As if there weren’t enough high-throughput home networking standards on the brink of commercialization, each with the backing of its very own consortium, here comes yet another.
LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Valens Semiconductor are allying to promote Valens’ HDBaseT technology for whole-home distribution of uncompressed HD multimedia.
The four companies have formed the HDBaseT Alliance, are working on developing a standard for home networking and say they expect to attract additional members as they go along.
HDBaseT, based on Ethernet, would join such standards as G.hn and WHDI and WiGig as a possible solution to knitting home electronics into a network capable of swapping uncompressed HD video. Each of these next-generation home networking technologies has its own group of backers, including various mixes of semiconductor, computer, consumer electronics and service provider companies, with very little overlap in membership.
The HDBaseT Alliance is banking on the comprehensive product portfolios of its members, who say their standardization activities “will cover the entire value chain of the digital media ecosystem and the various market segments: TV sets, projectors, professional AV equipment, home theater, content providers, IT companies and more.”
“As the demand for high-quality HD content distribution in the entire home is already huge, we are hoping that HDBaseT will play the trigger role in advancing this market, since HDBaseT enables simultaneous multi-room distribution of uncompressed HD multimedia, as well as data, control and power over a single CAT5e cable,” said ByungJin Kim, research fellow at LG Electronics.
The four founding companies say that the alliance is expected to release new details about more global leaders joining the alliance in the upcoming weeks, right in time for the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show in the second week of January.
