DLNA: The best thing since sliced bread?

DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance. This is a consortium of big names including Microsoft, Cisco, Nokia, Sony, Phillips and HP. The aim of the organisation is to define standards so that the devices in your home can exchange digital media.

Lets have a brief tutorial in device classes. A Digital Media Server stores content and makes it available to other devices on a network. A Digital Media Renderer plays the content that is sent to it. A Digital Media Controller finds content on a server and controls it being sent to a Digital Media Renderer. A Digital Media Player can both find content on a server and play the content. Obviously a particular product may provide the functions of more than one device class. For instance a PC could be both a Digital Media Server and a Digital Media Controller.

Certified DLNA devices are already on the market. To mention one, the elusive HP MediaSmart Connect which Nomad alluded to in a recent post is certified as a Digital Media Player.

Sounds great doesnt it. Will it really work in practice though? Everything can be compatible but some things are more compatible than others. Your media player might be compatible with my file server; does that mean it will play a particular file format though? Who can tell.

However Nomad is going to stick his neck out here. DLNA looks like it is here to stay. Maybe DLNA will not solve every problem overnight; but any standard is better than no standard. DLNA certification is going to be something this blog looks at with increasing importance.

http://www.dlna.org/home


Update 27 May 2009:

Nomad has diligently searched the DLNA web site to uncover some vital gen. DLNA has tandardised on MPEG2 as the media format for video on home devices. MPEG1, MPEG4 and WMV9 are optional formats. MPEG4 is the standard for mobile devices. So just because your device is DNLA certified dont expect it to play an AVI format file. However DNLA are clearly doing the right thing here; standardising on a single format means that the content providers will eventually have to fall in line and provide that format. Until that message gets through expect more grief.

On a seperate topic it is worth mentioning the uPnP (universal Plug and Play) standard. UPnP is a component of DLNA. In other words if you buy a DLNA certified device it will, by definition, be compatible with uPnP. The DLNA logo is the one to look for.