Advanced Television

DLNA boosts playback of commercial video on certified devices

May 23, 2011

Interoperability standards group the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) has released new Interoperability Guidelines for the playback of high-quality, premium commercial video. The new standard addresses the increasing demand for simplified access to premium commercial content throughout the home, including movies and network television programming. Developed in conjunction with global cable, satellite and telecommunications service providers, the Interoperability Guidelines leverage DTCP-IP Protected Streaming to make service provider content more easily available for playback across digital televisions, Blu-ray disc players, game consoles and set-top boxes.

“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 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 consoles, 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,” said Mike Lajoie, CTO of Time Warner Cable.

DLNA has worked with service providers on the delivery of digital content throughout the home since the Alliance’s inception. DLNA Interoperability Guidelines are already in place as a component of the CableLab’ tru2way Home Networking specification and associated open source reference implementation that enables secure transfer of cable content to DLNA Certifie devices. CableLabs is a DLNA Promoter Member and a nonprofit research and development consortium dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies. CableLabs has dedicated its last two interoperability events to testing the distribution of premium cable content from tru2way set-top boxes to DLNA Certified game consoles, televisions, PCs, and mobile phones.

“These new DLNA Interoperability Guidelines help us move beyond traditional consumption models to deliver content anywhere, anytime, on any device,” said Jay Rolls, senior vice president of technology for Cox Communications. “In addition, DLNA Certified consumer electronics can now be used to control playback of cable video content, extending the power of the remote to preferred personal devices.”

Interoperability Guidelines for the playback of high-value, premium commercial content across home networks are available now.

Categories: Articles, Home Network, In Home, Regulation, Standards