XtremeSpectrum, Inc. (XSI) (now part of Freescale) is a leading supplier of ultra-wideband (UWB) IEEE 802.15.3a chipsets for the transmission of data in a 100 Mbps RF connection. To demonstrate the capabilities of their chipset, XSI contracted to the PTR Group for the development of a Linux-based solution for the transmission of up to three simultaneous HDTV (1080i) signals from one source machine, via the UWB wireless link, to three separate Linux-based video players.

Since the XSI evaluation kits were equipped with IEEE 1394a (Firewire™) interfaces, this required the implementation of a general-purpose video encoding technique that would read the source MPEG-2TS formatted data and encode the data as CIP-encapsulated, isochronous packets for transmission across the 1394 interface. On the receiving end, each isochronous packet was decoded and routed to the appropriate video player application based on the video source headers.

This effort entailed the use of OpenSource community code such as the Linux 1394 project and the Xine player as well as several pieces of PTR-developed, custom code to handle the encoding and decoding of the 1394 packets and subsequent transmission from the media source to the video players. In the process of developing this video application, errors in the community code that were discovered were fed back to the community to further the maturity of the OpenSource solutions.