Why DIAL (Discovery and launch) when we have UPnP?
upnp
Solution
The new DIscovery And Launch (DIAL) standard builds on Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) but rather than trying to stream content from a device to the TV it asks the TV or set-top box to launch a suitable client to play back the content direct from source. That way, the digital rights management (DRM) issues are addressed while minimising the reliance in wireless bandwidth and removing the battery issue, but at the cost of creating a new standard.
More info here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/28/dial_youtube_netflix/
Problem
I was browsing through the capability of DIAL, and found out that it is very similar to UPnP, in-fact it uses UPnP protocol for device discovery (SSDP). What dial is offering, actually a subset of UPnP protocol, isn’t it? Can't we use UPnP's SOAP for content sharing and communicating (launch app) instead of DIAL? I'm not getting a clear picture where DIAL is fitting in the software stack (If I have UPnP supported already). Please help me clear my confusion.