DLNA

Last updated

DLNA
Dlna.svg
Developed byDigital Living Network Alliance
Introduced2004;20 years ago (2004)
Industry Local area networks
Compatible hardware

Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a set of interoperability standards for sharing home digital media among multimedia devices. It allows users to share or stream stored media files to various certified devices on the same network like PCs, smartphones, TV sets, game consoles, stereo systems, and NASs. [1] DLNA incorporates several existing public standards, including Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for media management and device discovery and control, wired and wireless networking standards, and widely used digital media formats. [2] [3]

Contents

DLNA was created by Sony and Intel and the consortium soon included various PC and consumer electronics companies, publishing its first set of guidelines in June 2004. [4] The Digital Living Network Alliance developed and promoted it under the auspices of a certification standard, with a claimed membership of "more than 200 companies" [5] before dissolving in 2017. By September 2014 [6] over 25,000 device models had obtained "DLNA Certified" status, indicated by a logo on their packaging and confirming their interoperability with other devices. [7] In many cases DLNA protocols are in use by services or software without openly stating the name: examples include Nokia's Home Network functionality, [8] Samsung's All Share, [9] the Play To functionality in Windows 8.1, [10] and in applications such as VLC media player or Roku Media Player.

Specification

The DLNA Certified Device Classes are separated as follows: [11]

Home network devices

Mobile handheld devices

Home infrastructure devices

The specification uses DTCP-IP as "link protection" for copyright-protected commercial content between one device to another. [12] [13]

DLNA guideline versions

Products supporting DLNA

The media sharing dialog built into Windows 10 which uses DLNA to share media locally Media sharing in Windows.png
The media sharing dialog built into Windows 10 which uses DLNA to share media locally

DLNA-certified devices

Some of the earlier devices with DLNA included the PlayStation 3, the Nokia N95 [8] and the Pioneer BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player. [17] By 2014 over 25,000 DLNA-certified products were available, [6] up from 9,000 in 2011. [18] This includes TVs, DVD and Blu-ray players, games consoles, digital media players, photo frames, cameras, NAS devices, PCs, mobile handsets, and more. [19] According to a 2013 study from Parks Associates, [20] nearly 3 billion products were expected to be on the market in 2014, increasing to over 7 billion by 2018. DLNA certification of devices can be determined by a DLNA logo on the device, or by verifying certification through the DLNA Product Search. [21]

DLNA-certified software

In 2005, [22] DLNA began a software certification program in order to make it easier for consumers to share their digital media across a broader range of products. DLNA is certifying software that is sold directly to consumers through retailers, websites and mobile application stores. With DLNA certified software, consumers can upgrade products from within their home networks that may not be DLNA certified and bring them into their personal DLNA ecosystems. This helps in bringing content such as videos, photos and music stored on DLNA certified devices to a larger selection of consumer electronics, mobile and PC products. [23]

History and member companies

Digital Living Network Alliance
EstablishedJune 2003 (2003-06) [12] [4]
Founder Intel
DissolvedFebruary 2017 [24]
Type Trade organization
Headquarters Lake Oswego, Oregon, US
Membership
200 companies [5]
Website www.dlna.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Intel established the Digital Network Living Alliance along with Sony and Microsoft in June 2003 as the Digital Home Working Group (DHWG), changing its name 12 months later, when the first set of guidelines for DLNA was published. [12] Its board members as of 2007 were: HP, Intel, Matsushita, Microsoft, Nokia, Phillips, Samsung, and Sony. [25]

Home Networked Device Interoperability Guidelines v1.5 was published in March 2006 and expanded in October of the same year; the changes included the addition of two new product categories — printers, and mobile devices — as well as an "increase of DLNA Device Classes from two to twelve" and an increase in supported user scenarios related to the new product categories. [12]

DLNA worked with cable, satellite, and telecom service providers to provide link protection on each end of the data transfer. The extra layer of digital rights management (DRM) security allows broadcast operators to communicate digital media to certain devices (e.g. to those of their customers) in such a manner that further, unauthorized, communication of the media is difficult. [26] [27]

In March 2014, DLNA publicly released the VidiPath Guidelines, originally called "DLNA CVP-2 Guidelines." VidiPath enables consumers to view subscription TV content on a wide variety of devices including televisions, tablets, phones, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes (STBs), personal computers (PCs) and game consoles without any additional intermediate devices from the service provider.

In November 2015 there were 13 promoter members and 171 contributor members. The promoter members were: [28]

Arris, AwoX, Broadcom, CableLabs, Comcast, Dolby Laboratories, Intel, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, Sony Electronics, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

The board of directors oversaw the activity of the four following committees:

On January 5, 2017, the DLNA organization announced, "The organization has fulfilled its mission and will dissolve as a non-profit trade association." Its certification program continues to be conducted by SpireSpark International of Portland, Oregon. [29] [30]

DLNA technology components

As the past president of DLNA pointed out to the Register in March 2009: [31]

The vendors of software are allowed to claim that their software is a DLNA Technology Component if the software has gone through certification testing on a device and the device has been granted DLNA Certification. DLNA Technology Components are not marketed to the consumer but only to industry.

DLNA Interoperability Guidelines allow manufacturers to participate in the growing marketplace of networked devices and are separated into the following sections of key technology components: [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Universal Plug and Play</span> Set of networking protocols

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols on the Internet Protocol (IP) that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices, to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the network and establish functional network services. UPnP is intended primarily for residential networks without enterprise-class devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Streamium</span>

Streamium was a line of IP-enabled entertainment products by Dutch electronics multi-national Philips Consumer Electronics. Streamium products use Wi-Fi to stream multimedia content from desktop computers or Internet-based services to home entertainment devices. A Streamium device plugged into the local home network will be able to see multimedia files that are in different UPnP-enabled computers, PDAs and other networking devices that run UPnP AV MediaServer software.

DMR is an initialism that may refer to:

The High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance (HANA) was a cross-industry collaboration of members addressing the end-to-end needs of connected, HD, home entertainment products and services. Leading companies formed the organization from the four industries most affected by the HD revolution: content providers, consumer electronics, service providers, and information technology. HANA created design guidelines for secure high-definition audio-video networks that would speed the creation of new, high-quality, easy-to-use HD products. HANA membership was open to all companies involved in the digital entertainment industry. HANA was dissolved in September 2009, and the 1394 Trade Association assumed control of all HANA-generated intellectual property.

WirelessHD, also known as UltraGig, is a proprietary standard owned by Silicon Image for wireless transmission of high-definition video content for consumer electronics products. The consortium currently has over 40 adopters; key members behind the specification include Broadcom, Intel, LG, Panasonic, NEC, Samsung, SiBEAM, Sony, Philips and Toshiba. The founders intend the technology to be used for Consumer Electronic devices, PCs, and portable devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital media player</span> Device used for playing media such as online video

A digital media player is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integrated into a home cinema configuration, and attached to a television or AV receiver or both.

A home server is a computing server located in a private computing residence providing services to other devices inside or outside the household through a home network or the Internet. Such services may include file and printer serving, media center serving, home automation control, web serving, web caching, file sharing and synchronization, video surveillance and digital video recorder, calendar and contact sharing and synchronization, account authentication, and backup services.

Monsoon Multimedia was a company that manufactured, developed and sold video streaming and place-shifting devices that allowed consumers to view and control live television on PCs connected to a local (home) network or remotely from a broadband-connected PC or mobile phone. It was one of 5 major transformations initiated by Prabhat Jain, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with 5 undergraduate and post graduate engineering degrees from Cal Berkeley and Univ of Vienna, Austria. On the even of Cisco acquiring Monsoon in 2017, EchoStar, the new parent of Sling sued Monsoon for patent infringement, having obtained confidential information about the date of the acquisition by Cisco from a Monsoon employee under murky circumstances. Monsoon settled the lawsuit by agreeing not to sell its products in the USA simply because it did not have the legal funds to fight mighty Echostar's legal maneuvers. EchoStar thus successfully removed its only competitor from the market place. This meant Monsoon's death knell.

PlayOn is a streaming media brand and software suite that enables users to view and record videos from numerous online content providers. The suite consists of two main products: PlayOn Cloud and PlayOn Desktop. PlayOn Cloud is an online service for recording digital video streams, accessible via native iOS or Android mobile device applications. PlayOn Desktop is Windows-based software that acts as a streaming dashboard and hub on the PC. The available streaming websites are organized as channels in both products. Users browse through or search the video content found in those channels in order to record the videos for later viewing. PlayOn Desktop allows watching the videos real-time on the PC, or casting the videos to a TV via a streaming device or gaming console.

TwonkyMedia server (TMS) is DLNA-compliant UPnP AV server software originally offered by TwonkyVision GmbH. TMS runs on Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android and QNX operating systems. TwonkyMedia server can be used to share and stream media to most UPnP AV or DLNA-compliant clients, in addition to non-UPnP devices through the HTML, RSS, and JSON supported front ends. After the PacketVideo acquisition of Berlin-based TwonkyVision GmbH by 17 October 2006, Twonky was renamed PVConnect in November 2007, but the name was changed back to TwonkyMedia server by 7 January 2010. Corporate parent NTT DOCOMO sold PacketVideo NorthAmerica and Europe to Lynx Technology on 10 May 2015 and PacketVideo Japan exactly one year later on 10 May 2016 transferring the Twonky product line to Lynx, renaming TwonkyMedia Server to Twonky Server.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RVU Alliance</span>

The RVU Alliance (RVUA) is a standards body created to manage the RVU protocol standard as used by manufacturers of consumer electronics to allow entertainment devices within the home to share their content with each other across a home network.

The RVU protocol is an Application Layer protocol, that combines the pre-existing Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standards and a new Remote User Interface (RUI) protocol, which works similar to Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). The RVU RUI protocol is intended to allow an RVU-enabled client, such as a TV, to receive a pixel-accurate display of the user interface available on an RVU server.

Skifta was a media shifting service developed by Qualcomm Atheros. It enabled Android and Apple (IOS) smartphone and tablet users to access their music, pictures, and videos from their phone, from cloud media services or remotely from another location via a smart mobile device. The user could then stream media to connected consumer electronics anywhere that supports DLNA and UPnP standards over WiFi or 3G networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sat-IP</span>

SAT>IP specifies an IP-based client–server communication protocol for a TV gateway in which SAT>IP servers, connected to one or more DVB broadcast sources, send the program selected and requested by an SAT>IP client over an IP-based local area network in either unicast for the one requesting client or multicast in one datastream for several SAT>IP clients.

Avnu Alliance is a consortium of member companies working together to create an interoperable ecosystem of low-latency, time-synchronized, highly reliable networking devices using the IEEE open standard, Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and its Pro AV networking protocol, Milan. Avnu Alliance creates comprehensive certification programs to ensure interoperability of network devices. In the Professional Audio Video (AV) industry, Alliance member companies worked together to develop Milan: a standards-based, user-driven deterministic network protocol for professional media, that through certification, assures devices will work together at new levels of convenience, reliability, and functionality. Milan™ is a standards-based deterministic network protocol for real time media. Avnu Members may use the Avnu-certified or Milan-certified logo on devices that pass the conformance tests from Avnu. Not every device based on AVB or TSN is submitted for certification to the Avnu Alliance. The lack of the Avnu logo does not necessarily imply a device is incompatible with other Avnu-certified devices. The Alliance, in conjunction with other complimentary standards bodies and alliances, provides a united network foundation for use in professional AV, automotive, industrial control and consumer segments.

Serviio is a freeware media server designed to let users stream music, video or image files to DLNA compliant televisions, Blu-ray players, game consoles and Android or Windows Mobile devices on a home network.

Universal Media Server is a DLNA-compliant UPnP media server. It originated as a fork of PS3 Media Server. It allows streaming of media files to a wide range of devices including video game consoles, smart TVs, smartphones, and Blu-ray players. It streams and transcodes multimedia files over a network connection to the rendering device, ensuring that a supported rendering device will receive the content in a format supported by the device. Transcoding is accomplished through packages from AviSynth, FFMpeg, MEncoder, and VLC.

VidiPath is a set of guidelines developed by the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) that enables consumers to view subscription TV content on a wide variety of devices including televisions, tablets, phones, Blu-ray players, set top boxes (STBs), personal computers (PCs) and game consoles without any additional intermediate devices from the service provider. Consumer Electronics (CE) products that are certified to the VidiPath Guidelines can directly support the full range of subscriber HD programs, movies, DVR content, channel guides, and other premium features, all with a consistent user interface (UI) from their service provider.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BubbleUPnP</span> Media streaming software

BubbleUPnP is a DLNA-compliant UPnP media controller, server and renderer, designed to allow streaming of audio or video from and to an Android device with various external devices and software. Alongside the Android client, it also has a server middleware application that can be installed on Windows, macOS and Linux computers or network storage devices, providing remote access through a web interface. BubbleUPnP also utilises ffmpeg and ffprobe for transcoding.

References

  1. ↑ Ansaldo, Michael. "Everything you need to know about DLNA: The de facto home-entertainment network standard". TechHive. Retrieved September 24, 2023.
  2. ↑ Digital Living Network Alliance (n.d.). "DLNA for HD Video Streaming in Home Networking Environments" (PDF). p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 30, 2011. Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  3. ↑ EDN (September 9, 2005). "How DLNA and UPnP will enable easy home video networks". EDN. Retrieved September 27, 2023.
  4. 1 2 Digital Living Network Alliance (June 22, 2004). "DLNA Strides Toward Consumer-Friendly Home Networked Devices with New Interoperability Guidelines" (PDF) (Press release). San Francisco. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2005. Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  5. 1 2 Digital Living Network Alliance. "About Us: Organization" . Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  6. 1 2 "DLNA intros VidiPath". Advanced Television. September 13, 2014.
  7. ↑ "The DLNA Certified Logo Program". Sony. Archived from the original on June 12, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  8. 1 2 "FWLabs: Nokia N95". FayerWayer (in Spanish). November 12, 2007. Retrieved September 24, 2023.
  9. ↑ "How Samsung AllShare and SmartView Make TV More Awesome". Lifewire. Retrieved September 24, 2023.
  10. ↑ "Play to feature reliability update for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 - Microsoft Support".
  11. ↑ "Certified Device Classes". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Digital Living Network Alliance. "Frequently Asked Questions About DLNA". Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  13. ↑ "Whitepaper - DLNA for HD Video Streaming in Home Networking Environments" (PDF). DLNA. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 1, 2011.
  14. ↑ "DLNA Announces 3.0 Certification Program and Updated Guidelines Helping Manufacturers Differentiate Product Offerings". DLNA. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  15. ↑ "DLNA Announces 3.0 Certification Program and Updated Guidelines Helping Manufacturers Differentiate Product Offerings". DLNA. August 18, 2015.
  16. ↑ "DLNA 4.0 Transforms Connected Home Experience". DLNA. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  17. ↑ Moskovciak, Matthew. "Pioneer BDP-HD1 review: Pioneer BDP-HD1". CNET. Retrieved September 24, 2023.
  18. ↑ "DLNA Empowers the Connected Consumer", Connected World magazine, January 14, 2011, archived from the original on January 19, 2011, retrieved March 2, 2011
  19. ↑ "UPnP and DLNA—Standardizing the Networked Home". Instat. Archived from the original on January 4, 2011. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  20. ↑ "DLNA Market Overview Report". DLNA. Parks Associates. 2013. Archived from the original on July 5, 2014.
  21. ↑ "Products". DLNA.
  22. ↑ "DLNA Certification Program". Archived from the original on August 19, 2013.
  23. ↑ "Increasing DLNA Software Certification Will Propel the Adoption and Connection of Devices within the Home Network" (Press release). ABI research. Archived from the original on January 3, 2014. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  24. ↑ "FAQ" . Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  25. ↑ "Digital Media Format War 2.0 is About to Begin". GeekSpeaker. September 6, 2007. Retrieved September 24, 2023.
  26. ↑ Digital Home Working Group (June 24, 2003). "17 Leading Companies Form Working Group to Simplify Sharing of Digital Content among Consumer Electronics, PCs, and Mobile Devices" (Press release). San Francisco. Archived from the original on August 16, 2004. Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  27. ↑ Grabham, Dan (March 22, 2013). "DLNA: What It Is and What You Need to Know". Techradar.
  28. ↑ "Member Companies".
  29. ↑ "About Us". DLNA. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
  30. ↑ "DLNA". DLNA. Retrieved December 13, 2022.
  31. ↑ Mellor, Chris (March 2, 2009). "Iomega Muffs Hard Drive DLNA Testing". The Register. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  32. ↑ "The DLNA Networked Device Interoperability Guidelines". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 23, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  33. ↑ "Network and Connectivity". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  34. ↑ "Device and Service Discovery and Control". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  35. ↑ "Media Format and Transport Model". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  36. ↑ "Media Management, Distribution, and Control". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  37. ↑ "Digital Rights Management and Content Protection". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  38. ↑ "Manageability". DLNA. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.