January 6, 2011, CES, Las Vegas-Quantenna introduced a new wireless video backplane. Their product uses the Cavium wireless chip plus an ASIC to provide full multi-cast, point-to-multi-point services. Their MIMO product is positioned as a replacement for HDMI for long reach applications. They have gotten over 200 feet coverage in non-line-of-sight field tests inside a building.

Data are transmitted with low latency and high reliability. The current version has HDMI connectors, future versions will include Ethernet and PCIe versions. The main use is for OTT video services that don't require very high bandwidths, but can carry a full HDMI 1.4 package to the display. In addition, the system can work as a very high speed 802.11n backbone.

In a side-by-side demonstration, one display was connected to a video source through HDMI converted to Ethernet ( for cost reasons. A 100 ft. HDMI cable is $$$) while the neighboring system used the wireless transport from the other side of the splitter. There were no obvious differences in picture quality. The company is starting to develop a partner network to speed up incorporation into systems and adoption.