Audio Video News

Sharp announced that the WiSA Universal Player it plans to introduce early next year has received an International CES Innovations 2014 Design and Engineering Award in the High Performance Home Audio category.

The player will be the first such component to use the WiSA wireless protocol, according to Sharp. WiSA uses spread spectrum technology in the 5 GHz Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) frequency band to deliver uncompressed 24-bit/96kHz sound and high-definition 1080p video. The WiSA Universal Player is expected to become available in the U.S. market early next year. The price has not yet been announced.

Bang & Olufsen recently introduced the first wireless speaker system to receive WiSA certification.

“Unlike previous sound systems that compressed the sound, the Sharp WiSA Universal Player reproduces the source signal without compromise, achieving high fidelity in sound and delivering Full HD resolution in video, while also eliminating the need for expensive and inconvenient wires,” said Jim Sanduski, Sharp's senior vice president of strategic product marketing.

The first public demonstrations of the player will take place at the 2014 International CES, which runs January 7-11, 2014 in Las Vegas.