11n can be used for streaming of HD video, however due to rate limitations it can only deliver compressed video. WHDI enables delivery of uncompressed HDTV, thereby supporting all HD video sources that do not provide compressed video outputs, such as gaming consoles, PC graphics, BD players, DVD players and set-top-boxes.

WHDI and 802.11n use very similar technology in the 5Ghz frequency range. As a result, it is possible to build a single chip integrated WHDI/802.11n (WiFi) solution. In fact, the WHDI-802.11n synergies will enable a single chip solution with a cost that is close to the cost of 802.11n chip.

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Will WHDI co-exist with 802.11a and 802.11n?

Yes. WHDI employs spectrum management capabilities to avoid mutual interferences with other transmissions in the 5GHz unlicensed band. WHDI makes use of a number technologies to avoid collisions with other devices and to maximize the available wireless bandwidth, including: Automatic Frequency Selection (AFS), whereby WHDI will automatically switch to an unused channel in the case of interference. WHDI also supports DFS, for more available channels, and Transmit Power Control – allowing re-use of channel frequency. There is approximately 600MHz available for unlicensed use in the 5GHz band. WHDI, like 802.11n, occupies a bandwidth of either 20MHz or 40MHz, i.e. there are between 15 and 30 channels available for use by WHDI, 802.11n and other transmitters in this band, which allows for multiple routers and WHDI devices in eth same environment.

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Can other companies join the WHDI Consortium?

Companies can now join as WHDI Adopters. Please click here to join.

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What is the royalty for joining WHDI?

There is no royalty to become a WHDI Adopter and license the WHDI Specification and Trademark.

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There were previous press releases about products utilizing WHDI technology. What is the relation to the WHDI standard?

WHDI technology is the wireless transmission technology developed by AMIMON for the wireless delivery of uncompressed HD video, utilizing AMIMON's wireless video-modem approach. The WHDI standard was created based on the WHDI technology with input from all of the WHDI Promoters. The WHDI standard sets for the the protocols and software layers required for the interoperability and smooth operation of CE devices manufactured by different vendors. The pre-standard WHDI technology has been chosen by more TV manufacturers as their wireless video solution than any other wireless technology.

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What is the copy protection used in WHDI?

WHDI employs industry approved HDCP revision 2.0 to provide superior Hollywood-approved security and digital content protection. By using HDCP 2.0 WHDI ensures interoperability with the more than 1 Billion existing HDMI/HDCP 1.x devices currently on the market.

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Is WHDI secured? Could someone eavesdrop or hack a WHDI home ecosystem?

WHDI uses strong encryption (AES 128 bit-based) to protect the high definition wireless link. This ensures that all video or audio content transmitted wirelessly over WHDI links is safe from intentional or accidental eavesdropping.

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Does WHDI run into problems in high-density environments e.g. apartments complexes?

WHDI employs spectrum management capabilities to avoid mutual interferences with other transmissions in the 5GHz unlicensed band.

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Can anyone have access to the technical specification details?

Currently, the technical specification is only available to WHDI Promoters and Adopters.

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