The RVU Alliance (RVUA) is a standards body created to manage the RVU protocol standard as used by manufacturers of

consumer electronics Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. Consumer electronics include those used for entertainment, Communication, communications, and recreation. Historically, these prod ...

to allow entertainment devices within the home to share their content with each other across a

home network Home Network is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language Discretionary service, discretionary cable television, cable and satellite television, satellite specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment. Home Network broadcasts programs r ...

Overview

The RVU Alliance exists to further the adoption and acceptance of the RVU protocol, a communications protocol, built substantially upon the pre-existing Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standards. The RVU protocol is intended to solve the problems inherent in viewing live or recorded

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

remotely across a

Home network Home Network is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language Discretionary service, discretionary cable television, cable and satellite television, satellite specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment. Home Network broadcasts programs r ...

. For example, an RVU compliant TV will be able to view music, photos & video from an RVU compliant

media server A media server is a computer appliance or an application software that stores digital media (video, audio or images) and makes it available over a network. Media servers range from servers that provide video on demand to smaller personal compu ...

. The RVU protocol specifically can deal with the passing of broadcast video coming from a

Multichannel video programming distributor A multichannel television service, also known as simply a television provider, is a type of service provider who distributes television programming to its customers for a subscription fee. Subscription television providers distribute televisio ...

through a

residential gateway A residential gateway is a small consumer-grade gateway which bridges network access between connected local area network (LAN) hosts to a wide area network (WAN) (such as the Internet) via a modem, or directly connects to a WAN (as in EttH), ...

or dedicated

to other consumer electronic devices in the home. The RVU protocol includes a pixel-accurate Remote User Interface (RUI) technology that allows the

to fully control the client user experience.

Remote User Interface

The RUI concepts makes use of a server device which implements all content bitmaps and graphics functions for a number of remote client devices. In this way a server can be used to generate a user guide experience specific to a TV service providers “look and feel”, and send that experience to a client device. The client can then display this graphics data without the need for any proprietary software from that service provider. RVU technology enables a compliant client device to offer user interface interactions such as guide, trick play, and interactive applications all without the presence of a dedicated set-top box. RVU Server devices will be provided by television content providers such as satellite, cable and telco broadcasters. Client devices such as televisions, Blu-ray players and PCs need only be compliant with the requirements of the RVU Protocol to work with an RVU server.

Aims

The published aims of the RVU Alliance are to expand the use of the RVU Protocol to enable users to: *Receive the same experience at every TV through the same look and feel *Provide access to high-definition programming from any TV in the home *Record and playback high-definition programming from any TV in the home *Access to personal media content (e.g., videos and photos) from any TV in the home *Interact with weather, enhanced sports, and other interactive applications from any TV in the home *Access content available on more devices (including personal media players and PCs)

Participating companies

There are 4 founding members:

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational designer, developer, manufacturer, and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data cen ...

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

DIRECTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

, and

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...

. As of June 2013, there are: * 10 promoter members: * 13 contributor members: The RVUA is run by a board of directors consisting of the RVUA President and representatives from the founding members. The board of directors oversees the activity of the following Working Groups: *Certification Working Group (CWG), overseeing the certification program and its evolutions. *Marketing Working Group (MWG), actively promoting RVUA worldwide. *Technical Working Group (TWG), writing the RVUA technical guidelines and evolving the RVU protocol specification. *Wireless Working Group (WWG), expanding the RVUA guidelines for use in a wireless environment.

History

RVUA was formed in August 2009 as the RVU Alliance.

Specification

The RVU protocol specification V1.0 is currently ratified by the board and available to members for implementation. The RVU protocol specification V2.0 became available on January 7, 2013. Any product with a network interface (e.g. MoCA,

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

or otherwise) can become an RVU-connected device by installing RVU compatible software. The specification is in large part dependent on the DLNA specification. The specification uses DTCP/IP as "link protection" for copyright-protected commercial content between one device and another.http://www.dlna.org/about_us/roadmap/DLNA_Whitepaper.pdf page 4, Table 1

Certification

The RVUA certification program went live in June 2011. Certification will involve Conformance Testing and Interoperability Testing of RVU-compatible devices. Once certified, a product is granted a license to use the RVU logo.

Products supporting RVU

The first RVU-compatible consumer products were released at the end of 2011. Se
www.rvualliance.org/products
for more details.

References

External links

RVU Alliance
{{authority control Standards organizations in the United States Open standards Digital television Digital audio Consumer electronics Beaverton, Oregon 2009 establishments in Oregon