Wireless HDTV- TV Today OR Tomorrow

Here’s the next installment in my series on HDTV in the OR and the emerging use of HD for endoscopic surgery.  Belkin introduced a new device for consumer HD video at CES that uses wireless technology to transmit the signal.  In the past the enormous bandwidth of HD precluded the use of wireless transfers. 

From what I have been told- the technology was developed by Amimon and is called WHDI.  They report on the tech that:

WHDI™ - Wireless High Definition Interface sets a new standard for wireless high-definition video connectivity. It provides a high-quality, uncompressed wireless link which can support delivery of equivalent video data rates of up to 3Gbps (including uncompressed 1080p) in a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, conforming to FCC regulations. Equivalent video data rates of up to 1.5Gbps (including uncompressed 1080i and 720p) can be delivered on a single 20MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, conforming to worldwide 5GHz spectrum regulations. Range is beyond 100 feet, through walls, and latency is less than one millisecond.

WHDI™ enables a wireless video link that offers the same functionality, cost and quality as a wired link. Practically all of the hundreds of millions of wired connections between video sources and displays today are based on delivery of uncompressed video. In order to replace these wired links, the wireless interface needs to be uncompressed as well.

The problem with traditional wireless modems for video is that they treat ever data bit equally. This new technology does not.  WHDI takes the uncompressed HD video stream and breaks it into elements of importance. The various elements are then mapped onto the wireless channel in a way that give elements with more visual importance a greater share of the channel resources, i.e. they are transmitted in a more robust manner.

I presented research a few years ago on the development of a new endoscope that used distal CMOS imaging chios and distal end LED ilumination.  The advantage of this is the ability to eliminate light and power cables once it goes battery powered.  The developoment of wireless HD video transmission is vital to make the scopes totally wireless.  Some details of this project and wireless power charging are here.  The technology could also be used to develop real time image review from pill- cams.

You may want to check out past posts on the use of video compression as another tool enabling wireless OR’s.