Digital Living Network Alliance

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The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), (formerly: Digital Home Working Group), is a unique, international, cross-industry collaboration of leading consumer electronics, computing industry and mobile device companies. These DLNA Member Companies share a vision of a wired and wireless interoperable network of Personal Computers (PC), Consumer Electronics (CE) and mobile devices in the home and on the road, enabling a seamless environment for sharing new digital media and content services. To this end, DLNA is focused on delivering an interoperability framework of design guidelines based on open industry standards and a certification/logo program to officially verify and validate the conformance and interoperability of compliant products for the consumers.

Originally founded by Sony and Intel in June of 2003, the current DLNA organization (as of Spring 2007) consists of eight Board companies (Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Matsushita, Microsoft, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Sony), sixteen non-board Promoter companies (AMD, Broadcom, Comcast, DigiOn, Dolby, Huawei, IBM, Kenwood, Lenovo, LGE, Motorola, NXP, Pioneer, Sharp, ST Microelectronics and Toshiba), and approximately 240 Contributor (or regular) members.

The initial DLNA Interoperability Guidelines (Version 1.0) were first published in June 2004; just one year after the DLNA organization was formed. This initial version covered the basic home (or stationary) devices operating as content servers and players. A certification and logo program to validate DLNA-compliant products was launched in September of 2005 to cover the 1.0 Guidelines. Products which pass this certification are allowed to use the DLNA CERTIFIED (TM) logo on their product and associated collateral. Work on the guidelines has also continued at a rapid pace and a new Version 1.5 (also known as Expanded Guidelines) was published in late 2005, covering a much larger set of use cases and device categories, including printers and mobile devices. Certification covering this new Version 1.5 is expected to start from spring of 2007.

There are currently four DLNA-accredited testing laboratories covering the major geographic regions (US, Japan, Belgium and Taiwan) which conduct the conformance and interoperability test suites necessary for successfully passing the certification program. In addition, the DLNA certification program requires UPnP certification for products that can be tested for UIC certification. Similarly, for products that support IEEE 802.11 wireless interface, Wi-Fi certification is required in order to obtain DLNA certification.

DLNA CERTIFIED products are currently sold by over 20 major-brand manufacturers and available at retail throughout the world.