In my previous post, I wrote about Marvell announcement of its new 802.11ac chipset (Avastar 88W8897) that will be Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Miracast. But it’s not the only company for such solution, as Texas Instruments has also announced the availability of a complete solution for mobile devices designed to support Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Miracast, based on the Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi Display Specification that enables users to reliably display high definition content from a mobile device onto a larger screen over a secure, low-latency, wireless network connection.
The Miracast certification program defines a standards-based solution for streaming video and audio content over a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi Direct wireless network. TI solutions will leverage OMAP processors and its WiLink connectivity solutions to provide a Miracast platform. This new solution will be available later this year to power mobile phones, tablets, HDTVs, projectors and audio receivers.
Texas Instruments solution will provide the hardware and software resources to Android device manufacturers to leverage Miracast capabilities and implement features such as:
- Multitasking while streaming: As video processing will be off-loaded to an OMAP hardware accelerator, users will be able to simultaneously stream music or full HD movies to a 1080p TV, while continuing to use the mobile device for other tasks (Web browsing, email, texting,..).
- End-to-end streaming: A user can start a YouTube application on a mobile device and mirror the UI to the TV. Then the user can choose a video from the YouTube video gallery and send the content in full screen mode to a big screen TV, while continuing to browse the YouTube app for other videos. This same concept can also be used for other online premium video services..
- Protected premium content: TI Android solution for Miracast can take advantage of the M-Shield secure execution environment in OMAP processors to implement DRM schemes.
- Wider content choice for the playback experience: TI Miracast solution can transcode videos as required to match the decoding capability of the Miracast-certified display.
- Display mirroring: Miracast can also be used for mirror a mobile device display on a larger screen. Mirroring is especially interesting for gaming, photo viewing, as well as other applications where several people want to see the display simultaneously.
Although the Wi-Fi Display Specification won’t be published before August, Texas Instruments said this solution is available now to selected OEMs and ODMs. The current solution is based on OMAP 4470 and WiLink 7.0 connectivity solution, and is currently demonstrated at Computex 2012 with the use cases described above. Later this year, TI also plans to have a Miracast solution using OMAP 5 processor and WiLink 8.0 solution.
With at least two solutions available this year, this new Miracast standard may well spell the end of wireless HDMI standards such as WiDi or WAVI that never really took off.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress
