Nokia, Samsung, Sony, others set mobile to HDTV interconnect standards

Looks like interconnection development is the new black, with earlier reports on Intel’s LightSpeed technology designed to connect everything to everything else now followed by the creation of a cross-industry group to create a unified interconnect to output multimedia content from a phone to a TV.

Apple’s already ahead on this, at least in some respects, as devices and docks already exist to take video and other media from an iPhone or iPod to a TV set, but any movements that aim to make life a little simpler should be welcomed.

Nokia, Samsung, Silicon Image, Sony and Toshiba have announced the formation of the Mobile High-Definition Interface Working Group. The group aims to create an industry standard a/v interface to connect mobile phones or portable consumer electronics devices directly to high-definition televisions (HDTVs) and displays.

This is likely to be based on Silicon Image’s Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) technology, and will be promoted and marketed as a standard.

The aim is to create an easy and cheap technology to achieve this, pleasing manufacturers by not costing too much, and pleasing users by being easy-to-use. And it’s expected to support high-def.

The Working Group is expected to organize a Consortium of founding members who will develop a mobile connectivity technology standard specification that governs transmission and reception of high-definition content between portable devices and display devices, to support connectivity in accordance with the new specification.