Ad-hoc symbiotic interactive displays through DLNA

The concept of symbiotic displays covers the opportunistic pairing of mobile devices with screen devices that can be discovered and controlled across a network. Mobile applications that use symbiotic displays can offer the user an improved experience, but the lack of a widely deployed infrastructure means that the concept has seen little use. We design and implement a solution for using DLNA playback devices as symbiotic screens. DLNA devices are not designed to support interactive content, but to share and play media content in the home. Our work includes constructing a mechanism for real time generation of a video stream containing screen content, as well as a buffer starving mechanism that reduces buffer induced playback latency. The resulting system allows Android applications to use DLNA devices as a secondary screens. Latencies and update rates are such, that only applications that do not depend on quick and frequent updates to the remote screen content can be supported.