Devices > Video Cards, Monitors, Televisions, and Projectors

Wireless HDMI?

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newsposter:
Ok, need to setup a wireless HDMI in an old house that can't be wired for in wall cable TV, HDMI, or cat5/6 cables. Just can't be done.

All of the wireless HDMI thingies I've seen seem to have the same 100' clear air or '2 walls' distance limitations.  And they run on the same 5.4 Gz freqs that wifi uses.

Anyone know of a 'better' wireless HDMI setup in the $300 or less range.

Thanks

glynor:
They all suck.

Consider those ranges EXTREMELY optimistic.  And, on most of them I've tested, even with the source/destination boxes sitting on a table DIRECTLY next to one another, they severely degraded picture quality (way overcompressed with crappy compression settings).  I'm constantly forced to test these things and prove how crappy they are to our engineering department here at work, because they hate running cables through the walls, and keep trying to come up with "wireless" methods.

So, every 6 months, some engineer comes along and says "I've solved our wiring issue.  I bought this little $300 dodad I found online, and it works awesome at my house because I don't have any interference and my test case was a single static powerpoint slide."  I really, really hate them.  I've never seen (even for $3K+ prices) one that isn't a POS.

It is a very difficult problem to solve.

The bandwidth available on a HDMI 1.4 cable (with the 8/10bit overhead removed) is 8.16gbps (HDMI 2.0 is 14.4gbps).  It is difficult for you to squeeze even 1gbps reliably through a wireless connection with high-end gear at low latencies.  Pushing 8gbps?  That's a pipe dream.

That means something (and with that amount of difference in bandwidth, it is a LOT of something) has to suffer.  I suspect most of those systems are capable of 300-400mbps max, and probably more like 200mpbs in normal use-cases, with fluctuating latency.  How do you squeeze HDMI down that pipe?  You throw the vast majority of the data away, and to keep latencies low, you do it with the crappiest possible algorithms.

pcstockton:
Don't sugar coat it Glynor, tell us how you really feel!   ;)

newsposter:
I'm in agreement with Glynor and have done the bandwidth calculations that he's thoughtfully provided.  Wireless HDMI does suck at the current state of the art.

Almost ready to give up on an OTB/retail solution and am looking for a box with enough firmware features that may be hack-friendly so that I can mess with the TX power.

Anyone know what the FCC limits are to TX power in the unlicensed 5.4 GZ band??

Also pursuing HDMI over IP.  We do have powerline IP running in the building at a reliable 500 mbps.  It took some fancy bridging and filter work at the circuit breaker panels to get that high.

We know that this is going to be a bandwidth-limited problem, looking for the 'best of the worst'.

jmone:
FYI - I used the Wireless HDMI connection for my PJ initially (till I pulled a cable) and it was OK.  The distance was only 10ft, in direct line of site but you could block the signal by just standing in the way. 

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