HAVi

Short for Home Audio Video interoperability, a vendor-neutral audio-video standard aimed specifically at the home entertainment environment. HAVi allows different home entertainment and communication devices (such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, security systems, video monitors) to be networked together and controlled from one primary device, such as a PC or television.

Using IEEE 1394 as the interconnection medium, HAVi allows products from different vendors to comply with one another based on defined connection and communication protocols and APIs. One of the key features of HAVi is its ability to easily add new devices to the network. When a new device is installed, the system will configure itself to accommodate it. Other services provided by the distributed application system include: addressing scheme and message transfer, lookup for discovering resources, posting and receiving local or remote events, streaming and controlling isochronous data streams.

This industry standard has been jointly developed by Grundig AG, Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic), Royal Philips Electronics, Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation, Thomson Multimedia and Toshiba Corporation.