As always, this year's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has shown off new products—including those still to hit the market—and hinted at things to come. Although there have been complaints that the show has become too big and crowded for anyone to get noticed, clear trends have emerged from various reports.

The next generation of A/V equipment will offer more and better functionality despite the fact that the HD DVD storage format standardization mess has gone on more or less unscathed (except that Blu-ray has taken the lead from HD DVD with Warner switching camps). At least iSuppli Corp. is on record saying that "both camps lost" with this latest non-development.

TV sets have become thinner and lighter. They now offer better black-level performance, with Pioneer presenting a concept TV that is only 9mm thick and emits no luminance at zero signal. Sony's OLED XEL TV is even thinner at 3mm, but at 11-inch across, it's still a demonstration of a concept.

On the audio front, Pioneer has presented products that use proprietary algorithms to get back some of the information lost to compression in MP3 and lossy Advanced Audio Codec. The use of Class D amplifiers is also becoming popular. For instance, Logitech has shown its Z Cinéma Advanced Surround Sound System, which delivers 180W of SRS TruSurround high-definition sound using hybrid Class D and Class AB amplifiers. Meanwhile, Parrot S.A. is offering Bluetooth speakers that use Class D amps to deliver audio from an MP3 player or cellphone.

But what's most interesting is HD audio and video going wireless. As most A/V gear shrink in size, thanks to advances in video technology and amplifiers, wires are looking increasingly ignominious. With HD content storage formats still up in the air, companies are eyeing home networking and Internet-based content delivery. It's not just wireless USB and RF audio to your headsets we are talking about here, but HD audio and video as well.

There's the WirelessHD group wanting to use the unlicensed 60GHz band for transmitting high-speed uncompressed HD audio and video in homes. The 60GHz radios would provide a 10m range and not penetrate walls, thus keeping the signal to your home—or more precisely, just the room. While these radios are not expected to be the smallest or lowest-power options available for your multimedia network, the WirelessHD group sees a compelling value proposition in carrying the uncompressed signal at 1,080p and 5-15ms latency.

UWB is still alive and kicking for A/V beaming. Pulse~LINK Inc. and Westinghouse Digital Electronics demonstrated wireless 1,080p video at the CES. The companies claim 500Mbit/s throughput at about 0.4m or 115Mbit/s at 12m with video encoded using the JPEG2000 codec. Also at the show was LG Electronics' full-HD LCD TV with built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi that makes it possible to stream video from a home computer.

With a lot happening on the A/V front, the 13th annual International IC-China Conference & Exhibition (IIC-China) will host a roundtable discussion with senior management of companies that enable many of the technologies mentioned here. You will learn about design challenges with Class D amps and recommended solutions, and about designing with multimedia SoCs. Learn also about trends toward future home and business requirements, the technologies that will make them happen, and the issues involved in integrating various technologies into a seamless environment.

The IIC-China will be held Feb. 28-29 in Chengdu; Mar. 3-4 in Shenzhen; Mar. 6-7 in Beijing; and Mar. 10-11 in Shanghai.

Back to top

• Opinions Archive