Developing a Solution for Multimedia Home Networking

In recent years, the rapid development of electronics and computer science has enabled home networking devices to become more affordable and more powerful. Several widely used multimedia-streaming solutions have become available in the market. However, as a result of their different technical designs, these standards naturally experience serious compatibility issues. Thus, end users can have several multimedia devices, with each one using a distinctive, unique protocol, making it challenging or even impossible sometimes to share media between those devices. These compatibility issues have motivated the need to determine the technological features common to the existing multimedia-streaming standards and to develop a more easy-to-use multimedia home networking solution. This thesis compares the modern solutions for multimedia home networking (MHN), including AirPlay, Miracast, Chromecast, and especially the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standard due to its wide adoption. By conducting research on the features and capabilities of these existing solutions, a suitable mobile solution for MHN, which takes advantage of AirPlay, Discovery and Launch (DIAL), and DLNA, is proposed for the Android platform. The corresponding system architectures, features, and analysis methodologies are also analyzed to demonstrate the competitiveness of this application. In terms of practical contribution, an online channel proxy was integrated to the application to fulfill the target of streaming online channels, such as YouTube. By implementing this online channel proxy, home networking and Internet resources can be effectively connected. Since its first release on the Google Play Store, the application received over one million downloads from 225 countries. According to the statistics, this solution has proved to be competitive and successful. In addition, this thesis discusses possible further development of this solution, and the future trends of multimedia home networking