METHOD AND APPRATUS FOR OBTAINING EXTERNAL CHARGED CONTENT IN THE UPNP NETWORK

摘要

A method for acquiring external charged content in a UPnP(Universal Plug and Play) network and an apparatus thereof are provided to enable a user to browse a content list, to purchase wanted content and to reproduce the content via a CE device like a DTV in which a UPnP AV control point without using other special interface. A method for acquiring external charged content in a UPnP network comprises the following several steps. If a control point calls a browse function of a CDS(Content Director Service), a UPnP media server provides URLs to the control point wherein the URLs are for enabling a user to purchase each charged content and to listen to a sample(401). If the user selects reproduction of specific content via a user interface of the control point, the control point transmits the URLs of corresponding content to a UPnP renderer and requests the UPnP renderer to reproduce the content, and the UPnP media renderer requests the UPnP media server to stream the content existing at the received URL(402). The UPnP media server checks whether the content is local content while referring to the URL of the requested content(403), and if so, immediately transmits the content to the UPnP media renderer(404). If not, namely the URL has a CGI triggering format, not a content location expressing format, the UPnP media server performs an authentication procedure in an online purchase site(406) and receives and stores the corresponding content(408). If the authentication is failed or an accumulated point is not enough, the UPnP media server transmits a corresponding error message to the UPnP media renderer(407).