Asus WiCast: Wireless 1080p to your TV
by Dustin Sklavos on November 1, 2010 12:01 AM ESTConclusion: Lots of Wires for "Wireless"
If we take practicality out of the equation, we're left with a solution that is more or less directly superior to Intel's WiDi. That's not too outlandish to consider; WiDi uses a notebook's internal wireless connection, which means it has a peak throughput of 300Mbps. Compare that to the ASUS WiCast's advertised 3Gbps connection and it's obvious why the WiCast is capable of handling 1080p video, multichannel audio, and doing all of that with near-invisible latency. Even better, WiCast works with anything with an HDMI port, while WiDi is limited to Intel HD graphics and Intel wireless hardware.
The problem is we can't take practicality out of the equation, not really. WiDi's big advantage is that it doesn't require an extra box on the notebook side, but the trade-offs are horrendous. In the meantime, WiCast requires you to connect three cables (two USB and an HDMI) to your notebook (or an AC adapter in place of the USB) and a receiver box to your television. The receiver isn't the issue, but the box and cables on the notebook can turn into a mess in a hurry. You're making an awful lot of sacrifices just to transmit 1080p video wirelessly to your television, and given the number of connections that need to be made, that "wireless" part almost feels like a bit of a misnomer.
Range and interference are a concern as well. Five feet isn't an unreasonable request to make for a wireless home theatre or presentation technology, but the WiCast sometimes had problems with interference even at that distance. There weren't any signal drops, but the lines of artifacting that appeared in the picture during Iron Man 2 weren't exactly easy to ignore.
This all circles back to the essential problem with wireless display technologies, at least at the present time: it's a hell of a lot of work just to get rid of one cable connection. For WiDi, I have to hunt down a notebook with the specific configuration needed to use it, and then drop $99 on the receiver box for the television. For the ASUS WiCast, I have to pay $199, but at least it'll work with whatever I need it to work with. Or I can just order a fifteen foot HDMI cable off of NewEgg for under ten bucks and not have to worry about latency or interference.
So that in mind, I will say this: as far as wireless display goes, the WiCast is in my opinion a superior solution to Intel's WiDi. If this is something you have a need or a use for, then it's an easy sell. But for everyone else, this technology is a tough sell from any vendor. It's just too cumbersome and asks too many trade-offs just to replace one of the cheapest wired connections in a home theater. Yes, you can use it with desktops and even PS3/Xbox 360 if you'd like, but as long as you're still running an AC adapter and range is realistically less than 10 feet, we can't really see this as anything but a niche product. Some will love it, and it's much cheaper than previous 1080p wireless solutions, but $200 is still a fair amount to spend unless this fills a specific need.
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mmatis - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
Well, for the way some folks play it, this might even be an improvement!Exelius - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
So would the range be bad for say, connecting a laptop to my TV from the couch? Is there any way this can be improved with a directional antenna?All I'm really looking for is a way to connect my laptop to the TV from across the room. I could stretch an HDMI cable, but that's annoying. I just dislike having to maintain an HTPC; I have 2 other desktops to keep going and the HTPC never gets maintained since I only ever use it like once a month.
Akdor 1154 - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
Yep, lag testing would be nice, as would some measure of the picture quality beyond "it looks darker". This article is okay, but not up to Anandtech's usual meticulous standards. A surround sound test would also be nice...clarkn0va - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
" On the receiver the mini-USB port is covered, but it can be used to power the receiver if for some odd reason that's more convenient than just plugging it in."It may be a minor difference to some, but there are reasons to use the USB power connector.
-your power bar is full or too cluttered
-taking DC from a powered device is more efficient than powering yet another wall wart
-it shuts off when the device its plugged into shuts off, like a smart switch.
Waste not, want not.
strikeback03 - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
But that USB has to either come from a USB wall wart or have the USB cable plugged into a USB port on a TV or computer that you don't want to use for other things, and that assumes those ports provide enough power, which is questionable if they are designed for a flash drive. I'm also not sure how the transmitter gets by on USB power, as 5.3-5.8W is significantly above what you would expect 5V*500mA to get you.Ultimately I still think WiDi makes more sense for the target market, which IMO is more about presentations and quickly showing off figures or photos than about being able to play Blu-Ray or game. In something like a smartphone or netbook it could make a lot of sense to quickly pull up some photos of the kids on TV or similar actions. Other than the projector scenario mentioned before I'm not sure what use WiCast is, as I don't see people keeping the transmitter handy to pull out and hook up much when needed.
JarredWalton - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
The transmitter uses *two* USB plugs via an adapter cable to get the necessary 5.7W. I'd think the receiver side would need to do the same, as most USB ports are only specced to provide up to ~2.5W (500mA @ 5V), and presumably the wall wart has some conversion inefficiencies that a direct DC connect over USB wouldn't have. So call it 5W from two ports.mars2k - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
This isn't just about running a long HDMI cable to your HT rig. I would gladly install the sender and receiver boxes if the distances were more than 5 ft. My main computer area is well over 50 feet from the media room. Never going to run Cat 5 that far let alone a bulky HDMI its just out of the question.This WiCast would be a perfect solution for a hi end theater setup if it had good wireless performance.
All those power supplies and usb connections don't mean a thing if you can stash them out of site and avoid a long run of any type of wire.
Problem with this is the shaky wifi.
By the way my wireless Roku works great but it streams in a different way but still it works pretty much flawlessly.
Wardrop - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
Unless something really miraculous happens in the field of wireless data transmission, it's really a dead horse for high-bandwidth applications, especially as bandwidth demands continue to increase. Compared to fibre, or even copper, wireless is inferior on so many levels. The only convenience is the lack of wires and the portability that comes with that. But for most high-bandwidth applications, portability isn't really critical, it's more the lack of wires which becomes the main attraction. The main reason being, is probably because people don't want to run ugly cables around their house, or drill holes in their wall.But... that's only because the houses of today are built with the same limitations as the houses of last century. To run a cable out of site, you need to someone to drill holes in your wall, and climb in your attic or under your house. The process needs to be repeated any time you decide to move your equipment.
What would be nice, is if building were made to accommodate easy routing of cables to any room, via duct or tray systems. The skirting along the bottom of all your walls could easily be made hollow and easily removable, to accommodate installation of cables by simple home users. How you get the cable into and out of this skirting could be achieved in any number of ways. Drilling holes is one option, but I'd like to see pop-out plugs or something every one or two feet, either at the top of the skirting, or just on the face of it. If done cleanly, it should just look like a faint repeating pattern on your skirting. Over time, it will become accepted, much like power points, and light and fan switches are today (I bet they looked petty ugly when they first come to be).
So my point is, instead of relying on wireless technology to get around limitations of today's homes, why not build homes which are designed to accommodate flexible cabling configurations. It just seems like the logical thing to do in the 21st century.
somedude1234 - Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - link
You're asking the home builders to incur an extra cost so that some homeowner (not necessarily the original buyer) at some undetermined point in the future will have an easier time re-wiring for A/V/Data/whatever?Never going to happen. Home builders are the cheapest / greediest individuals you will ever encounter. If the original buyer isn't paying cost + an insane markup, why would the builder waste their money? Hint: the original buyer has the option to get cables, conduits, and/or trays run wherever they like, no need for a whole-house generic solution.
I would settle for a minimum requirement that each building have a core that can be used to get cables between floors, and then let me worry about the horizontal runs.
In lieu of that, I have a 4' flexible drill bit, and my drywall patching kit =/
mckirkus - Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - link
I was going to buy two PCs, one to power my work PC and one as my HTPC. Now I can just invest in one solid PC and set up wireless HDMI on my second monitor out port. Audio over HDMI should work and with a bluetooth keyboard I can control media center from a distance.I think this just saved me $1000.