Advantages of Miracast | disadvantages of Miracast
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of Miracast technology and its basics. It mentions benefits or advantages of Miracast and drawbacks or disadvantages of Miracast.
What is Miracast?
Introduction:
Miracast technology enables transfer of multimedia content between miracast compliant devices
viz. source and display. It helps in sharing multimedia such as HD video and pictures between
devices without the need of HDMI cable. The miracast technology based devices uses wifi-direct to
share content without the need of AP (Access Point) or router.
The miracast connections are secured using WPA2TM protocols. Moreover it gives same performace as IEEE 802.11n devices. It uses either wifi direct or TDLS (Tunneled Direct Link Setup) for connection establishment between source and display devices. Miracast supports various display resolutions ( 1280 x 780p30 (HD); 3840 x 2160p60 (4K ultra HD) ) , video formats (ITU-T H.264, H.265) and audio formats (LPCM, LPCM, AAC, AC3, E-AC3, AC-4 etc.).
Following miracast topologies are supported.
• Tolopogy#1 : Direct source to display connection, Both source and display are directly connected
using miracast with no network and AP available.
• Topology#2: Direct connection with AP access, Here content may be streamed from AP/router/modem to
the source and from source to display.
• Topology#3: Direct connection, AP is present but not connected. AP may be aware of miracast devices
but it is not used for connection between source and display.
• Topology#4: Infrastructure based connection, here both source and display are connected with AP.
Both communicates via AP.
Benefits or advantages of Miracast
Following are the benefits or advantages of Miracast:
➨It supports any type of applications or file formats in the content to be transferred
between source and display.
➨It is very easy to install with the help of WPS (WiFi Protected Setup) which automatically
configures devices to be paired and also enables WPA2 security.
➨It uses WMM power save mode. Moreover AP is no longer needed to establish wifi direct
connection between devices. This enables power savings and consecutively long battery life.
➨It is very cost effective as additional wireless technology is not needed and
existing wifi chip is sufficient enough.
➨It is very easy to use and does not require complex setup procedure.
User just need to choose content to be transferred to start using miracast.
➨It is widely used for various purposes viz. projecting video from mobile devices
(tablet, phone etc.) to bigger display screens so that everyone in the room can enjoy by
viewing. It helps to share laptop screen to conference room projector in real time during
the meetings and so on. It does not require cables any more.
➨It offers performance similar to wifi compliant devices. Moreover miracast does not
require wifi AP as devices can directly connect using wifi-direct.
➨It offers security using WPA2 protocols.
➨There is no issue of interoperability as devices from different vendors with miracast feature
communicate with each other.
➨It takes care of traffic management by optimum selection of channel using wifi-direct and TDLS.
This helps in avoiding congestion from nearby networks which might cause
interruption to video transfer. QoS (Quality of Service) helps in prioritizing traffic based on individual
latency requirements.
Drawbacks or disadvantages of Miracast
Following are the drawbacks or disadvantages of Miracast:
➨Audio only devices are not part of the Miracast certification program.
It can only be used for video capable devices such as handsets, TVs, tablets, set-top boxes, laptops, projectors, cameras etc.
➨Both the source and display devices must be miracast certified
in order them to pair. Miracast certified adapters are available for devices not having
wifi capability in order to pair with miracast devices.
These adapters usually comes with interfaces such as HDMI or USB in addition to
miracast support. This results into increase in costs for the user.
➨It does just screen mirroring. Hence Google's chromecast and Apple's Airplay are slightly
better compare to Miracast as they allow multitasking.
➨Miracast has been integrated into android which results into different
setup procedures in mobile phones manufactured by various companies.
Hence different phones will have different opening instructions for using miracast technology.
➨User will have very bad experience in the event of frame loss during interference as
miracast encapsulates UDP/IP protocol.
Conclusion: In order to understand advantages of Miracast and disadvantages of Miracast one has to understand Wired vs Wireless network >>, Pros and Cons of wireless network >> advantages and disadvantages of wifi >> and difference between miracast and wifi >>.
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