DLNA Develops Interoperability Guidelines For Multimedia Devices

DLNA is always working towards a higher level of multimedia and entertainment, and it looks like its latest efforts have consolidated into a set of guidelines that should allow service provider content to be easily played across multiple platforms.

The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is constantly working towards enabling higher-quality multimedia across all platforms.

To this end, its most recent move was the development of a set of guidelines that will let premium, commercial video from service providers compatible with Blu-ray players, digital TVs, set-top boxes and even game consoles.

"Our service provider member companies have been instrumental in the development of these Interoperability Guidelines for playback of premium commercial video on DLNA Certified products," said Nidhish Parikh, chairman and president of DLNA.

"Together, we are facilitating advances in the digital delivery of content to the home by building on the Alliance's rich set of technology to store and play content. The release of these Interoperability Guidelines is the first step in what is a key global strategic objective for DLNA over the next year."

The Interoperability Guidelines use DTCP-IP Protected Streaming and were made jointly with satellite, global cable and telecommunications service providers.

Time Warner Cable, CableLabs, Comcast and Cox Communications are all quite excited about the possibilities provided by them.

"The new DLNA Interoperability Guidelines greatly assist Time Warner Cable by defining a common method to deliver our content to various retail consumer electronics devices such as connected televisions, game console,” said Mike Lajoie, CTO of Time Warner Cable.

“Blu-ray disc players, tablets and mobile phones; all securely using DTCP/IP link protection. Throughout our footprint we continue to deploy more set-top boxes that are able to serve content to DLNA products Certified to these Interoperability Guidelines."

Products will start being tested for certification with these guidelines later during the ongoing year.