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Wireless HDTV: Previewing the Consumer Electronics Show |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
New Toys
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Thursday, 03 January 2008 |
Sorry about the interruption there -- received a last-minute assignment from the Justice Department to head up the missing CIA videotapes investigation. I clocked a few days' work up in D.C., but finally decided to pass on the project. I figured, who needs the grief? Grilling dim-bulb CIA drones all day is not my idea of a good time. So I gave the gig to my old college roommate John "The Bull" Durham. John's a tough old bird. Heads up, Langely!
Anyway, now I'm getting prepped for an event more up my alley -- the
Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. If you've never attended,
it's a technophile's paradise. Pure, unadulterated geekdom as far as
the eye can see. Plus gambling. And strippers. God bless America.
 One area to keep an eye on: Wireless HDTVs. Advance buzz suggests there
will be a lot of action in this direction. The cleverly-named
WirelessHD consortium includes industry heavyweights like Sony,
Toshiba, Samung and Intel. They're pushing an interface specification
that would allow high throughput streaming of HD content to wireless
displays. Like WiFi, but seriously souped up. (For those who appreciate
the nerdy minutia -- devices would broadcast, uncompressed, on the
virgin 60 gigahertz radio band.)
On a practical level, this means you'd be able to hang that
impressive-looking HDTV on the wall without having the home
theater/cable hookup dangling down. If the WirelessHD guys have their
way, this technology will be built into all sorts of home electronic
gadgets, allowing your TV set to pick up HD wirelessly from your
digital camera, DVD player, what-have-you. One interesting aspect:
Hollywood is already worried that wireless HD will encourage
signal-squatting -- tuning your TV into the HD feed coming from the
next apartment over.
Of course, you still have that ugly power cord hanging down from the
wall TV. But don't sweat it. The wireless crowd is working on that,
too. Stay tuned for more updates from CES. I'm planning on trying out
my new quantum-matrix card-counting algorithm at the blackjack tables.
They already banned me from the Monaco casinos for this, but the Vegas
guys haven't seen it yet. Wish me luck.
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