Takehiko Hanada

Managing a Media Server Content Directory in Absence of Reliable Metadata

Content metadata play an important role assisting users to find and access content items of interest. In general, explicit metadata created commercially for traditional media distribution such as TV and packaged content work adequately. However with the proliferation of Internet usage, networked devices, and tools to create, edit, re-distribute, and manage diverse content items, the problem of maintaining reliable metadata in directory services of media servers is very complex. In this paper we analyze existing metadata frameworks used by industry consortia, specifically UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) and discuss fundamental problems that cause content directories to be populated with unreliable metadata. We propose alternative methods based on implicit metadata and user-generated tagging that improve availability of reliable metadata.

Design and implementation of a net-enabled DTV using DLNA features

In this paper the authors describe the design and implementation of an IP (Internet protocol) network-enabled DTV (digital TV) using DLNA (digital living network alliance) technology. DLNA has developed guidelines for interoperability among home devices enabling a multitude of usage scenarios by sharing digital content such as AV (audio visual), photo, and audio. Technology incorporated in latest digital television (DTV) provides computing, storage, networking, and display capabilities to support a wide variety of additional rich functions not considered in the traditional TV usage paradigm. An important challenge to overcome was the man-machine limitation of the TV combined with the end user expectations regarding seamless setup and operation of any TV. Our design was able to support a rich set of features taking advantage of the network connectivity while keeping setup and operation simple enough for general users to use.