Get Ready for the Wireless HDMI Hype

Belkin is really leading the charge for cable replacement solutions. They were (I believe) the first company to put out a wireless USB hub for your desktop, intending to eliminate the cumbersome cabling between your PC and peripherals. This product uses the WiMedia ultra-wideband wireless solution.

Belkin has unveiled its FlyWire wireless HDMI accessory. The company says that it will enable multi-room streaming of content from AV receivers, set-top boxes, game consoles, Blu-ray DVD player, and others. These products will connect to the hub and their content can then be accessed by high-definition televisions that are connected with a receiver.

The race for robust wireless solutions for multimedia streaming is in full gear. While Belkin is using a 5 GHz solution from AMIMON (which they call WHDI), there are plenty of other choices, such as the WirelessHD 60 GHz (using SiBEAM's spec), WiMedia UWB, a company called Radiospire indicates that their solution can use either UWB or 60 GHz), Pulse~LINK can use UWB wirelessly or over coax, and then of course there's venerabe 802.11, which is just now emerging as a potential multimedia solution.

It's going to be a busy summer.