Digital Living Network Alliance

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Digital Living Network Alliance
(DLNA)
logo
founding 2003
founder Sony and Intel
Seat Oregon United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Chair Scott Lofgren (2015)
Website www.dlna.org

The Digital Living Network Alliance ( DLNA ) was a manufacturer's association with the aim of product certification (DLNA certificate) to ensure that devices from different manufacturers work together directly without any configuration in a private home network of an end customer - at least with the Universal Plug and Play protocol standard (UPnP). The association dissolved in January 2017. The DLNA certifications will be continued by the successor company SpireSpark.

history

Logo for certified products

The DLNA was founded in June 2003 as the Digital Home Working Group (DHWG) by Sony and Intel . It was renamed the Digital Living Network Alliance ( DLNA ) in June 2004 . The administration of the DLNA was based in Beaverton , Oregon . In order to receive DLNA certification, a manufacturer had to be a member of DLNA. The association consisted of more than 250 manufacturers from 20 countries, including Cisco , Ericsson , Hewlett-Packard , Microsoft , Motorola , Nokia , Panasonic , Philips , Samsung , Sharp and Toshiba .

On January 5, 2017, DLNA announced its dissolution in a press release, since the main goals had been achieved after 15 years and the DLNA certifications, which are subject to a fee, would be better continued in a company called SpireSpark with a broader range of services. The successor organization SpireSpark was founded by former DLNA executives in Portland, Oregon .

The website www.dlna.org will continue to be operated by SpireSpark, but a lot of content is redirected to spirespark.com, including for the product database, via which the consumer can check the scope of the DLNA certification by entering the product name, for example .

DLNA certification

The DLNA certification program includes testing for correct technical implementation of various network protocols and file formats. Every DLNA certification includes at least the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol . It follows from this fact that the terms DLNA and UPnP are often used synonymously. The difference between UPnP and DLNA is that UPnP is a standard that manufacturers can interpret and implement in different ways. The voluntary DLNA certification is intended to avoid surprises for the consumer.

DLNA scheme

The following three device classes belong to the DLNA certification program:

DLNA media formats for home network devices (version 1.5)
media Prescribed formats Optional formats
photos JPEG GIF , TIFF , PNG
Audio LPCM (two-channel) MP3 , WMA9, AC-3 , AAC , ATRAC3plus
Video MPEG2 MPEG-1 , MPEG-4 , WMV9

Home network devices (Home Network Devices)

  • Digital Media Servers (DMS) make media content (e.g. films, pictures, music) available (as a network drive ).
  • Digital Media Player (DMP) play media made available via the network (e.g. TV , MP3 player ).
  • Digital media renderers (DMR) play media that are received via a digital media controller , which in turn fetches the content from a digital media server (e.g. television set, audio receiver).
  • Digital Media Controllers (DMC) find content on digital media servers and play them on digital media renderers (e.g. WLAN- enabled cameras or PDAs ).
  • Digital media printers (DMPr) provide printing services in the DLNA network.

Individual devices can belong to several device classes. For example, a PC can act as a media server, media player, media renderer and media controller: the server provides media for other devices. The player is actively playing media from other devices. The controller instructs another device (renderer) to play media from any source. Conversely, it can act as a renderer (i.e. playback medium) if another device (controller) prompts it to do so.

Portable devices (mobile handheld devices)

  • Mobile digital media servers (M-DMS) store content and make it available to mobile digital media players , digital media renderers and digital media printers .
  • Mobile digital media players (M-DMP) find and play content from digital media servers or mobile digital media servers .
  • Mobile Digital Media Uploaders (M-DMU) can upload data to a Digital Media Server or Mobile Digital Media Server .
  • Mobile Digital Media Downloader (M-DMD) find and download data from a Digital Media Server or Mobile Digital Media Server .
  • Mobile digital media controllers (M-DMC) find content on a digital media server or mobile digital media server and send it to a digital media renderer .

Portable devices include: a. Cellular devices, portable MP3 players, PDAs and digital cameras. Some of these devices provide several functions. So a mobile phone z. B. be server, player and controller at the same time.

Infrastructure devices (Home Infrastructure Devices)

  • Mobile Network Connectivity Function (M-NCF): Devices that act as a bridge between the portable devices and the home network devices.
  • Media Interoperability Unit (MIU): Devices that can be used to convert the media formats for the home network devices and portable devices.

Application examples

  • Films are stored on a digital media server (e.g. network attached storage ). A digital media player (e.g. DLNA-compatible television set) has the ability to find and play these on the DMS .
  • Photos are stored on a digital media controller (e.g. digital camera ). A digital media renderer (e.g. DLNA-compatible television set) can display the photos.
  • Music is stored on a computer, a digital media server . A mobile digital media controller (e.g. a PDA ) can be used to control the playback of the pieces of music on the digital media renderer (e.g. DLNA-certified WLAN speakers).
  • Photos are stored on a WLAN- enabled camera and can be printed over a computer network using a digital media printer .
  • Films embedded in a website are played via a mobile digital media controller (e.g. smartphone, tablet) on a digital media renderer (e.g. DLNA-compatible television).

Versions of the DLNA guidelines

DLNA certification is always based on a certification guideline (DLNA guideline). This guideline is further developed at irregular intervals in the form of version numbers. The client of the voluntary DLNA certification can decide whether to submit a product for the DLNA test according to the latest or older version number. In the public DLNA product database, the customer can find out which DLNA version number has been certified for.

  • The first version, 1.0, of the guidelines was published in June 2004. It defines the Digital Media Server (DMS) and the Digital Media Player (DMP).
  • Version 1.5: was released in March 2006 and expanded in October of the same year. The guidelines have been B. extended mobile devices and printers, improved the protocol, added new media formats, added quality of service and Bluetooth support, etc.
  • Version 2.0: should contain topics such as EPG, Content Sync , RUI , WPS , Media Formats , Scheduled recording and DRM (as of spring 2008).
  • Version 3.0: (August 18, 2015) includes improvements for loading times, improved energy efficiency and HEVC support.
  • Version 4.0: (June 28, 2016) fixes u. a. Problems with formatting storage media (error message “media format not supported”) between PCs, TVs, Ultra HD streaming; new DLNA 4.0 logo, energy saving mode for connected devices.

criticism

What is viewed critically with this standard is that many - actually self-evident - functions are not built in or are only inadequately implemented: It can happen that when the television accesses a network drive, it is not possible to fast forward and rewind.

The lack of transparency for the consumer is also criticized because the consumer cannot recognize from the DLNA certification logo shown which DLNA variant was certified with negative experiences such as this one from 2009:

“The formats that a television set must reproduce in order to obtain the DLNA logo are only JPEG (photos), LPCM (2-channel audio) and MPEG-2 (videos). This is completely unrealistic. Anyone who loads a video from the network or makes a backup copy of a DVD has files in formats such as MKV , DivX , Xvid , H.264 or WMV9 . No one saves music in LPCM format, but as WMA, AAC, OGG or MP3 files. DLNA with JPEG only meets the actual standard for photos. There are optional formats in the DLNA guidelines, but these are only optional and not mandatory. In addition, important things such as AAC, DivX, Xvid or MKV are also missing here. The result: TV manufacturers save expensive processors for the time-consuming decoding of these files. In some cases it is even the case that the televisions play back files from USB storage media, but the data stream does not run in the same format. "

- CNET

In 2014, the magazine c't criticized the fact that the manufacturers of consumer electronics continue to advertise their products with a wide range of functions for higher price categories, but can save on the computer hardware and software used and that the DLNA certification is not a sufficient quality feature for the consumer for problem-free streaming of audio and video content is.

Similar solutions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DLNA members ( Memento from March 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ dlna.org / ... - press release on the dissolution of January 5, 2017 (accessed on April 21, 2018)
  3. ↑ onvista.de / ... - Press release from January 5th, 2017 (accessed on April 21, 2018)
  4. ↑ DLNA-certified device classes ( Memento from December 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Video & TV Cast - DLNA controller for films embedded in websites
  6. ↑ spirespark.com / ... - Product Search (accessed April 21, 2018)
  7. ↑ About DLNA Guideline ( Memento from April 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ DLNA roadmap  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / members.dlna.org  
  9. ↑ An Overview of the DLNA Architecture
  10. ↑ [1]
  11. ↑ DLNA 4.0 Transforms Connected Home Experience
  12. ↑ http://www.airplay-info.de/dlna-und-upnp from December 25, 2012 (accessed on April 22, 2018)
  13. ^ DLNA Media Format and Transport Model
  14. ↑ Pascal Poschenrieder: DLNA: This is how film fans solve the problems with multimedia network streaming . In: CNET.de , October 15, 2009, accessed on July 23, 2011
  15. ↑ Oliver Diedrich: "Brave New Media World" in: c't 2014, issue 17, page 3