Ubicom, maker of the StreamEngine technology that provides Quality of Service for voice and video on many consumer routers, today announced a reference design for a High Definition Media Bridge platform that utilizes StreamEngine and Microsoft’s Windows Rally connectivity tech to pump out video over 802.11n networks.
Bill Gates apparently demonstrated the technology at a keynote address at the WinHEC 2007 show in Los Angeles today, showing high definition (HD) video on a laptop played back on a Microsoft Media Center Extender (in this case, an Xbox 360 game console) connected to an HDTV
The Ubicom reference design, available to vendors now, apparently “solves” some issues for HD media by using 5 GHz spectrum only with 802.11n, thus preventing any interference with the crowded 2.4 GHz spectrum (which 11n also supports). Using Windows Rally, which is built into the Windows Vista operating system, the devices self-configure with existing networks or, if two are present, make a dedicated network as needed. Wireless Intelligent Stream Handling (WISH) gives any wireless streaming video it finds priority. Rally also provides support for Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), the easier-to-use security setup created as a standard by the Wi-Fi Alliance.
Ubicom was the first company to get a ‘Works with Windows Vista’ hardware certification from Microsoft, in November 2006. Ubicom technology is found in routers from SMC, Buffalo, D-Link and others.
