What’s Miracast?

Never heard of Miracast? You’re by no means alone in this. The standard, which has been spreading more and more since 2012, is hardly known, at least in Germany, outside the community of absolute technology enthusiasts. In this article we want to clarify briefly what Miracast is about.

Miracast as Screensharing Certificate

In the narrower sense Miracast is nothing more than a certificate issued by the WI-FI-Alliance. Miracast is an open standard that sets it apart from the competition.

Devices certified according to the standard are suitable for so-called screen sharing. This ultimately means that the image of a device can be transferred to another device without a cable or router. Miracast works exactly like Apple’s AirPlay or Samsung’s Screen Mirroring.

Miracast makes it possible, for example, to display a picture displayed on a smartphone on a TV or computer screen without having to resort to cabling. For this purpose, both devices connected in this way must be Miracast capable.

Video Transmission via Miracast

Mainly Miracast is used for the transmission of videos. Here it is not only possible to output the picture, but also the sound of the video on another device. Videos are transmitted with a maximum resolution of 1080p, while sound is transmitted with a maximum of 5.1 channels.

The transmission is technically possible by using a special peer-to-peer WLAN connection that exists between both devices and uses the Miracast. Both transmitter and receiver must have a WLAN module to be used by Miracast.

Supported Devices and Operating Systems

The fact that Miracast is not too well known is also due to the fact that only a few manufacturers support the standard, especially in the early days. It should be noted, however, that the number of companies and equipment that support Miracast has increased dramatically in recent times and now includes many prominent names.

Miracast is supported by the operating systems Windows and Android. Since these are probably the two most frequently used operating systems, many devices are Miracast capable today.

In addition to the operating systems, there are also some drivers and other hardware components that allow a Miracast connection. Via Intel’s WiDi drivers and via drivers from the manufacturers Marvell, MediaTek, Ralink, Realtek and Broadcom, many end devices become Miracast-capable products. Nvidia also announced its intention to support Miracast via the Tegra-3 platform. Well-known manufacturers such as LG, Google, Motorola and Samsung have also released the Miracast certificate for some of their devices.

While the transmitter must support Miracast in any case, the missing Miracast support of the receiver can be compensated by using a special Miracast receiver. To do this, the receiver simply needs to have an HDMI port to which the Miracast receiver is plugged.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance’s search function, more than 8,000 devices support Miracast.

Does My Device Support Miracast?

It is very easy for the end customer to find out if their own device supports Miracast. Via this page all products supporting Miracast can be displayed.