A communication system (100) comprises a source media device (110), a sink media device (112) communicatively coupled with the source media device over an out-of-band transfer protocol (116), a control point (114) communicatively coupled to the source media device and the sink media device using communication control actions, and an emulator (200). The emulator can be contained in one or more of the source media device, the sink media device, and the control point. The emulator comprises a communication controller (212) capable of coupling to an out-of-band communication link and an emulation controller (210) capable of converting information between an out-of-band communication link format and a standard device internal format.