Home Theater and the Compatibility of InstaPort™ Technology

The introduction of InstaPort™ into the home theater market leads many home theater owners to ask one specific question before investing in products enabled with the technology: is InstaPort™ backwards compatible? What home theater owners need to know is whether or not an InstaPort™ technology-enabled television will work with existing satellite boxes, Roku boxes, PlayStation 3 console, or other devices. In other words, will all system devices work together as long as the television is enabled with the technology?

In a simple explanation, InstaPort™ technology is implemented into the television and it will work with any HDMI source device in the market today. Primarily, by addressing the switching device in the TV, the source device does not have to be modified to support InstaPort™ technology. Many HD consumers have also begun to wonder if InstaPort™ technology is available as an external unit, another set top box, or if it is strictly a chip set that goes inside new television sets that are InstaPort™ enabled.

InstaPort™ technology was specifically designed for televisions. Televisions being introduced in the high definition market today are supporting 3 to 4 HDMI ports. In moving forward from 2009 into 2010, televisions will be introduced that will support up to 5 HDMI ports. As users connect more and more of HD source devices to the television, InstaPort™ technology becomes a vital feature of the selected television model.

The clear advantage of InstaPort™ technology is the elimination of wait time between device switching. For example, if the consumer is watching basketball on TV and also playing basketball on an Xbox 360 console, it is possible to switch back and forth between the real game and the video game with no waiting involved. InstaPort™ technology is all about instant access. And that is what consumers want when they are watching content. When they want to switch from game console content to a soccer game, they want to make sure they get the access instantaneously.

Upon the announcement of InstaPort™ technology, there was a lot of interest in collaboration from major TV manufacturers because they saw the value of InstaPort™. The developers of InstaPort™ technology have been working with interested TV manufacturers to design the sets implementing the technology. Sets equipped with InstaPort™ technology are introduced in models in the latter half of 2009.