UPnP Device Control Protocols
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4/8/2010
This section explains the relationship between standard UPnP operations and specialized UPnP device control protocols (DCPs).
The UPnP Forum defines a set of standard operations and a set of standard communication protocols for operations like device discovery, description, and control. These operations provide the building blocks on which actual UPnP devices are built. The concepts are introduced in detail in UPnP Device and Control Point Architecture.
The standard operations do not define specific services and actions that devices implement. For example, a control point can use device discovery to find all UPnP devices and device description documents to determine exactly what services and actions a device supports. However, if there are no shared assumptions between services and actions on the same type of device, the control point can make no assumptions about the type of devices it controls. This means the control point must interact with devices of the same type as completely separate entities.
To rectify this problem, the UPnP Forum also defines DCPs. A DCP is a set of specific named services, each of which has specific named actions and state variables. Because the services, actions, and state variables have common names and semantics, control points can interact with all devices of the same type in a common way.
For example, the UPnP Audio/Video (AV) DCP defines devices and services for rendering and serving media content. A UPnP control point that understands the UPnP AV DCP can provide common control mechanisms for all UPnP AV renderer and server devices on the network.
In addition to supporting the standard UPnP operations, additional functionality is included for the following UPnP DCPs:
- Audio/Video (AV). The UPnP AV Framework is included. The UPnP AV Framework is a C++ framework that assists developers creating UPnP AV DCP control points and devices. For more information about the UPnP AV Framework, see Using the UPnP AV Framework.
For more information about other UPnP DCPs, see this UPnP Web site. You can use the generic UPnP Control Point and Device Host API to implement control points and devices that work with any DCP.