Networking home entertainment devices with HAVi

Networking home entertainment devices such as digital television receivers facilitate resource sharing and information exchange so that new applications can coordinate the control of several devices simultaneously. The increasing connectivity of home audio-video devices requires interoperability so that products from different vendors can comply with well-defined connection and communication protocols. The home audio/video interoperability (HAVi) architecture is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs), services, and an on-the-wire protocol specified by an industry initiative. HAVi facilitates multivendor interoperability between consumer electronics devices and computing devices, and simplifies the development of distributed applications on home networks. The HAVi architecture, discussed and explained in this article, also facilitates the innovation and introduction of new features or refinements. A key feature is that each physical device has an associated software proxy, Adding new proxies to a home system makes new features or devices accessible even to applications running on older devices.