Dual monitors go wireless

Question

I will be using the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK motherboard. So it natively supports 3 monitors output - hdmi, dvi, and vga.

To make things complicated, i wish to have my monitors go wireless.

I did a lot of searches of wireless hdmi products, e.g. ASUS WAVI, IOGEAR GW3DHDKIT, Peerless HDS-WHDI100, Nyrius, etc, some support single input (PC side) while some support multiple inputs (like KVM switch), but all of them have only one single output (monitor/TV side).

I am not sure but i guess i need two pairs of those wireless devices for dual/multiple monitors configuration.

(A) Do I have to find an additional wireless-DVI and/or wireless-VGA?

Among the technologies, I think WHDI is preferable over WirelessHD. I am using the monitors all the time. And I will be sitting in between the line-of-sight.

(B) Will multiple pairs of WHDI devices (connecting to same PC or different PC) interfere with each others?

Some of the mentioned devices have pass-through ports of HDMI, e.g. one HDMI in at the transmitter, one HDMI out at the receiver, and one HDMI out at the transmitter locally which will not used up the HDMI port on the source device. So, we can connect one monitor at the receiver, and one monitor at the transmitter.

(C) Can the two monitors achieve extend of desktop, not just mirroring?

(D) Are there any products which have multiple receivers, so I can do dual display, and output to TV as well?

My ideal product is to have a "wireless display HUB", which connects to multiple PC/NBs, two/three monitors, and a TV. Ideally it will be possible to display certain PC/NBs on certain screen(s), and display another PC/NBs on another screen(s). Only two/three scopes will be enough for me. Imaginary, there will be multiple transmitters connecting to each PC/NB, and multiple receivers connecting to each screen. They will form a pool of sources and outputs behind the scene. I am not sure if it needs one more device for central processing. But this is not a problem.

(E) Does such a solution exist? Is this configuration theoretically possible?

Solution

Shortly. Not yet.

Completly. Teoretically 802.11ac could have data rate around 7 gbps, which would twice enought for HDMI 1.0, but wireless communication divided by all subs, while only two 1920 x 1200 x 60 Hz just consume all bandwidth. And wireless HDMI solutions does not support pass-throught at all. So we have to... Compress!

Compressing video signal is hard work. Best codec for now is HEVC (H.265) and for now we could compress up to 1000:1, but where is also such things, as robustness to error and encoding latency. Right now best solution for trade of is Nvidia GameStream, but one is proprietary and with several limits. Anyway, GameStream produce around no-latency with perfect picture at 30-50 mbps, which would be nice at home.

If 802.11ac would work as theory. Of course, it does not. While 802.11ac divide its data rate to all subscribers around 50-100 meters and any network load would damage picture. Also, you must have good enougth transmitter becouse cheap one could not handle 100 mbps from several sources perfectly.

It meet to be bad idea to use any other from 802.11ac even if this solution use higher frequency (802.11ac use 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, while 802.ax comes with 6 GHz). Although higher freq is higher data rate there are also much higher error rate and much lower workrange and working frequency has wide, which would be interfere with Wi-Fi or cellular.

In addition you would notice image artefacts due to H.256 is lossy and input lag due to H.256 is temporal.

There is some workaround with it. You can build mesh network on 802.11xx. Nice build making perfect signal at any location without interfere. But to do that you have to make some radio absorbers which isolate cells apart and place furniture well. It could some cost and impose restrictions to home interior.

Or you can just hold the cable. With HDMI-repeaters/splitters and DAC-ADC devices you could hold one anywhere at will with full-feature support (or not, as you wish). This is much more flexible way without any ristrictions or quality-trading issues.

Comments

[Attie]

Note that most "HDMI-over-X" products are intended for video (or games) - not text. They will likely use compression, which may result in a nasty experience for a PC user.

[Attie]

If you just want to extend the range, you could look into something like HDBase-T which can offer 4k over CAT-5e / 6.