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    Anyone using Wi-Di / WirelessHD?

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by CZroe, Jun 5, 2011.

  1. CZroe

    CZroe Notebook Evangelist

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    I was wondering if anyone was using Wi-Di (Intel's "Wireless Display" standard) to connect their M11x to a TV and what equipment they used to do it.

    There is very little information about Wi-Di online. It appears that other manufacturers all call it WirelessHD or WiHD, which is not to be confused with Wireless HDMI or the other 60GHz UWB technologies. I see that the cheapest kit appears to be the Rocketfish (Best Buy) brand that includes a transmitter for converting standard HDMI devices to WirelessHD. I was hoping that a cheaper receiver-only option existed. Although there does appear to be an IOGear branded kit specifically for connecting your PC to a TV, it's about the same price and it does include some kind of USB transmitter (USB video card?), which is not what I'm looking for at all.

    I'm still confused about the specs. I don't see a Wikipedia page on Wi-Di to confirm that it is the exact same as Wi-HD and, well, I see a FullHD 1080p logo on the Rocketfish box when I remember Intel waying that Wi-Di was limited to 720p. The IOGear device says "up to 720p," so why does the Rocketfish one say otherwise? Perhaps they are saying that it accepts a 1080p signal but still transmits 720p.

    I don't want to buy a TV with the tech built in! I don't see those available yet anyway but the alternatives just aren't presenting themselves properly.

    OK, it looks like the WirelessHD function with the M14x and M18x is different than Intel Wireless Display (Wi-Di) in the M11x. If you type "Wireless display" into Wikipedia, it takes you STRAIGHT to "WirelessHD" where Intel is listed as a supporter. If you search "Wireless HDMI," you get a page with many suggestions with the only Intel-related one being WirelessHD, but there is this note:
    "Wireless HDTV (aka WiDi) availability is currently an on-going development. In 2010, Toshiba began marketing the first Widi device."
    Hmm... nowhere is WiDi ever considered "Wireless HDTV," which would imply that it has something to do with HDTV broadcast standards, so that seems totally out of place and it doesn't link to anything. Weird.

    So, I did manage to find a couple devices meant for receiving WiDi. Netgear has the PTV1000 and PTV2000, the later of which supports 1080p but may not be available according to their website. Belkin makes one too. I have to wonder why the standard is evolving if Intel is working on a side-standard. So far, no WirelessHD device has a WiDi logo and no WiDi device has a WiHD logo, so I guess the two are not intended to ever meet. I can't find anything technical about WiDi, but the Intel site makes it sound like 1080p is only available for faster CPUs, as if the CPU is doing live video encoding with no dedicated hardware. That would suck. The best I can tell, it uses Intel graphics to speed the encode, so I have to wonder if it's possible to use with games on the discrete graphics at all, which was kinda the only reason I was interested in it.

    Without TECHNICAL explanations about how it works and what limitations it might have, I'm not going to spend $100 to find out or be a guinea pig. How can they be on gen 2 without this stuff being discussed?!