International Organization for Standardization

Information technology – UPnP device architecture – Part 14-12: Audio, Video Device Control Protocol – Level 3 – Audio Video Content Directory Service - First Edition
 N ISO/IEC 29341-14-12

Annotation

Overview and Scope

This service template is compliant with the UPnP Device Architecture version 1.0. It defines a service type referred to herein as ContentDirectory service.

Introduction

Many devices within the home network contain various types of content that other devices would like to access (for example, music, videos, still images, etc). As an example, a MediaServer device might contain a significant portion of the homeowner's audio, video, and still-image library. In order for the homeowner to enjoy this content, the homeowner must be able to browse the objects stored on the MediaServer, select a specific one, and cause it to be played on an appropriate rendering device (for example, an audio player for music objects, a TV for video content, an Electronic Picture Frame for still-images, etc).

For maximum convenience, it is highly desirable to allow the homeowner to initiate these operations from a variety of UI devices. In most cases, these UI devices will either be a UI built into the rendering device, or it will be a stand-alone UI device such as a wireless PDA or tablet. In any case, it is unlikely that the homeowner will interact directly with the device containing the content (that is: the homeowner won't have to walk over to the server device). In order to enable this capability, the server device needs to provide a uniform mechanism for UI devices to browse the content on the server and to obtain detailed information about individual content objects. This is the purpose of the ContentDirectory service.