In an attempt to push further the Wireless High-definition Interface (WHDI) standard, Motorola announced on Tuesday that it will begin investments in Animon, a U.S./Israeli fabless semiconductor company and precursor of the standard.

WHDI allows flat-screen TVs and multimedia projectors to connect wireless — using uncompressed high-definition video streams in the 5 GHz unlicensed band — to a variety of HDTV video sources at a quality simmilar to that achieved with wired interfaces such as component video, DVI, and HDMI, according to Animon. WHDI allows transfer rates of up to 3GB per second for 1080p video.

While the terms of the equity investment were not gave away, Motorola Venture's managing director, Reese Schroeder, did say that he believes Amimon's WHDI technology "nicely aligns with Motorola's connected home strategy" in a statement released Tuesday.

Motorola connected home initiative debuted during the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and was meant to offer a range of broadband solutions designed to keep consumers connected in and around their homes.

Connected home devices are specifically intended for retail purchase, according to Motorola, and the product portfolio is meant to extend the technology within the company's lines of digital set-tops and cable modems to new broadband devices within the home.

"Motorola and Amimon share a common vision of facilitating connectivity between consumer electronics and devices," said Yoav Nissan-Cohen, chairman and CEO of Amimon. "The investment from Motorola will fund our plan to set WHDI as a new industry standard for connecting high-definition video sources to displays wirelessly."

At this year's CES, WHDI, ultrawideband (UWB), and other short range wireless technologies like Wireless USB finally seemed like they were ready for mainstream market with an ever-increasing variety of products in showrooms. Amimon says that its WHDI technology is meant to be more of a peer wire replacement, something to replace HDMI cables and other high-end video connects.

With that big accent on video, Amimon says a further distinguishing trait between WHDI and UWB is that all streamed video is uncompressed, allowing for better quality.

Unlike Wi-Fi, which has a longer range but slow transfer rates, UWB works only within a 30-foot (~10 metres) radius but it can operate at a full 480 megabits per second.

Among the many UWB products that debuted this year's CES, was Toshiba's Vista tablet/notebook hybrid, which featured a new UWB docking station that automatically connects to its station when you bring the system within a 10-foot (~3 metres) radius.

Also new on the UWB front was a device from video interconnect company Gefen, that the company says will let users wirelessly stream full-on protected 1080p HD video up to 30 feet, similar to Amimon's solution.

Tzero Technologies also showed off a variety of advanced UWB components that can also connect a wide range of A/V components—displays, set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and more — without cabling throughout the home.

The company says it will integrate its UWB technology into TVs later this year. Amimon says it also expects to eventually integrate it chipsets into various products, and the company will start selling wireless dongle accessory devices for streaming HD content by the second half of the year.

Currently, Amimon is working with Sanyo, who is manufacturing an HD projector with WHDI integration. The company is also partnering with Pixelworks — another fabless semiconductor company that designs and develops system-on-chip semiconductors and software for multimedia projectors and LCD panels — to develop a joint reference design for UWB integration.