HD1080i De-mystify HDTV 1080i ::: know why before you buy

Monday, January 08, 2007

HD wireless cable by Phillips

Some new monikker called "wireless cables" ... oxymoronic but just the way we like it, no visible wires and more points of connectivity. Itsn not a wire, its a couple boxes.
Think wireless HDMI 1080p ... only you dont run out of jacks to plug stuff into with wireless is channel availability, so devices can really sit near the couch or hidden away anywhere in the room and not have to be under the TV anymore.

The big problem with Wall mounted flat panels is the ugly wire drop downs of all the crap you hooked up that is plugged into the back... that eventually forces you ( actually it may be your wife's constant harang on too many wires that produces that ringing in your ears ) to poke a hole in the wall to run them out of sight and therefore make all that connectivity more of a hassle to get at. My advice, Pay an Installer to put in the wall arm, and install the power outlet anyhow. But after he leaves, you buy another gizmo and now what.. all that cost of install to avoid wire is right back where you were, another dangling cable.

When you are finally done... buying slightly longer cables to reach the rack and whatall plugging the clean looking wall mounted outcome together, you have spent WAY MORE time and money than any of the cool new wireless systems cost. I would like to thank MONSTER CABLE's pricing for making wireless a very attractive and cost effective solution. In my case I would need a 36foot linear run down the wall , around the baseboard, around a corner and up into my rack for an 18 foot direct line-of-sight actual distance.

From the mouths of babes...

My 4yr old son once reminded me of how pervasive wired component systems can be... when one day i asked him to hand me a stereo audio cable...
he looked at me, confused, and said "what cable?"
I replied, "the long black stuff next to you." ...
to which my son promptly admonished me with:
"Oh that's not a cable, that's anudda damn wire"

Obviously he had been listening to my wife's comments..., Thanks Hun.


REDUX:
I got a lot of helpful texting by cell from pals walking the asiles of CES, makes me wish i had gone there.. but a consensus was handed to me on Wireless HDMI. click.
1). NetGear EVA8000
2). Neosonik
These two systems are HD1080i compatible with HDMI 1.3 which means video and audio digital wireless. The Netgear sort of assumes your PC will rule the decision path for content, and the Neosonik assumes you have all digital source and how you handle that is more component Device AV centric. Offhand i would say that Neo has it going properly for the user that just wants wireless and no need to sync this or boot that, and they have a proprietary signal that is more immune to wrieless traffic of the standard 802 whatever. Thats a good thing, my experience with netgear is that at 50 feet or so your signal is now junk. Neosonik claims twice that reach.




WIRELESS DROP

There are several new wireless offerings, i like all this enough to mention each in its own turn. look for posts on wireless 1080 hdmi later on...For example there are Flatpanel systems out there at CES that have something i would call wireless drop, where you place the ATSC tuner and its controller box just below the display, all your wires go into that... ( and along the baseboard however they are needed, out of sight for the most part ) The screen is connected by a High Speed wireless that only has to travel a few feet vertically up to it. Sweet. This may well be the solution of choice if you like the display ( A samsung plasma ) . My preference would be to have this option available for any display thats 1080p, but i do like integrated stuff also.


WIRELESS SURROUND

Basically the surround sound rear speaker issue gets too painful, largely because of the rear speaker wires that had to go under carpet or along ceiling or in a path of travel within the room. So for a time i had basically 3.1 sound Stereo LR, center speaker and subwoofer. The only part that really had to be wireless was rear left and right. I finally bought a Pioneer VSX D414 that satisfied this for me. Wireless HDMI 1.3 is full audio and video , inherently allowing a better path, but beware, some systems will have a processing delay time that makes the sound a bit out of sync or seem more distant, sort of disturbing the soundfield for nearby rear speaker sounds that are in the video. Near Zero Audio processing latency is needed, you have to ask about that.

WIRELESS HDMI
really this is the way to go.
Why? because you want it all in one processing path to avoid audio and video sync delay issues and you need HDCP inherent to the system for it to work anyhow, the HDMI for 1080 use is designed to deal with all that.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You wouldn't want to use most of the stuff Monster sells inside walls anyhow, unless they are specifically rated for in-wall use.

I highly recommend Bluejeanscable.com for most cable purchases (you have to look elsewhere for optical cables, unfortunately) as they make high quality cables that are almost always rated for in-wall and/or plenum use and the connectors they use by Canare are simply the bomb.

Prices are very good too.

As for wireless systems, I personally wouldn't mess with them. Too much risk for interference and other noise to mess with your video signal. As people have found out with wi-fi routers, even a microwave oven can mess with things.

This will become a bigger and bigger problem as well as more and more devices use wireless and more people introduce them into their houses.

So yes, you gain convenience, but you lose some in security of the connection.

1:42 PM  
Blogger Jeff said...

Absolutely - and www.Bluejeanscable.com is my other posts (linked) also. Is fine for same wall situations ( poke a hole in at 5 feet high and another at the baseboard - straight run vertically down) using regular cable there is fine, but for more involved runs you may break firecodes or wiring codes and that is a no-no.

Currenttly i have wireless systems in use and it works fine in the same room, which is typical usage for those who already had cables to a rack, and TV located on a near wall. My experience has been that consumer devices claiming 100 feet deliver about 30 feet. I have yet to test a Whole House Media distribution system, just the "wireless cable" trick. Works fine. I have 5 wireless connections to my FIOS Router, they get about 700 kbps, not that good. keep your antenna away from power supplies.

Apartment, condo and townhouse users may well have issues with proximity though.

2:08 PM  

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