DLNA® Interoperability Guidelines and Media Formats Adopted as IEC International Standards

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) today announced that the DLNA® Networked Device Interoperability Guidelines published in March 2006, and related media formats have been adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and published as international standards IEC 62481-1 and IEC 62481-2 .

“We are extremely pleased with the support the DLNA guidelines received over many geographies, which reflects the industry’s recognition of the consumers’ desire to enjoy digital media across different devices and locations on a home network,” said Scott Smyers, President and Chairman of DLNA.

The DLNA vision integrates PC, CE and mobile devices consumers use in their daily lives with the Internet, broadcast and mobile networks to provide an environment where consumers can connect and enjoy various types of media on their products. By establishment of these internationally accepted DLNA Guidelines, companies and manufacturers of these types of devices can now participate in a growing marketplace that encourages innovation, enhances simplicity, and delivers value for consumers.

The IEC 62481-1 publication, titled “Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) Home Networked Device Interoperability Guidelines – Part 1: Architecture and Protocols,” specifies the information needed to build interoperable networked platforms and devices for the digital home on audio, video and multimedia systems, including interoperable components for devices and software infrastructure, physical media, network transports, device discovery and control, media management and control, media formats, and media transport protocols. It also provides product developers with a long-term architectural view, plus specific guidance for IP-networked platforms, devices and applications in the home.

In conjunction with this standard, the IEC 62481-2 publication, titled “Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) Home Networked Device Interoperability Guidelines – Part 2: DLNA Media Formats,” lists the DLNA media format profiles applicable to the IEC 62481-1 specification. Media format profiles are defined for each of the following media classes: audio, image, and AV. In addition, profile ID values that identify media collections and printer XHTML documents are also included.

As indicated in the IEC 62481-1 publication, the DLNA Interoperability Guidelines are based on an architecture that defines interoperable components for devices and software infrastructure and which covers physical media, network transports, device discovery and control, media management and control, media formats, and media transport protocols. These Guidelines provide vendors with the information needed to build interoperable networked platforms and devices for the digital home. With the necessary standards and technologies now available to enable products to be built for networked entertainment centric usages, the Guidelines fulfill the role of making sure such standards and technologies are clarified and options limited to ensure interoperability.

As outlined in the scope of the IEC 62481-2 publication, devices in the home network environments will have the ability of exchanging content items that originate from different sources. Such content items typically come encoded in different formats, which designate the encoding and compression tools used to generate a binary instance of a content item, which will then be exchanged over the home network using streaming or file transfer protocols. Examples of these formats include MP3, AAC, WMA and others for audio; MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV and others for video.

This standard provides an extensive list of broadly-used format profiles for image, audio, and AV formats, as well as introduces the notion of mandatory profiles, supported by all devices, as a way to provide baseline content interoperability in the home. Since mandatory format profiles cannot be defined universally to suit all scenarios, the definition of mandatory profiles is made by taking into account the geographical region and the target device category.

The IEC Standards are available for a fee from the following locations: IEC 62481-1 and IEC 62481-2.