Belkin expunges expensive wireless HDMI gadget
FlyWire = FailWire?
Belkin has canned its long-awaited, much-delayed wireless HDMI kit, FlyWire.
FlyWire demoed at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in January 2008. More than 18 months on and inspired by an early decision to double the product's proposed price, Belkin late last week said: "We will no longer be introducing FlyWire to the market at this time."
It added: "We realise that its retail price of $1499 would be out of line given the current state of the economy. With that in mind, we’ve opted to halt production of FlyWire."
Belkin's FlyWire: flown away
The price ramp emerged in September 2008, when Belkin said the box - due to go on sale that summer - would now not appear until November 2008. Back in January, the company had said the box would cost between $500 and $600. By July 2008, the price had gone up to $700 for a one-room model and $1000 for the multi-room edition.
FlyWire was designed to deliver multiple uncompressed HDMI audio and video streams using proprietary wireless technology that operates in the 5GHz band. There's a receiver unit for your HD TV. The FlyWire had six inputs - three HDMI, two component-video and one composite-video - and can switch between them. ®
COMMENTS
Shame..
...I'm about the one guy in the world who could really have used one of those, even at twice the price. I build motion simulators, and one in particular which spins around its vertical axis - right now we're limited to about 180 degrees of yaw due to running video / etc on an umbilical. Network, USB, and audio can all be handled easily enough with slip rings or wireless, but HD video is a nightmare.
I imagine, however, that even a $3k pricepoint wouldn't help Belkin recover their costs given the dozen units a year we shift... :)
Still, I retain hope that one of these vaporware things will eventually come good, despite there being, what, five or six announced for years now with no sign of follow-through?
@hoops
Guess I should have read the posts more thoroughly... We use Gefen extenders for a bunch of our stuff now with reasonable success, actually, but I hadn't checked for a wireless video extender recently. The one noticeable absent spec is latency - any more than about 20ms and it's a non-starter for video gaming, and even that's pushing it. Even worse when a motion system is involved. But if they've got good latency, I'm probably going to have one in the mail by wednesday!
See, I knew that reading El Reg was useful for work.
Too many lawyers?
I've not bothered to follow the teevee nipple upsize/augmentation project and all the associated DRM slipstreaming opportunistically behind very closely, but I have to think this thing must have been an intellectual property nightmare.
Also the fact Asus
Are launching theres for around $300 retail
What a shame
I have been watching with interest at this product for a while now as it would have made my life a lot easier when I did my multi room AV setup. Instead this seems to leave only the Gefen solution which makes those Belkin prices seem cheap when you start looking at the HDMI matrix switch on top (the solution I used)
http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproduct.jsp?prod_id=5990
Gefen: professional equipment at professional prices!
