Invisible Monster Cables Still Cost $600

Monster Cable announced that they will be releasing a wireless HDMI solution for the home theater enthusiast that wants everything… except wires.

The Monster Digital Express HD System involves two boxes, a transmitter and receiver, which utilize a UWB (ultra-wideband) signal to carry HDMI information and more. The UWB technology was developed by Monster partner Sigma Designs. Other manufacturers have experimented with UWB including Westinghouse and Philips. There is no data yet on exactly what bandwidth the Monster solution will support as of yet (presumably 1.65Gbps) though reportedly it works up to 30 feet away.

Knowing manufacturers as we do, that probably translates to about 10-15 usable feet in actual practice. The Monster Digital Express HD is scheduled to go on sale in October (which means we'll get a chance to see it at CEDIA).

One of the advantages of the $600 wireless HDMI solution is that it upscales any incoming signal to 1080p. Sigma Designs is, of course, handling the upconversion rather than outsource it to Anchor Bay or Faroudja.

If you have a run longer than 30 feet, the Monster Digital Express HD supports a coaxial solution which can be run reportedly 330 feet or more between the two boxes. Monster states that you can use your "existing" wiring for this. It is unclear what neighborhood specifically they are referencing for these "existing" coax runs.

The transmitter has two HDMI and component inputs, a composite/S-video input with audio, and single coax and TOSLink digital audio inputs. The receiver has HDMI and optical outputs. This really expands the functionality of the solution as it is more of a combination upconverter/scaler/switcher/wireless HDMI device. The box is controlled via IR which will make integrating it into an existing universal remote system a snap. Sigma Designs promises that you'll be able to stream 1080p wirelessly with no loss of resolution. If their upconversion protocols score well and the box correctly handles high definition audio, this may be one Monster device that is actually priced right.