Video compression specialist Display Link is working on a wireless version of its video-over-USB technology.
Cambridge-based Display Link has already won design-ins for its USB cable-based PC to monitor interface product with Toshiba and Samsung. The company is now looking at a version which will carry video over a wireless USB link.
“We are already working with some wireless USB vendors,” Jason Slaughter, senior product manager at Display Link told EW.
According to Slaughter, the company is working with Artimi, the Cambridge-based wireless chipset firm on the wireless USB product.
“We can use the same chip [used for the cable product] for the wireless USB design,” said Slaughter.
Display Link’s core technology is a proprietary video compression scheme which has low latency and is more cost effective in terms of buffer memory, than MPEG2 to implement.
The chipset and software it has supplied to Samsung and Toshiba allows video monitors to be connected to a PC through a USB port. The scheme works with a software ‘virtual video card’ in the host and a hardware decoder chip in the monitor.
According to Slaughter, latency is less than 5ms and it requires a frame buffer of just 16Mbyte.
Unlike MPEG compression, the technique uses a non-frame-based compression algorithm which is only forwards looking. “We are only sending changes in the image which means we can support fill refresh rate for the display from the frame buffer,” said Slaughter.
The company is also looking for applications in video distribution systems.
At CES 07 in Las Vegas earlier this year there was some discussion about potential interoperability issues with wireless USB silicon.