Nucleus MTP

There is an increasing popularity for consumers to share digital media content between media devices from digital photography to MP3 music files and even to digital video. However, most media devices today have used a variety of protocols to perform the media data or file transfer movements; for example, a digital camera transfers picture images using PTP, and an MP3 player transfers music files using proprietary protocol.  There is also a growing concern from content providers to release the media content to unprotected systems.  So, to simplify and unify the way different media applications move data between devices as well as provide a level of protection for sharing content, MTP has been introduced. MTP is a set of extensions to PTP, a protocol that allows digital cameras to connect to PCs and printers. MTP broadens PTP coverage from picture images to many digital media types and enables DRM (digital rights managements) protected media content to be securely transferred between media devices. As a result, developers now can use MTP to support the transfer of digital media content across a broad range of media devices, from digital cameras to portable media players, PDAs and cell phones, and content sharing can be ensured with a high level of protection. Besides the benefits of MTP described above, MTP also promises to deliver enhanced device management and significant performance improvements for new classes of consumer media devices. 

The Nucleus MTP software is independent of the physical interface or transport layer protocol. However, since Universal Serial Bus (USB) offers a simple plug-and-play interface, higher data transfer rates and greater flexibility in terms of hot swapping, USB is used as a primary physical interface between MTP-compliant media devices.

The first release of the Nucleus MTP software has been integrated with the Nucleus USB function stack and the Nucleus USB function still image class driver.  The Nucleus MTP function class driver enables media devices to be connected to transfer digital media to and from a Windows PC via USB.  In the future, Nucleus MTP host will be developed to support an embedded host to use with MTP-compliant media devices.