Digital Living Network Alliance

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The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) (formerly Digital Home Working Group) is an international, cross-industry collaboration of consumer electronics, computing industry and mobile device companies. The main objective of DLNA is the establishment 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. DLNA is focused on delivering an interoperability framework of design guidelines based on internationally recognized open industry standards together with a certification and 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 2008) consists of eight Board companies (Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Matsushita, Microsoft, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Sony), sixteen non-board Promoter companies (Access, AMD, AwoX, Broadcom, Cisco, Comcast, DigiOn, Dolby, Huawei, IBM, Kenwood, Lenovo, LGE, Macrovision, 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, 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 has started in several phases from fall 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 Universal Plug and Play 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.

There are approximately 2000 DLNA CERTIFIED(TM) products from 29 different manufacturers registered as of early 2008, out of which about 750 are publicly listed on the DLNA website.

In addition to the DLNA Certification and Logo Program, DLNA also hosts technical plugfests on a quarterly basis to provide its members with opportunities to test products with other companies’ products and prototypes in advance of their formal certification.