HTC One Media Link HD Demo
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 20, 2012 5:25 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- HTC One
We've just started work on our HTC One X/One S testing, however HTC was kind enough to give us a demo of one of the coolest accessories that was first announced at Mobile World Congress: HTC's Media Link HD.
The small dongle features a USB port for power and an HDMI port for output. The device acts as a WiFi hotspot that your HTC One X/S connects to (the WiFi radio on the phone can also be connected to a WiFi AP while working with the Media Link HD). Once paired, you can use a three finger swipe gesture on the phone to either mirror or use any HDMI display attached to the Media Link HD as a secondary screen. HTC has an API that it will make public at some point in the future, allowing 3rd party devs to take advantage of the dual-screen feature of the Media Link HD.
Similar to other wireless display technologies, you're actually sending an encoded stream of the phone's framebuffer to the receiver where it's decoded and sent over HDMI. No word on pricing or availability of the Media Link HD.
Although this sounds a lot like WiFi Direct/WiFi Display, the link is similar but proprietary to HTC. Eventually HTC will support WiFi Display but we're still several months away from that being the case (at the earliest), and it's unclear as to whether or not the Media Link HD will be updated to support it or if you'll need a new receiver.
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pookguy88 - Friday, April 20, 2012 - link
this seems pretty cool actually...michael2k - Friday, April 20, 2012 - link
AppleTV is compressed H.264 over wifiIf this device acts like a wifi hotspot then I'm assuming it's creating it's own adhoc wifi network?
I don't see how WiDi can be supported without a dongle/additional HW since it's at 7GHz, which is clearly neither 3G/4G/WiFi frequencies.
wolrah - Saturday, April 21, 2012 - link
"I don't see how WiDi can be supported without a dongle/additional HW since it's at 7GHz, which is clearly neither 3G/4G/WiFi frequencies."You're thinking of the 60GHz (7GHz channel width) "wireless HDMI" technology WirelessHD, which was apparently previously known as Wi-Di. You are correct that a software update alone could not add that to anything.
The WiDi that's relevant here is Intel's wireless display technology, which uses compressed video streaming over ordinary WiFi. Yes that does seem like someone's intentionally going for confusion.
Also, Anand didn't mention either, WiFi Display is yet another compressed video over WiFi option standardized by the WiFi Alliance as part of the WiFi Direct featureset.
Both of the WiFi based protocols could potentially be added to a device like this with a software update if the hardware is capable of handling the codecs the other protocols use. Whether it'll actually happen in the world of licensing is another matter entirely.
Tarwinia - Friday, April 20, 2012 - link
I'm curious about the specifications. The original Apple TV only supported 720p. I am hoping it supports 1080p (3D if possible, I have no need for it yet but I dislike the need to upgrade every year so I like to futureproof when possible) and full surround sound (and no sync issues).But I DO love the functionality and that they're opening it up to third party apps. This functionality is actually the reason I am thinking of upgrading from my Sensation (I buy off-contract which makes it upgrade every year...)
Impulses - Friday, April 20, 2012 - link
If it's $80 or less I'm there, assuming it'll also work with the EVO 4G LTE. Are you guys evaluating the T-mo/AT&T One variants or the Euro ones? I guess it doesn't make much difference on the S but the X is a whole other story, AT's the only reliable source I know for battery tests and a lot of people are still very curious about S4 vs Tegra 3... AT&T never gives you guys pre-release denuded?Penti - Saturday, April 21, 2012 - link
Wi-Fi Direct should be easy enough to support, it's basically just a H.264 stream. I hope we can see units/STB's or media extenders and players support multiple standard technologies like Intel Wireless Display/WiDi, DLNA solutions, Wi-Fi Direct and perhaps Airplay. It's pretty easy to encode stuff now, encode your entire desktop (like Airplay mirror or WiDi) and so on. We should move on beyond DLNA servers (with transcoding) and transcoding playback for Windows Media extenders. To bad those techs will likely clash with legal materials thanks to them requiring HDCP etc in an ever more degree. I can't really see how you could stream content securely that way, it's only a matter of time before you can't show your web-videos on your tv and so on.Naguz - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
Too bad HTC didn't just use availible standards for this.Unless you're Apple, you don't have a good enough foundation for making your own proprietary shit and get away with with it/make it successful. Especially when it's only working with a small part of their OWN devices, not to mention no-one elses.
mobiletechnerd - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
http://www.htcaccessorystore.com/uk/p_htc_item.asp...Technical Details
Compatibility: Sense 4.0 devices One X/ One S
Special features: Dedicated pairing button (for manual pairing)
OS: Android
Physical connection: HDMI type A, HDMI v1.3, HDCP 1.2, CEC
Wireless support:
- WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 1x1 dual band (2.4GHz & 5GHz)
- WiFi Display
- DLNA DMR (August 2009 guideline)
WiFi link encryption: DTCP-IP
Media Format:
- Video: H.264, VC-1, XviD, MPEG-4, MPEG-1, WMV, Divx
- Audio: AAC, MP3, FLAC, OGG Vorbis, Supported via HDMI pass-through:AC-3
- Photo: PNG, JPEG, BMP
Power: Micro USB input