Technical Seminar on

By
CHETHAN J

Introduction

DLNA is an acronym for Digital Living Network Alliance. It is a capability in a device allowing it to talk to other devices with another DLNA device. It interconnects electronic devices within a zone.

What is DLNA?

DLNA is a standard based on UPnP model, whose primitive goal was to attach all devices directly to computer. With a view to interconnect devices seamlessly, DLNA was brought to light. DLNA represents the content negotiation and sharing portion. At a customary level, a DLNA device works like any other device by discovering other DLNA-enabled hosts. But its competence doesnt stop there. The DLNA device goes on to learn other devices capabilities.

Why DLNA?

Three main pools of electronic goods that prevail in today's world are

Why DLNA? Contd

Consumers wish to inter-operate in these 3 zones Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a cross-industry organization of leading operators of these 3 islands - consumer electronics, computing industry and mobile devices.

They provide a seamless environment for sharing and growing new digital media and content services.

Contd

UPnP Origin of DLNA

DLNA in its primitive form originated from UPnP Universal Plug and Play UPnP works on these basic schemes:
Addressing Discovery Description Control notification Event Presentation

Technical view of a DLNA network

All of this requires three basic components - a player, a server and a stream of data that are all compatible with each other.

Networking and connectivity

With the network addresses getting depleted, IPv6 protocol emerged, an improved version of IPv4.

Advantages of using IP in digital home network:

IP allows applications running over different media to communicate

transparently.
IP can connect every device in the home to the Internet. Since IP is

the protocol of the Internet, any device in the digital home can be potentially connected to any other Internet-connected device in the world.
IP connectivity is inexpensive. Because it is ubiquitous, economies of

scale and competition combine to make physical media implementations of IP available at lower cost than other technologies.

DLNA System Architecture Pull-type UI

DLNA System Architecture Push-type UI

Discovery
Discovery includes device and service discovery. This takes into account
Discovering the presence and capabilities of

other devices in the connected network. Control and interconnect with the discovered devices.

The Service protocol used in DLNA is SSDP - Simple Service Discovery protocol.

Common media formats and streaming protocols

Table 1. DLNA Media formats for Home Devices
Media Formats Imaging Audio Video Required Formats Set JPEG LPCM (2 channel) MPEG2 Optional Formats Set GIF, TIFF, PNG MP3, WMA9, AC-3, AAC, ATRAC3plus MPEG1, MPEG4, WMV9

Table 2. DLNA Media formats for Mobile/Handheld Devices

Media Formats Imaging Audio Required Formats Set JPEG MP3 and MPEG4 AAC LC Optional Formats Set GIF, TIFF, PNG MPEG4 (HE AAC, AAC LTP, BSAC), AMR, ATRAC3plus, G.726, WMA, LPCM VC1, H.263, MPEG4 part 2, MPEG2, MPEG4 AVC (BSAC or other for Assoc. Audio)

Video

MPEG4 AVC (AAC LC Assoc Audio)

Protocols define the mode of transfer. DLNA uses HTTP as its protocol for streaming.

Inter-operability among vendor products

There must be a common standard among the products for the operation and DLNA publishes guidelines for inter-operability.

Quality of Service (QOS)

Quality of service is the ability to provide different priority to different applications, users, or data flows, or to guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow.

Authentication & Authorisation

Authentication is the mechanism whereby systems may securely identify their users. Authentication systems provide an answer to the questions:
Who is the user? Is the user really who he/she represents himself to be?

Authorization, by contrast, is the mechanism by which a system determines what level of access a particular authenticated user should have to secured resources controlled by the system.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Content must be protected from unauthorized copying and use. Today, there are several DRM technologies available to device designers and content providers.

Use Cases

Conclusion

With growing demand for consumer goods, there is an equal rise in crave for interconnecting devices, be at home or office. DLNA is THE way to achieve is. The best aspect of DLNA is that it allows products from different manufacturers to talk to each other.

With DLNA all leading CE companies are tied in a technological knot; there is interdependence, yet independence with their own products.
In the near future, digital homes will contain intelligent platforms which will manage and distribute rich digital content to rendering devices such as televisions and wireless monitors from devices such as digital cameras, camcorders and multimedia mobile phones.

Questions?

Thank You !