Today
we discuss what DLNA is and what it can mean for your home theater
system. DLNA stands for the Digital Living Network Alliance and began
in 2003 when a group of companies came together to create products that
worked together. Today, there are more than 250 companies in the
alliance.. They include consumer electronics, computer and mobile
device manufacturers. DLNA published its first set of Interoperability
Guidelines in June 2004 and the first set of DLNA Certified products
began appearing in market soon thereafter. The latest version of the
DLNA Interoperability Guidelines, version 1.5, was published in March
2006, and then expanded in October 2006. To become certified, products
pass through the DLNA Certification Program.
That's
it! There are some NAS devices that are DLNA certified. In this case
you put the files in the music folder and your will be available on
your network. The specification supports TV, DVRs, Mobile Phones,
Computers, Receivers, and PDAs just to name a few. These devices are
split into four classes, Digital Media Server, Digital Media Renderer,
Digital Media Controller, and Digital Media Printer.
Digital Media Server - These devices store content and make it available to the other classes. These can be PCs and NAS devices.
Digital
Media Player - These devices find the content on the servers and can
play them back. These can be TVs, Receivers, and game consoles.
Digital
Media Renderer - These devices play content received from a digital
media controller, which finds finds content from the server. These can
be TVs, Receivers, video displays, and remote speakers for music.
Digital
Media Controller - These devices find content on servers and play them
back on renderers. These can be Internet Tablets, WiFi enables digital
cameras and PDAs
Digital Media Printer - These devices provide printing services to the DLNA network.
What will it do for you?
DLNA
certified devices are designed to give the consumer interoperability
between different manufacturers. It is designed to allow you to watch
movies from your computer on your DLNA certified TV. It will allow you
to listen to music that is stored on your PC or DLNA certified NAS
device through your receiver. And the biggie for us, it will allow you
to record TV programming on your DVR in the living room and enjoy it on
your DLNA TV in your bedroom.
Some
of these capabilities are readily available today, mostly the music and
photo sharing. There are a decent number of TVs that are DLNA
certified. Mostly from SONY, Toshiba and Philips. As far as DVRs go,
Toshiba has a few that are DLNA certified but they are made for the
Japanese market right now. This is something that we would like to see
Dish, DirecTV and Cable companies adopt. It would be nice if these
company's DVRs could be server and players. We saw demos of this back
in 2004. Here we are four years later and we are still waiting for this
capability.
The Future (from the DLNA website)
For
the future, the DLNA member companies will continue to refine and
expand the DLNA defined capabilities, so that you can enjoy your
digital devices and content in new and novel ways. Some future
capabilities that could be possible are:
Connect
the digital devices in your automobile to your DLNA defined network –
that is a natural extension of the DLNA capabilities already defined
for mobile devices so that you can enjoy your digital content literally
on the road.
Use not just the current sets of wired
and wireless networking and connectivity technologies, but many other
ways to network and connect to enable more use cases in more diverse
environments. With the adoption of IPv6, you will be able to enjoy your
personal content while outside the home just as if you were at home.
The HT Guys love their Starbucks. If you want to say thanks, a cup of joe will do just fine!
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