the connected world supplement special report Supplement sponsored by
Today’s consumers want to be able to move digital media between anything from set-top boxes to personal computers, tablets and mobile devices to their television screens, with no need to use special cables or even to be in the same room. Some consumers also want to be able to securely access their digital media remotely, while on the go. Dr. Neale Foster, VP global sales at Access, reports.
Why the Connected Home is good for business M
uch as manufacturers might wish people to buy an entire range of matching products, consumers typically purchase devices and
displays from several different brands, and yet still want them to work together transparently. They don’t care whether media was delivered via a broadcast network or if it resides on an optical disc, they simply want all devices to cooperate intelligently so that they can easily access their media from any device - and they don’t necessarily want to have a single hub or a personal computer at the heart of everything. Seamless media access among devices should ‘just work’, like plugging in an electrical appliance.
That, of course, is exactly what the television used to be, when plugging and unplugging leads and juggling remote controls was simply unknown. Indeed, if you go back far enough, there was no remote control at all. So how do you bring the simplicity of the ‘box in the corner’ to today’s multimedia consumer? The traditional answer is to provide all the necessary equipment, with compatibility
The idea behind the DLNA initiative is to enable seamless access to media anywhere on the home network, or in some cases beyond it, so long as there is an Internet protocol connection.
guaranteed. But rather than subsidising consumers with dedicated devices, a considerable saving in capital expenditure can be realised if service providers and platform operators are able to support products that consumers already own or may wish to buy.
The Internet has gone a long way to showing how access to a large range of digital media can be simplified, in particular by using a browser to connect with a server and by communicating using standard protocols. The browser is no longer purely the province of the personal computer. Consumer electronics manufacturers are now building browsers into many different devices and displays, both to present a user interface and to facilitate interactive standards such as HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV), a major European initiative aimed at harmonising the broadcast and broadband delivery of entertainment to the consumer through Connected TVs or set-top boxes. HbbTV supports a variety of Internet services including Catch-up TV, which allows users to watch TV programmes that they’ve missed at a later date.
32 l ibe l the connected world supplement march/april 2011 l
www.ibeweb.com
Access, a global provider of embedded software solutions, has a long history of providing browsers for beyond PC devices, with deployments in thousands of models, representing over one billion global units. Unlike browsers that have come from the world of personal computers, Access’ NetFront browser is optimised for resource-constrained devices and is therefore eminently suitable to be embedded in consumer electronics products. Devices enabled by Access include residential gateways, Blu-ray disc players, set-top boxes and digital televisions.
However, simply building a browser into a device does not address all the possible use cases. The browser can function as a user interface, but it’s essentially stateless, presenting information in response to user interaction. This is necessary, but not sufficient, to enable seamless media access. What is needed is an intelligent distributed media network.
The vision of the DLNA
That’s the vision underpinning the Digital Living Networking Alliance (DLNA), an open standards initiative
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