DLNA Server External Content Aggregation via IVL Mediator
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Solution Overview
Problem
Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) servers struggle to access and aggregate audio and video content stored outside of a home network, limiting users' ability to render content from external sources within the home network.
Innovation Solution
A DLNA server with bridging capabilities that communicates with web-based servers via an Internet Video Link (IVL) provisioning server to retrieve and aggregate A/V content information, allowing users to select and render content from both local and external sources by mapping URIs and tokens for seamless access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If DLNA servers only store and serve content within the home network, then local access reliability is maintained, but adaptability to external content sources is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an IVL provisioning server as an intermediary between DLNA servers and external web-based A/V content sources. This mediator handles the complexity of external content aggregation and URI mapping, allowing DLNA servers to access external content without directly implementing complex external source management logic.
Solution Approach 2:
The system separates functionality into distinct components: the IVL provisioning server handles external content aggregation and URI mapping, while DLNA servers focus on content delivery within the home network. This segmentation allows each component to specialize without bearing the full complexity burden.
2Adaptability or versatility
If DLNA servers aggregate content from multiple external web-based servers, then content versatility increases, but information management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The IVL provisioning server acts as an intermediary that manages URI mapping information between external web-based servers and DLNA content identifiers. It stores and processes the mapping between external content URIs and DLNA content URIs, relieving DLNA servers of this complex information management task.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates and manages copies of content identification information (URIs) across different systems. The IVL provisioning server maintains copies of external content URIs and their mappings to DLNA content URIs, enabling seamless content access without requiring direct external server connections at each DLNA server.
3Adaptability or versatility
If DLNA servers implement bridging capabilities to access external content, then adaptability improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The IVL provisioning server serves as a dedicated intermediary that implements the complex bridging functionality between DLNA and external web-based content sources. This concentrates the bridging complexity in a single specialized component rather than distributing it across multiple DLNA servers.
Solution Approach 2:
The IVL provisioning server provides universal access functionality for multiple DLNA servers to external content sources. It handles content aggregation, URI mapping, and provisioning services for the entire DLNA network, making the bridging capability available to all DLNA servers without requiring individual implementation at each server.
Data Source
AI summary
Audio and video (A/V) content information is acquired from each of a group of web-based servers located outside of a home network. The A/V content information identifies A/V content stored in association with each of the group of web-based servers. The A/V content information acquired from each of the group of web-based servers is aggregated. The aggregated A/V content information is provided to a DLNA client device within the home network. This abstract is not to be considered limiting, since other embodiments may deviate from the features described in this abstract.