Samsung senior marketing manager Bill Dickey said that Samsung"s 50- and 58-inch wireless high-definition plasma displays are on track in the US for a September 2007 release, but would have been available earlier if not for the concerns of the movie studios about the security of the wireless transmissions. The market is ready for these products, but Hollywood isn"t. A Samsung spokesperson noted that Hollywood would apparently not have an issue with the wireless HD displays if they output lower-resolution video, wireless 720p isn"t as big of a worry for them.
Movie studios are worried that the 802.11n wireless transmission methods used for the displays may not be tight enough to keep people from recording the HD content stripped of its DRM. In order to meet Samsung"s target date for a September launch, the movie studios need to approve Samsung"s secure wireless system by late spring. "We have the technology; we are just waiting on approval and are currently negotiating for approval for June," the spokesperson said.
Those negotiations could possibly lead to something like the forced video downgrades that the studios have been interested in for Blu-ray and HD DVD. This could mean that electronics manufacturers working on HD wireless displays might need to use a special Hollywood-approved encryption specification for their wireless transmissions. In the event that a wireless TV device could not talk to another Hollywood-approved device, it would then cause the display to output lower quality video.