CES 2013

The Digital Living Network Alliance® (DLNA®) announced that five TV service providers will employ DLNA Premium Video this year. DLNA Premium Video makes it possible to stream from a cable or satellite set-top box to a Smart TV, media streamer or tablet.

In a meeting with DLNA partners DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Comcast, executives from the companies explained their initial implementations and how DLNA Premium Video works as part of the DLNA standards ecosystem. Stephen Dulac, director at DirecTV, explained that the experience of watching TV on a second device should be the same experience as watching directly from the set-top box. RVue is a feature made possible with DLNA Premium Video standards, where the full user experience, including menus and guides, is streamed from the satellite receiver along with the video conent.

The device receives the DirecTV RVue user experience when a media controller selects to "push the video to" it. If you have ever used an app on a phone that chooses a video from a media server source then streams it to a "media renderer," you have experienced that the receiving "renderer" (Smart TV, media player) simply plays the video without making any changes to an input or choosing an app from which to stream.

More details and explanations to come as the Premium video features roll out in 2013.