Testing
Now let’s see how AT-HDAir fares in real testing. Right away I realized the lack of sound, after little investigation I realized that there was no sound as noted above in Atlona’s take. The testing revealed similar results across both XP and Vista. While the connection was made I had several windows open in Windows Vista. When minimizing windows in Vista under Aero setting there’s an animation of windows getting smaller and receding into the toolbar, this animation was not smooth at all. In fact it was spread into a slide-show consisting of 3 slides. Immediately I had a bad feeling about this. I figured video of any kind would bring a consistent pressure on the transfer rate giving me the bigger picture on how much lag and jitter there actually is. Video was practically unwatchable. Either the wireless transfer rate could not handle the task or the software was not at it’s best. Naturally, my first reaction was to update the DisplayLink software to a newer version 5.1. This rendered great improvement in overall workability. The new DisplayLink driver feature “Optimization for Video” improved not only video to sound lag but also overall smoothness of almost any operation I’ve tried. That said, you can still see the difference in performance between your own screen and the receiving end screen.
Promised distance was somewhat accurate, at around 25 feet there was a lot of lag and somewhere between 25-30 feet the connection was lost anything before that worked perfectly the same. Reconnecting is somewhat problematic because you have to restart both the sender and receiver for it to start working again.
For all up to date software and drivers refer to this page which may prove to be crucial in optimal operation.
Conclusion
Though initially excited about the product I came about multiple disappointments. Above all stands the actual video transfer rates. Even on mid to high end video card machines some lag and jitter will be noticeable, note that it is not constant but more in a way of spikes. Another disappointment is obviously lack of sound. USB 2.0 workable transfer rate could be anywhere up to 360Mbps(theoretical 480Mbps is never actually achieved) which is more than enough for regular 720p HDTV broadcasting which is usually around 10-15Mbps. Real problem here is making it all wireless and up to speed. Which will be quite a challenge if video doesn’t exactly run perfectly smooth on it’s own.
In conclusion this leaves us with a product that is usable for things such as presentations. Optimal for HDMI ready projectors that are hanging up on a ceiling in mid-sized conference rooms. Perhaps occasional picture slide shows on your TV from your laptop. Basically it is usable in situations that doesn’t require sound or perfectly smooth operation(movies, videos). Though Atlona AT-HDAir could prove useful, unfortunately in some scenarios it is just a first step in wireless HDMI/USB adapters.
Here’s another awesome way to stream those HD videos from your laptop on to your HDTV. If you’re looking for an alternative though, I suggest trying out the Netgear Push2TV product. This device makes use of the HDMI port on the HDTV and acts as a wireless adapter, displaying what you see on your laptop on to your HDTV. So instead of connecting the laptop via an HDMI cable, the Netgear Push2TV takes its place, and wirelessly streams the contents of your laptop even if they’re in separate rooms in the house. To know more about Netgear’s Push2TV product, just check it out here, http://bit.ly/bByST7. I’m sure you’ll love it too.