What is Miracast? ABOUT MIRACAST Technology on Mobile devices and TVS

The popular Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Miracast technology, better known to most users by its acronym Miracast, belongs to the Wi-Fi Alliance. The technology was officially approved in September 2012. Miracast is a new standard for wireless transmission of multimedia signals. It is based on the widely used Wi-Fi Direct technology, but a number of differences and improvements distinguish Miracast from other similar solutions.

The main goal of the developers was a significant simplification of the new technology. This allows any owner of a modern smartphone, tablet, or laptop that support Miracast, play video or display game content on a compatible device with a large screen, and you can do it almost in one touch and without using a cable. Today, most of the world’s major manufacturers equip their mobile devices, laptops and LCD panels with Miracast support.

In simple terms, this technology allows you to duplicate everything that happens on the screen of your phone, tablet, or laptop, on a large screen. For example, on a TV. It’s about the same if you connected your device to the TV via HDMI cable, but here everything is wireless, over the air.

How Miracast technology works

High-quality and full-featured streaming with a complete absence of wired connection has become as accessible as possible for modern monitors, TVs and projectors. With the help of Miracast technology it was possible to expand the potential capabilities of familiar display media. The technology is available to every user and extremely easy to use, fully open and compatible with any platforms and devices from various manufacturers that equip their products with Miracast support.

The main advantages of Miracast:

wireless content transmission based on the IEEE 802.11n standard;
direct communication without the need for a router;
Minimizing delays and synchronization during signal transmission;
3D content transmission;
ease of configuration and interaction.

In order to realize the transmission of this technology, you will need only two included compatible devices. One plays the role of a transmitter and the other functions as a receiver.

Similar in functionality solutions additionally need a wi-fi router, which causes a number of certain and well-known inconveniences. For example, if one user decides to play an online game and the other to watch a movie in HD with the content retransmitted through the router to the TV, both users will face certain problems. The problem lies in the large amount of data to be transferred over the network, as well as from the settings of the router itself. In the case if the priority is game traffic, the video will be played with a noticeable delay. If you prioritize video traffic, you will have problems with the game.

For example, you can stream a movie from your phone to your TV using DLNA technology, but the thing is that this technology allows you to display only multimedia content (videos, movies, play music) on a big crane. And the connection goes through a Wi-Fi router. And Miracast technology allows you to display everything you see on the screen. Including displaying the picture during the game.

This technology works according to a fairly simple scheme. Devices with Miracast support connect with each other using a special program (if you configure the broadcast from a laptop), or through a special item in the settings of the mobile device. The next step is to activate the necessary playback mode: watching video, displaying a copy of the smartphone display on the screen, etc. Miracast devices interfaced with each other directly, can independently form a secure and independent channel that can ensure the transmission of any video information. Miracast can be called a kind of superstructure over Wi-Fi Direct. The technology uses the H.264 compression standard, which allows the transmission of video in FullHD (1920×1200) and multichannel audio 5.1 in AC3 format.

Miracast technology is not just limited to transferring playable media files from one device to another. The technology allows you to display a full copy of the mobile device display on the screen of a compatible TV or monitor. It is worth noting the implementation of the function of working in reverse, which allows you to play a picture from the TV screen on the display of your mobile gadget.

Devices with support for Miracast technology

The first thing to note are those mobile devices that run on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and above. Support for Miracast technology on such devices is implemented right out of the box (not all). You need to look in the settings menu and find a program option called “Wireless Monitor” or “Wireless Display”. Examples are numerous tablets and smartphones of LG, Samsung, Sony, Asus and other brands.

The next group of devices in the list of devices supporting Miracast technology are display media. To a greater extent, this applies to modern LCD panels. Many manufacturers are integrating Miracast technology into their modern TV models. The declared support for Miracast technology is realized in the line of Smart TVs from Phillips, Samsung, LG, etc.

If your TV does not have built-in wireless support and does not support this technology, you can buy a third-party device with Miracast support and simply connect it to your TV with a cable. It’s a Miracast receiver. There are ready-made solutions on the market that can receive content via Miracast technology and transmit it to the display device. Such solutions are compact in size and can be powered from the mini USB connector on the TV itself or from any other power source. Such devices are offered by Netgear, and there are products from Sony.

To summarize

Miracast is affordable, convenient and extremely promising direction. This is evidenced by the significant support of this technology by the giant companies Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, MediaTek and others. Even today, many users consider Miracast a worthy alternative to replace the usual HDMI cable or Apple AirPlay technology. Gamers appreciated the new wireless capabilities, because with Miracast it is even more accessible to use the tablet as a gaming console.

If you already have a device that supports Miracast technology, then we strongly recommend you to try this wonderful development in practice. If you don’t have one yet, don’t be disheartened. This technology has all chances in the next couple of years to take the status of such a solution, which will become mandatory for all modern devices and display devices without exception.