Microsoft Announces the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter
by Brandon Chester on September 23, 2014 12:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Tablets
- miracast
Today Microsoft introduced their new Miracast-based wireless streaming device for HDMI monitors and televisions. Its lengthy name is the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter and it's Microsoft's take on an HDMI streaming dongle. One of the most popular devices in this category is Google's Chromecast, and there are many similarities between the two devices. Like the Chromecast, the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter is a small adapter that plugs into an HDMI port on your television and uses a USB port for power. From the photos Microsoft has provided, the USB connector seems to be wired directly into the adapter which could pose a problem depending on your television's arrangement of ports as the cord does not look very lengthy.
The adapter allows streaming and display mirroring from any device with support for Miracast screencasting. Because of this, the adapter is able to work with a variety of devices running on different operating systems, rather than being a device limited to devices that run Windows or Windows Phone 8.
At $59.95 USD, the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter is around $25 more expensive than Google's Chromecast. It is available for pre-order now on Microsoft's online store, and it will ship in October 2014.
Source: Windows Blog
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jhoff80 - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
Your guess is correct. Windows treats it no different from a wired display.K_Space - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
My bad this may be a Chromecast limitation as opposed to Silverlight, but trying to cast a chrome tab with a silverlight content returns an error about incompatible plugin.https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/32283...
savagemike - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
So - this is just another Miracast dongle?kyuu - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
Yep. I was shopping for a Miracast dongle recently, and its actually quite difficult to find one that isn't cheap crap with lots of reports of poor performance. Even ones from major companies like Belkin.So, assuming MS's is of good quality and well-supported, I'm quite glad its out there. I'm sure MS's angle is to raise awareness of Miracast as a feature of Win8.
Alexvrb - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
Yeah if it's good quality and performs well it might very well encourage other companies to get their acts together and boost Miracast adoption. I'd really like to see it become a standard built-in feature on more TV sets. Screw "Smart" TVs, I just want more connection options. The devices I connect TO the display have all I need.Besides there's really no need for the TV to compete with external hardware I already possess. Especially because when new standards come along, I can replace the external hardware without tossing the display. How many existing smart TVs can handle H.265 HEVC content at 4K? :P
flyingpants1 - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
"From the photos Microsoft has provided, the USB connector seems to be wired directly into the adapter which could pose a problem depending on your television's arrangement of ports as the cord does not look very lengthy. "Right. USB extension cables are $1.