Although slow progress best describes the fate of wireless HD chip vendors in 2010, the five-year outlook is for a robust triple-digit growth rate of wireless HD video-enabled products through 2014 according to In-Stat.  The number of shipments is projected to rise from the current levels of less than 1 million to nearly 13 million by 2014.


Some of the findings include:

• Alternative video transmission technologies, WHDI, WirelessHD, and WiGig Alliance, are vying for a dominant position.  Among the differentiating factors are whole-home range, price, and performance issues, single source, and time-to-market issues. 
• WHDI and WirelessHD chip ASPs will both fall over 25% annually through 2014. 
• WirelessHD, is championed by chipmaker SiBeam and backed by NEC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and LG.   
• WHDI (backed by AMIMON) and WirelessHD (backed by SiBeam) device shipments will both grow at triple-digit annual percentage rates through 2014.   
• WiGig Alliance members include: Broadcom, Dell, Intel, LG Electronics, Microsoft, NEC, Nokia, NXP, Panasonic, and Samsung. 
• Strong competitive technologies include various flavors of Wi-Fi, Intel’s Wireless Display (WiDi) initiative, and Sony’s TransferJet.

Recent In-Stat research “Wireless HD Video Technology:  WHDI and WirelessHD Establish Market, While WiGig Establishes Specification”, explores the three key wireless HD video transmission technologies of WHDI, WirelessHD, and WiGig Alliance. The report tracks the annual penetration through 2014 of all three technologies into 14 different applications within the following product segments:

• Consumer Electronics
• Personal Computers 
• Mobile Phones 
• Industrial/Medical applications

Telstra has launched a HD Voice video phone which when linked with a new Sennheiser DECT headset delivers crystal clear voice calls that are twice the quality of a traditional handset.

Initially the new Telstra media phone, which comes with its own full colour video screen, will only be available for the business market, however new models could soon be launched for the home market say communication analysts.

Primarily a video phone that works over an IP network, the new Telstra VVX 1500 Business Media Phone (produced by Polycom) incorporates new HD voice technology, which Telstra executives have likened to being like moving "from listening to AM radio sound to CD quality sound".

Users will also be offered a new Sennheiser DECT HD Voice headset which the German Com

pany claims delivers a warm and more natural sound using wideband.
The headphones operate over 180 metres, line of sight, and 55 metres through walls. It has a battery life of eight hours on full talk time.

Stylish, the new video phone has a 7-inch video touchscreen, and supports 6 lines. It also has a Gigabit Ethernet switch, and an integrated 2 megapixel camera. HD voice technology delivers clear audio. It also has motion detection technology which allows the phone to be configured as a security device when a user is absent.

The camera can be activated to deliver an image back to a central security location.

At this stage users will have to be a Telstra hosted IP telephony (TIPT) customer.

The phone can be purchased outright for $1,500 or rented for $45 per month over 36 months. Two phones are need to take advantage of the new HD voice technology.

Will consumer-focused videoconferencing from the desktop and perhaps even more intriguingly via mobile devices really kick of? In recent days and weeks, Google purchased GIPS, in part for its HD voice codecs but also its videoconferencing technology, which could get added to the Android platform; Skype started rolling out broader support for group video calls; and Cisco dropped hints about a $500 home telepresence setup for consumers.

Guaranteeing the necessary bandwidth and dealing with latency issues makes mobile and consumer videoconferencing a major telco opportunity, not an over-the-top threat. Just as mobile VoIP hasn’t really taken off as a purely OTT sensation, look for the same dynamic — only to an even greater extreme — to play out with video communications. That’s in part why the Verizon/Skype partnership on mobile VoIP is so interesting (and why Skype is making such a big bet on the partnership). By setting up dedicated signaling and session connections to support mobile Skype, Verizon can help deliver better voice service while at the same time instantly tapping into Skype’s major global user base.

Reserving and guaranteeing real-time session streams for video communications will be even more important, whether it be video delivered from a mobile device over a mobile data network or a home-based telepresence service such as Cisco is proposing. Think $500 is a bit much just to get that Cisco telepresence device into your home? Imagine how overpriced it will appear if the real-time streaming video services delivered to it in a pure OTT fashion are marred by jitter and delay. Look for so-called over-the-top video players to cut deals with service providers to take advantage of next-generation QOS guarantees and protocols like real-time transport protocol supported in the network to make videoconferencing into a service actually worth paying for.

Today’s state-of-the-art “micro” video projectors, which are about the size of a paperback novel and weigh about one pound, are quickly being pushed aside in favor of “pico” projectors, which are about the size of a candy bar and weigh just a few ounces, reports In-Stat. The combination of improved pico projection capability and the desire for larger displays will result in a new consumer electronics segment whose shipments will exceed 20 million units in five years.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Market revenue for pico projector modules expected to reach nearly half a billion dollars by 2014.

• While stand-alone/accessory pico projectors (which plug into a device, such as a cell phone, iPod or laptop) dominate the market, there is clear movement from “plug-in” to “embedded.”

• Personal CE devices and stand-alone devices dominate currently, but this will change as mobile handsets will drive growth exponentially within the next two years.

Manufacturer of these products are 3M, ADM (aka Explay), bTendo, Digislide, Display Photonics Systems, Himax, Lite Blue Optics, Lite-On Technology, Maradin Technologies, Mezmeriz, Micron Displaytech, Microvision, Mirrorcle Technologies, Mitsumi Electric, Nippon Signal, Opus Microsystems, Syndiant, and Texas Instruments.

Continuing the success of its video accelerator application, SpeedBit is now working on the next generation of personally tailored web video content and the advent of the "real-time web." By analyzing web video usage trends, SpeedBit is developing innovative methods to provide custom video streams, trending video updates, and unfiltered statistics on popular web videos from across the Internet.

Last month, at the DLD (Digital, Life, Design) Conference in Munich, SpeedBit CEO Ariel Yarnitsky highlighted these plans and how SpeedBit intends to help customize the web video experience during a panel discussion covering the future of broadband Internet and its impact on the consumption of web videos.

Currently, it's easy for users to find videos such as the Susan Boyle video or "Evolution of Dance" that have been viewed many millions of times on YouTube and other video sites. These videos manage to break their way onto the most viewed lists and stay there for months or years. However, there are countless videos that are quick hits and receive millions of views within a short period of time, yet never reach the megahit list and then fade away into the endless flood of content on the web. No option currently exists that helps users intelligently and efficiently sort through all the content available to find the hit videos that are relevant to him or her.

This is one of the holes that SpeedBit is aiming to fill with a new service it is building. The service will provide a real-time snapshot of trending videos based on the usage of millions of users watching videos at hundreds of popular video sites.

One example of SpeedBit's ability to identify a web video as it begins to spread virally is a very funny video filmed during CES a few weeks ago. In the video, a BBC reporter interviews the CEO of a company that makes a supposedly indestructible phone, and then he accidently breaks the device. SpeedBit identified the viral growth of the video while it had only 797 views. Within 72 hours this video crossed the one million views benchmark.

This video is a great example of the majority of fast growing, viral videos. These videos grow very fast, enjoy a limited life span of popularity, and are quickly eclipsed by other fast growing videos within a few days. Many of these videos are funny, highly interesting, and could offer a unique experience for many users, yet those users will probably never see them.

Nagravision is partnering with Samsung Electronics America to provide TV applications that bring more interactive web services and video content to consumers. As a result of the partnership with Nagravision, consumers will have access to more interactive and compelling applications on Samsung Apps, the world’s first HDTV-based application store where users can download and purchase applications from select 2010 Samsung HDTVs, Blu-ray Players and Home Theater Systems via the upgraded Internet@TV – Content Service.

Part of a complete solution, Nagravision’s content publishing tools provide simple application templates for creating and publishing applications on Samsung Apps.

Nagravision developed applications using the content publishing tools to deliver video content from Fashion TV and Travel Wizard. Both applications were demonstrated on Samsung’s latest HDTVs at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and they will be available on select Samsung HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and Home Theater Systems that feature the Internet@TV – Content Service later this year.

The VideoStream technology will make Cisco’s WLAN solutions media-ready and enable high-definition video to be scaled through Wi-Fi networks. This includes a set of features to provide improved resource control, support for scalable multicasting and prioritisation of different types of video stream, which will allow customers to define what videos should have reserved resources across the networks. In this way a CEO’s corporate message, for example, can be given priority over training videos. This is nice to have, but is still just that. However, the potential is broad and we expect video collaboration and related traffic contention to play its role in mobility at some stage.

This announcement is part of a comprehensive collaboration strategy to help Cisco to enable new possibilities for enterprises and create increasing demand for bandwidth-hungry collaboration services. It’s not a surprise that Cisco is pushing to have everything video-enabled to accelerate the refresh of enterprises’ network infrastructure, which is still its core business. Therefore, the complete proposition is backed by Cisco Advanced Services, and includes network planning, design, deployment and support. In our view these services and the network upgrades are where the major revenue streams will come from.

Some cordless applications, but mobility is still niche
Cisco’s media-ready WLAN strategy is based on three pillars: bandwidth, scale and quality. The new VideoStream technology will ensure Wi-Fi networks are scalable and will provide quality of service to support end-to-end high-definition video. Meanwhile, its 802.11n solution is well timed as it provides the higher bandwidth required.

However, we expect most of the initial applications to provide premise-based mobility rather than supporting users on the move. The 802.11n standard requires more power than the 802.11g. This, combined with the high processing capacity required for HD video, will increase the strain on the batteries of dual-mode smartphones, which are already struggling to cope with existing Wi-Fi requirements. As a result, most early applications will be based on laptops, cordless desk phones and video signage, rather than on handsets.

In general, mobile video hasn't taken off. Video consumption on mobiles over 3G networks is considerably lower than initially envisaged, and we don’t yet see enough compelling benefits of video for dual-mode phone users at enterprises to change the story for Wi-Fi networks. In addition, to take video beyond the enterprise Cisco will need to integrate this with its FMC solutions and rely more on its telco partners.

Mobile video is likely to be restricted to more niche applications, such as applications for education and training. Current examples include the provision of visual translation of lectures for deaf students, but we are convinced that a few more will follow.

Increasing popularity of web-enabled consumer electronics (CE) products is a game-changer for the digital entertainment industry, reports In-Stat. Over-the-top (OTT) video services are increasingly offering compelling alternatives to traditional TV viewing. New services, such as Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and Blockbuster, offer streamed or downloadable TV and movie content. Online TV programming portals, such as Hulu, TV.com, and YouTube, have expanded into full-length video content. Web-enabled devices, which are a necessity to access these services, are now proliferating across device categories that include TVs, Blu-ray Players, Digital Media Adapters (DMAs), network attached storage, and set top boxes.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Worldwide shipments of web-enabled stationary CE devices will grow more than seven-fold from their 2009 levels to over 230 million by 2013.
• There will be over one-half billion web-enabled CE devices in operation worldwide by 2013. 
• In 2009, there were five broadband households worldwide for every web-enabled CE device. By 2013, this ratio will be 2:1. 
• Many cable operators, worldwide, are predicted to introduce BBC iPlayer-like OTT services for catch-up and on-demand program viewing. 
• In-Stat’s consumer survey indicates that over half of US consumers with network-connected Blu-ray DVD players/recorders use Wi-Fi, while 30% use Ethernet.

The research, “Global Web-Enabled Consumer Electronics Devices Set to Explode” (#IN1004518RC), covers the worldwide market for web-enabled consumer electronics devices.