Chinese consumer electronics company Woxter has teamed up with one of the leading lights of the Universal Powerline Association, Spain’s DS2, to come up with a rather novel way of spreading HDMI signals around the home. It turns out to be a rather ingenious combination of placeshifting and powerline technology, which may present a threat, in the Far East at least, for connection technologies like MoCA and HPNA. Initially the product will be available through retailers, but later Pay TV operators will be approached to integrate the system into their delivery.
HDMI signals are limited in the distance they can travel and getting HD TV signals around a home has become something of a holy grail in the digital home. The Woxter idea is that a HDMI socket plugged into a Blu-ray player, DVD or gaming console, goes to a Woxter HDMI hub, and there the HDMI signal can either be delivered to a nearby TV or it can head off into a power socket, modulated by a DS2 chip. The hub can also take an analog TV signal and both are treated in the same way ‘ they are re-compressed using an H.264 encoder, rather like the Sling Box technologies which now belong to EchoStar in the US, before it goes over Ethernet to be modulated onto the power grid using the DS2’s Aitana ++ chipset.
Any other power socket in the home can then be used as the power outlet, and the signal, plus the power is sent down the power cord of any TV which expects an HDMI input. At the back of the TV the power is separated from the signal, which is then decompressed and outputs as if it was the original HDMI signal. The effect on customers is squeezing an HDMI signal through their home electricity supply, although the real capacity of the DS2 chip is around 200 Mbps only, not the 1.4 Gbps or more of native HDMI.
While there must be processing elements in the hub and the connectors, and this is likely to push the price of this device to several hundred dollars, it means that no other set top box is required at the other end, it’s as if a huge HDMI cable just went through your wall, something that is very difficult to achieve with normal HDMI extenders, which also leave coaxial cable lying around everywhere.
Woxter calls it a VideoLAN and describes it as a multi-room HDMI extender, and says the input can also be a set-top-box, so that many HD Pay TV services can also be spread around the home in this way.
It is exactly the same job that Sling Media does with its Sling Player, which throws programming around a home through any broadband connection. In much the same way as the Sling Player, a return path is also supported so that remote control commands can go back along the system to the source and change channels or fast forward content etc’
A spokesman for DS2 told us, ‘It’s not like MoCA in that it doesn’t have a full IP return path, but it does have a return path for commands,’ but he agreed that it could be made to compete with MoCA and HPNA because no set top was required, and not all applications need a full IP return channel.
Woxter International describes itself as a leading Chinese manufacturer of AV, storage and multimedia products, and will distribute the VideoLAN in Europe after Christmas, and has targeted Spain initially, France, Germany and the UK.
“VideoLAN is the first of its kind enabling users to enjoy a truly Plug-and-Play solution for full HD 1080p over PLC for in-home use. Its unique design and concept has been patented worldwide,’ said Javier Parraga, Woxter CEO.
Initially the offering will go out through retailers but Woxter is also thought to be in discussion with a number of Pay TV operators, who might include it, as a way of getting the signal around the home.