Losing the cords on flat TVs

Industry expo will showcase wireless technologies that streamline newest TVs

NEW YORK -- Flat-panel TVs look lovely on a wall -- the cords hanging from them, less so.

After a few years of false starts, the industry finally seems ready to tackle that problem.

At least three dueling wireless technologies for high-definition TVs will be on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which starts Monday. Manufacturers promise that TV sets incorporating these technologies will be in stores before the next holiday season.

The heavyweight entry in the field is WirelessHD, a consortium that includes the biggest Asian names in electronics, including Sony and Toshiba.

It's an unusual group in that the home entertainment industry has not generally been a leader in wireless technologies. Most of the advancements were pioneered by makers of cell phones and computer networking gear.

But the consortium is set to announce today that Intel is joining the group, which could broaden the reach of the technology from home entertainment applications to computers. Intel has been a champion of wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, and more recently, WiMax, a longer-range cousin.

The WirelessHD group is also announcing that it has completed the blueprints for chips that can beam HD audio and video from set-top boxes, DVD players and digital cameras to TV sets. The chips can be made small, and the intention is to have them built into devices, rather than be supplied in add-on adapters.

The technology uses a virgin band of the radio spectrum, about 60 gigahertz. That lets it avoid interference from other wireless networking gear and allows for extremely high data transfer rates, according to John Marshall, chairman of WirelessHD. Unlike other wireless TV solutions, WirelessHD won't need to compress the signal, which can result in a loss of quality.

To satisfy the concerns of the Motion Picture Association of America, the organization of Hollywood studios, WirelessHD has limited the range of the technology.

"What WirelessHD has done is that we've made sure that the technology can cover a whole room -- even a large room, up to 10 meters [30 feet] -- but we've used techniques that make sure that it can't leak into the apartment next door," Marshall said.

That also means the signal won't reach from the living room into other rooms in the same home.

The chip maker that is best positioned to take advantage of the specification and supply transmitting and receiving chips is SiBEAM, a privately held Sunnyvale, Calif. startup that has been part of the WirelessHD group since its founding in 2006.

The other big electronics companies in the group are Matsushita Electric Industrial (known for its Panasonic brand), NEC, LG and Samsung.

Wireless streaming of HD video has been forecast for years, and several companies have announced products that have failed to show up, sunk by technical problems.