any difference between DLNA and UPnP?

Question

I know the DLNA is subset of UPnP. I read this post : What's the difference between UPnP AV and DLNA?

But, i still can't understand clearly. Are there any features inside DLNA? how to define this device is DLNA or UPnP? Why make people confused about DLNA & UPnP?

Please advice!!

Answer 1

There are two main differences, I would say: scope and organisation.

UPnP's scope is limited to the UPnP standards and protocols. As long as a device has the protocols done right, it is UPnP compatible. But that's not the whole truth, as for instance, the media may be incompatible. The result is that the end user expects the system to work, but it does not.

DLNA on the other hand does not limit to UPnP standards as it places requirements for ALL standards in use. UPnP AV happens to be one of those standards but others are included, for instance:

• media (ensuring media in devices is compatible, and devices recognise is media compatible instead of trying and failing)
• mediaservers (exact requirements to HTTP headers and timeouts)
• etc

As an organization, UPnP is essentially a collection of protocols and a number of people working on developing that protocol. DLNA on the other hand (as the name suggests) is an alliance of companies that saw that they need to do something that their devices start talking to each other - without errors.

A rough analog to mobile phone world:

• UPnP: phone has correctly implemented GSM/3G stack
• DLNA: you can actually call from one phone to another and have a conversation :-)

From this analogue you can assume that DLNA specs are more complex.