Free your TV

One of the sad realities of flat panel ownership is that you can't hang them on the wall as easily as TV commercials make you believe. Not only is there the power cable to worry about, but also a half dozen or more cables from your DVR, DVD player, PS3, and so on.

Belkin has just announced the FlyWire, which will free your TV from all those cables save one, the power.

The FlyWire consists of two small boxes. The base unit is designed to go with the rest of your gear, either in a rack, in a cabinet, or even in another room. You plug every source into the base unit, there are three HDMI inputs (1080p/24 and 1080p/30, but not 1080p/60), two component inputs (1080i), and one composite or s-video input to do so. The base unit then sends the video information wirelessly at 5.0 GHz to the receiver unit that has a single HDMI output (you now change inputs with the Belkin's small remote). This receiver is small enough to attach to the back of your TV. That's it. Now you can transmit all your sources wirelessly to your TV or projector.

It gets even better. Built into the FlyWire is an IR repeater. So you aim all your remotes at the TV, and the FlyWire module sends these wirelessly to the base unit, which then spits it back out as IR, controlling your equipment.

Range is said to be "whole-house" for the regular FlyWire, and "in-room" for the less expensive FlyWire R1 (which doesn't have the IR repeating ability either). While it operates at 5.0 GHz, it is not any of the 802.11x WiFi transmissions. Instead it uses a WHDI (Wireless High-Definition Interface) from a company called AMIMON. The technology will change frequencies and/or will increase the transmission power if there is interference. There is even a hierarchy built in to drop less significant bits first, so the image remains as good as possible even during dips in signals. According to Belkin, the wireless transmission doesn't add in any appreciable lag

Wireless HD transmissions from source to display have been talked about for years. Now it seems they're finally starting to hit the market. If the FlyWire can do what Belkin is claiming, this is indeed one of the most interesting pieces of technology to come along in a while.

FlyWire: $999 (October)
FlyWire R1: $699 (Q1 2009)