I love my HTPC. I’m one of those guys. When my idiot neighbors decide to plug-check their dirt bikes on a beautiful Sunday morning, I can fire up the PC, crank the Hans Zimmer, and drown out the buzz. Or, I can kick back on a Friday night and watch Blu-rays with a bottle of wine. Or, my wife can hop on any time during the week and knock out her World of Warcraft dailies on a 55” screen.
But what if you didn’t need an HTPC permanently installed in your man-cave in order to play your favorite music, watch your favorite movies, or game on your LCD display? That was the question I asked myself when Intel started talking about Wireless Display at this year’s CES.
The Push2TV adapter, set up under a 55-inch Samsung LED LCD.
Introducing Wireless Display
Intel went to great lengths to make Wireless Display a consumer-friendly technology. It did such a good job, in fact, that the technical intricacies aren’t readily available online. The flip-side is glorious simplicity. Once you've made the initial pairing between notebook and adapter, Intel's software handles subsequent handshakes automatically.
On one end of the connection, you have a notebook. That notebook sports an Arrandale-based processor (Wireless Display employs the integrated HD Graphics engine), a current-gen Centrino-branded wireless adapter, Intel’s My WiFi software pre-installed, and Windows 7.
At the other end sits Netgear’s Push2TV adapter with an HDMI cable running to your TV. In between? Nothing but air.
Because Intel requires that compatible notebooks have the My WiFi and Wireless Display software pre-installed and enabled, setting up the connection between notebook and adapter is a matter of turning both on, firing up the My WiFi software, entering a four-digit PIN, and watching the mobile system’s screen cloned on your TV. I demonstrate the process in the video below, and then show some high-def content being played back on our test platform.
Of course, what happens under the hood is a bit more complex—this wasn’t an easy capability to roll-out—and a deeper look into the technology helps explain why Wireless Display really isn’t the solution I was hoping might make my HTPC redundant.
Nevertheless, it’s still a cool feature that you can’t beat for the price. Wireless Display debuted on a trio of notebooks from Dell, Sony, and Toshiba selling at Best Buy. All three come with the Netgear adapter bundled, so Wireless Display is more or less a free value-add if you’re comfortable paying $1,000-ish for a Core i5-based system.
Not a fan of Best Buy’s inflexible configurations? Not to worry—Intel’s own channel-oriented Spring Peak shells also have Wireless Display support, giving you the opportunity to pick the components you want in your laptop and still get WiDi built-in. Whoops. Actually, Intel used to refer to this technology as WiDi. Apparently, that name has already been trademarked, so it’s Wireless Display from here on out.
I wanted this to stream from my desktop to my TV in the other room. Now they tell me that if I want to buy this I have to buy an intel laptop with their "HD" video (lowest performing video card on the market)
this sucks.
Why don't we check what the neighbors are watching!! Oh!! It's home made pron!! Good for me!!
/lol
Just be careful with the porn... Yo might find it's a lesbian couple in their 70's acting out '2 girls, 1 cup'... *Instant spinal shivers...*
I wanted this to stream from my desktop to my TV in the other room. Now they tell me that if I want to buy this I have to buy an intel laptop with their "HD" video (lowest performing video card on the market)
this sucks.
But good idea... now I can take my 55" TV to my bathroom! xD
Best $50 I ever spent.
Only useful for watching vids (assuming the sound is encoded and sent with the video).
Crap, I saw that too and I passed on it. I now regret it because I can't find a cheap HD media player for that price anywhere now!
Correct, and that's something I harp on several times in the piece. This is *only* useful for those folks who'll be watching video (and yes, on page two the encode/decode process is described in more detail--it's an MPEG-2 stream).
All this device seems good for is watching hulu and giving slide shows...which begs the question why not just use cables directly attached to the TV? So many Blu Ray players have Pandora, Youtube, and Netflix. It is only a matter of time before they get Hulu.
It just seems too costly for its limited to use. For the extra cost of a laptop capable of even producing and streaming bluray or HD content (which this thing cant even do), you could buy or build a cheap HTPC - Case Closed!
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=47509&vpn=SWP100A&manufacture=Warpia
I like the Win 7 "push to" concept better. If I can find a screen as easily as I can find a printer (assuming IT has made that process easy), and I can push to that screen as easily as I could print to a printer, that would be good for presenting. Otherwise, I'll stick to a VGA connector.
To be fair, the benefit of Wireless Display would be that it's a feature being enabled on compatible notebooks "free of charge." It's debatable whether the inclusion of Netgear's adapter is driving up the price of Core i5/i3 notebooks, but even if the full cost of the device is wrapped into the total cost, it's still $100 vs. $179 for the Warpia setup. Best-case scenario, it's a value-add for the folks buying these notebooks. More than anything, for me, it's interesting to know *how* the technology works, where its strengths lie, and identifying it's clear and present limitations!
If you can get it for "free" with your notebook purchase, why would you buy the media player, though? =)