Digital Living Network Alliance

Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) (originally named Digital Home Working Group, DHWG) was founded by a group of PC and consumer electronics companies in June 2003 (with Intel in the lead role) to develop and promote a set of interoperability guidelines for sharing digital media among multimedia devices under the auspices of a certification standard. DLNA certified devices include smartphones, tablets, PCs, TV sets and storage servers.

Digital Living Network Alliance
EstablishedJune 2003 (2003-06)[1][2]
FounderIntel
DissolvedFebruary 2017[3]
TypeTrade organization
HeadquartersLake Oswego, Oregon US
Membership
200 companies[4]
Websitewww.dlna.org

The group published its first set of guidelines in June 2004.[2] The guidelines incorporate several existing public standards, including Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for media management and device discovery and control, and widely used digital media formats and wired and wireless networking standards.[5]

DLNA works 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 enable consumers to share their content on multimedia devices without the risk of piracy.[6][7] 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.

As of September 2014,[8] over 25,000 different device models had obtained "DLNA Certified" status, indicated by a logo on their packaging and confirming their interoperability with other devices.[9] It was estimated that by 2017 over 6 billion DLNA-certified devices, from digital cameras to game consoles and TVs, would be installed in users' homes.[10]

As of June 2015 the organization claimed membership of "more than 200 companies".[4] On January 5, 2017, DLNA announced on its web site that "the organization has fulfilled its mission and will dissolve as a non-profit trade association." Its certification program will be conducted by SpireSpark International of Portland, Oregon.

History

Intel established the DLNA along with Sony and Microsoft in June 2003 as the Digital Home Working Group, changing its name 12 months later, when the first set of guidelines for DLNA was published.[1] 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.[1]

Specification

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

Home Network Devices
  • Digital Media Server (DMS): store content and make it available to networked digital media players (DMP) and digital media renderers (DMR). Examples include PCs and network-attached storage (NAS) devices.
  • Digital Media Player (DMP): find content on digital media servers (DMS) and provide playback and rendering capabilities. Examples include TVs, stereos and home theaters, wireless monitors and game consoles.
  • Digital Media Renderer (DMR): play content as instructed by a digital media controller (DMC), which will find content from a digital media server (DMS). Examples include TVs, audio/video receivers, video displays and remote speakers for music. It is possible for a single device (e.g. TV, A/V receiver, etc.) to function both as a DMR (receives "pushed" content from DMS) and DMP ("pulls" content from DMS).
  • Digital Media Controller (DMC): find content on digital media servers (DMS) and instruct digital media renderers (DMR) to play the content. Content does not stream from or through the DMC. Examples include tablet computers, Wi-Fi enabled digital cameras and smartphones.
  • Generally, digital media players (DMP) and digital media controllers (DMC) with print capability can print to DMPr. Examples include networked photo printers and networked all-in-one printers.

Mobile Handheld Devices
  • Mobile Digital Media Server (M-DMS): store content and make it available to wired/wireless networked mobile digital media players (M-DMP), and digital media renderers. Examples include mobile phones and portable music players.
  • Mobile Digital Media Player (M-DMP): find and play content on a digital media server (DMS) or mobile digital media server (M-DMS). Examples include mobile phones and mobile media tablets designed for viewing multimedia content.
  • Mobile Digital Media Uploader (M-DMU): send (upload) content to a digital media server (DMS) or mobile digital media server (M-DMS). Examples include digital cameras and mobile phones.
  • Mobile Digital Media Downloader (M-DMD): find and store (download) content from a digital media server (DMS) or mobile digital media server (M-DMS). Examples include portable music players and mobile phones.
  • Mobile Digital Media Controller (M-DMC): find content on a digital media server (DMS) or mobile digital media server (M-DMS) and send it to digital media renderers (DMR). Examples include personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones.

Home Infrastructure Devices
  • Mobile Network Connectivity Function (M-NCF): provide a bridge between mobile handheld device network connectivity and home network connectivity.
  • Media Interoperability Unit (MIU): provide content transformation between required media formats for home network and mobile handheld devices.

The specification uses DTCP-IP as "link protection" for copyright-protected commercial content between one device to another.[1][12]

DLNA guideline versions
  • 1.0: released June 2004; 2 volumes: Architecture & Protocols, Media Formats; 2 Device Classes: DMP, DMS; About 50 media format profiles
  • 1.5: released March 2006; 3 volumes: Architecture & Protocols, Media Formats, and Link Protection; 12 Devices Classes and 5 Device Capabilities; About 250 media format profiles
  • 2.0: released August 2015; Includes topics like EPG, Content Sync, RUI, WPS, Media Formats, Scheduled recording, DRM[13]
  • 3.0: released August 2015; enhanced response time, improved power efficiency, HEVC support [14]
  • 4.0: released June 2016; solves the "media format not supported" problem between PCs, TVs and mobile devices while supporting Ultra HD TV content streaming [15]

Member companies

As of November 2015, there are 13 promoter members and 171 contributor members. The promoter members are:[16]

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

Neither Google nor Apple are members. Apple's proprietary Digital Audio Access Protocol preceded DLNA's UPnP protocols.

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

  • Ecosystem Committee, planning the future development of DLNA guidelines
  • Compliance & Test Committee, overseeing the certification program and its evolutions
  • Marketing Communication Advisory Council, actively promoting DLNA worldwide
  • Technical Committee, writing the DLNA guidelines

Products supporting DLNA

DLNA-certified devices

There are over 25,000 DLNA-certified products on the market,[8] up from 9,000 in 2011.[17] This includes TVs, DVD and Blu-ray players, games consoles, digital media players, photo frames, cameras, NAS devices, PCs, mobile handsets, and more.[18] According to a study from Parks Associates,[10] nearly 3 billion products are on the market in 2014 reaching up to over 7 billion by 2018. Consumers can see if their product is certified by looking for a DLNA logo on the device or by verifying certification through the DLNA Product Search.[19]

Manufacturers can seek certification testing from a DLNA Accredited Independent Certification Vendor such as the UNH InterOperability Laboratory,[20] Allion Labs, CESI Technology Co., Digital TV Labs,[21] XXCAL or Testronic.[22]

DLNA technology components

As the past president of DLNA pointed out to the Register in March 2009:[23]

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:[24]

  • Network and Connectivity[25]
  • Device and Service Discovery and Control[26]
  • Media Format and Transport Model[27]
  • Media Management, Distribution and Control[28]
  • Digital Rights Management and Content Protection[29]
  • Manageability[30]

DLNA-certified software

In 2005,[31] 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.[32]

DLNA-certified products

Some examples:[33]

  • AwoX mediaCTRL[34] is a commercial server. It is based on AwoX DLNA Technology component software development kits.[35]
  • CyberLink SoftDMA 2.[36] Appears to be just a DMP.
  • ARRIS Whole Home Media Gateway is a DLNA Certified DMS.[37][38]
  • ARRIS Whole Home Media Player is a DLNA Certified DMP.[37][38]
  • Most Smartphones share multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
  • Microsoft Xbox 360[39] is a DLNA Certified DMP.
  • Sony PlayStation 3[40] is a DLNA Certified DMP.

Servers
Main article: Comparison of UPnP AV media servers
  • AllShare[41] (UPnP, DLNA), a Samsung-branded media server for MS Windows. Clients are also available for mobile Android devices. Effective for streaming content over a local network to Samsung devices, notably televisions.
  • Ampache[42] started in 2001 as an OpenSource project at Oregon State University and continues active development as streaming media server of UPnP/DLNA compatible devices and your own music collection.
  • ArkMC[43] is a wireless media server application (iOS/Android) oriented on UPnP/DLNA compatible devices.
  • Asset UPnP (DLNA compatible) from Illustrate. An audio specific UPnP/DLNA server for Windows (including Windows Home Server), QNAP, Apple OS X (Mountain Lion or newer), Debian Linux and Raspberry Pi. Features music library, album art, audio WAVE/LPCM transcoding from a huge range of audio codecs, ReplayGain, support for streaming audio in many formats including lossless FLAC, WAV, MP3 and playlists, and a customizable browse tree. Companion products "dBpoweramp CD Ripper" for CD ripping and "dBpoweramp Music Converter" for converting digital music formats can be used in compiling a digital music library.
  • Coherence is a framework written in Python to enable applications to access digital living network resources. As a stand-alone application it can act as a UPnP/DLNA media server, in combination with a supported client as a media renderer.
  • CyberLink Media Server 2.[44] Appears to be just a DMS.
  • Home Media Center,[45] a free and open source media server compatible with DLNA. Includes web interface for streaming content to web browser (Android, iOS, ...), subtitles integration and Windows desktop streaming. This server is easy to use.
  • Jamcast,[46] a DLNA-compliant media server for Microsoft Windows that is capable of streaming any audio playing on the PC to DLNA devices.
  • JRiver Media Center,[47] a DLNA media server for Windows and Mac. Also includes Renderer and Controller.
  • KooRaRoo Media[48] (UPnP, DLNA, HTTP), a multimedia organizer and media server for Windows. On-the-fly transcoding, supports multiple video/audio streams in files, includes a DMS (server) and a DMC (controller) with "play to" functionality. Works with all DLNA-compatible devices.
  • Mezzmo[49] is a feature-packed UPnP/DLNA media server with on-the-fly transcoding and media organizing features.
  • Nero Media Home[50] is a UPnP/DLNA media server on the Windows platform, streaming music, videos, photos, and TV shows, It allows to play back your media files on most popular devices including Xbox and PlayStation.
  • Pixel Media Server[51] is a DLNA-compliant digital media server for Android platform. It turns your phone/tablet into a DLNA media server for publishing content (image, audio, video) from your device to the DLNA home network.
  • PlayOn from MediaMall[52] appears to be a DMS, also capable of serving streamed internet media such as Netflix, Hulu, Google YouTube, CNN, ESPN.
  • Plex Media Server, the back-end media server component of Plex software suite.
  • PS3 Media Server,[53] an open source (GPLv2) DLNA-compliant UPnP media server for the Sony PS3, written in Java, with the purpose of streaming or transcoding any kind of media files, with minimum configuration.
  • ReadyMedia (formerly known as MiniDLNA)[54] is a simple open source media server software, with the aim of being fully compliant with UPnP/DLNA clients.
  • Rygel[55] is an open source media server software, written in Vala programming language.
  • Serviio[56] is a UPnP/DLNA media server that works with any DLNA-compliant device with the purpose of streaming or transcoding any kind of media files (TV, Sony PlayStation 3, etc.) and some other (MS Xbox 360). Frequently updated, has a good support community. Available on Windows, Apple Mac OSX, Linux and Synology NAS platforms.
  • Subsonic Music Streamer[57]
  • TwonkyMedia server runs on Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and Android and enables media sharing of local and online media among a large variety of devices.
  • TVMOBiLi[58] – A shareware DLNA/UPnP media server for MS Windows, Apple Mac OS X and GNU/Linux. Appears to be just a DMS.
  • TVersity, a DLNA media server with strong device support and on-the-fly transcoding.[59] Appears to be just a DMS.[60]
  • Wild Media Server,[61] a media server for Windows, Linux, macOS, individual device settings, transcoding, external and internal subtitles, restricted device access to folders, uploading files, Internet-Radio, Internet-Television, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), DMR-control and "Play To", Music (Visualization), Photo (Slideshow), support for 3D-subtitles, support for music fingerprints, support for BitTorrent files, web navigation with HTML5 player, Digital Media Renderer (DMR) emulation for AirPlay and Google Cast devices.

See also

References
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  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.
  3. "FAQ". Retrieved 16 September 2019.
  4. Digital Living Network Alliance (n.d.). "About Us: Organization". Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Grabham, Dan (March 22, 2013). "DLNA: What It Is and What You Need to Know". Techradar.
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  38. Richard Lawler (21 May 2012). "Arris reveals Moxi DVR release 2.0 with web browser, apps and iPad remote". Engadget.
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  40. "Connect DLNA", Playstation 3, Sony.
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  57. http://subsonic.org
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  59. "Home". TVersity. 2007-06-17. Retrieved 2011-03-02.
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