Digital Home Thoughts: Wireless A/V May Finally Become a Reality

"El Granada, Calif.-based Neosonik is part of a wave of small and large companies trying to eliminate one of the more aggravating issues in consumer electronics: wires. Wireless is firmly established with notebooks and phones, but TVs, speakers and stereo equipment remain largely tethered to each other through tangles of cable. And for good reason. Video files can be huge, requiring more bandwidth than has been available, and issues such as synchronization and sound quality have bedeviled products in the past. In addition, walls can be hazards to good wireless transmission, and so can distances. "Wireless speakers are the holy grail," says Ted Feldman, president and founder of Neosonik. "But when you go to a retail store and you ask the sales guy he says, 'Oh, yeah. I remember that crap.'" The picture, though, may start to change over the coming years as TV, the PC and the Web continue to blend and consumers demand an easier way to be couch potatoes. Analysts expect a slow ramp, but the companies say consumers will jump on it when they see the results."

While using wireless for moving audio and video around the house has been a possibility for a while now, for the most part it was only something most people did as a last resort when there was just no other way. The reason for these compromises has always been the lack of quality. I'm not ready to believe until I see some demos and independent reviews, but I sure hope that they finally do get it right.