With the news that the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is showcasing another 'connected home' at CES in 2009, we're starting to wonder when we're going to say "this is the year of the digital home". The DLNA has been lurking around for four years now, yet the green DLNA badge isn't as recognisable as the HD ready logo or the Digital 'tick'.
"The demonstration will allow users to share and access digital media easily across a variety of wired and wireless connectivity technologies, such as MoCA [Multimedia Over Coax Alliance], Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and will illustrate how consumers can easily share and stream digital content (including DVR recordings, music, photos and videos) between consumer electronics (CE) devices, mobile handsets, set-top boxes (STBs) and personal computers (PCs) anywhere throughout their homes."
It should be fun.
The year of the digital home?
But will this demo be just another futuristic flight of fancy? Or is a DLNA-enabled living room a real possibility for 2009? While DLNA networking technology hasn't yet got mass market exposure in the UK, it can already be found in a range of new products if you know where to look.
Philips, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba are already including the UPnP technology in their new TVs. The Samsung PS50A756, for example, features a DLNA-friendly Ethernet jack so it can be hard-wired into a home network. Store MPEG-4 video files on a networked NAS such as a Buffalo's LinkStation Live or a PC and the PS50A756 can act as a Digital Media Playback (DMP) device.
Of course, a setup such as this assumes that you've decided to build a digital home around PC technology. To crack the mass market, DLNA certification needs to find its way into more CE devices – your Sky+ system, Virgin V+, Freeview+ and Freesat+ STBs. The Marantz AV8003/MM800 features DLNA-compatible media playback functionality. It's not much, but it's a start.
Connected mobile devices
DLNA-certification can be extended to any device that boasts a network connection. Because the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-G1 is a DLNA-certified Digital Media Server, it can use its built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connectivity to make photos available to devices on a home network.
Ditto Nokia's enduring N95 smartphone, which is classed as an M-DMS or Mobile Digital Media Server by the DLNA. Thanks to its integrated Wi-Fi, other DLNA devices in a home network can access any video, audio and photos stored on it. Nokia's DLNA-friendliness extends to the N79, N82, N85 and N96 models, and no doubt we'll see it in the forthcoming 'iPhone-killer', the N97.
The system works. The only problem is that the DLNA badge is still a geeky option. When network connectivity and the DLNA badge become as ubiquitous on home electronics as the Dolby logo, the digital home will really start to take shape.
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ranger485
December 12th 2008
1. "The system works. The only problem is that the DLNA badge is still a geeky option."
Maybe this is true in the UK, but not in the USA. I reciently bought a Pioneer Kuro TV (this is no cheap TV, this is $USD 4000) with DLNA. The manual, which is about 1" thick, includes 1 page about DLNA. You have to be an uber-geek to figure out how this feature might possibly be used. Fortunatly, I am such a geek, and I finally have been able to play a movie on this TV, however it took many many attempts before I could get anything to work. Sometimes I would get video but no audio, sometimes audio but no video, sometimes both, but the wrong aspect ratio... the experience was unbelievably painful. It's so bad in-fact that I really don't use this feature at all.
So, yeah, it works, sort of, but only if you're an expert, and only if you have a lot of time to waste. Forget about anything that will even come close to making it usable by your wife.
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