1.3 Overview

Microsoft Compatibility Extension Flags (MCEF) are used to request specific device behavior(s) to enhance interoperability among UPnP Devices. For example, device manufacturers can develop a UPnP capable network device in order to retrieve information about the media content that is exposed to the network by a digital media server (DMS). Such a device is enabled to include the MCEFs in its device description document (DDD) or User-Agent Header in order to tailor the metadata attributes in the XML responses that are provided by the DMS during interaction for enhanced interoperability.

Microsoft Media Property Extensions (MMPE) are used to expose several media content properties that are defined by Microsoft. These properties are generally not expressible, or are difficult to express, with the existing UPnP metadata attributes. In order to provide the expected query results with the existing attributes, additional processing capabilities are required on the device. For example, by using the additional properties defined by Microsoft, the device is relieved of the "heavy-lifting" involved in generating similar results and is enabled to provide a richer media browsing experience to their users.

Microsoft Power Management Extensions (MPME) are used to expose UPnP Device capabilities for power management. For example, a UPnP Device can support sleep mode and accept wake requests from other UPnP Devices. At the same time, a UPnP Device can support waking other UPnP Devices.

The Microsoft ProtocolInfo Extensions are extensions to the ProtocolInfo, defined by Microsoft. For example, a Digital Media Renderer (DMR) can use the PlayToApp extension (section 2.4.1) to indicate that it supports a nonstandard URI scheme.