CableNET Line-Up Announced
April 29, 2008
The NCTA and CableLabs have announced the line-up of companies
that will be participating in CableNET, their annual showcase of new
cable technologies and products at the NCTA's Cable Show (takes
place May 18th-20th in New Orleans). A number of participating
companies, including UniSoft/Strategy & Technology, Sigma Designs
and Zodiac Interactive, will be demo'ing tru2way-based technologies,
and several other companies, including Digeo, Motorola, Pixel3 and
Symmetricom, will be demo'ing other advanced video technologies. In
addition, there will be a number of presentations on tru2way at a
CableNET Theater.
CableNET participants that will be demo'ing interactive TV-related
technologies include:
- Digeo, which will be demo'ing its latest DVR for cable, the Moxi HD
DVR 3012. The demo will feature the box's Emmy-winning interface,
its dual digital tuning capability, and its integrated CableCARD.
According to Digeo, the new DVR includes a streamlined processor
and a high-capacity hard drive. - Digital Fountain, which will be demo'ing DF Splash, billed as an
end-to-end solution that streamlines the most complex elements of
delivering and measuring a high-quality video experience. According to
the company, the technology provides viewers with an instant-on,
full-screen, TV-quality experience, and significantly improves "the way
we watch streaming video over the Internet." - EchoStar Technologies (i.e. the company that was formerly the
hardware arm of the satellite TV provider now called DISH), which
will demo SlingModem, a product it acquired through its recent
purchase of Sling Media. According to the company, the product is the
first DOCSIS cable modem to fully integrate the place-shifting
capabilities of the original Slingbox. It is billed as allowing viewers to
watch and control their TV programming on any Internet-connected
computing device just as they would in front of their livingroom
television set. - Motorola, which will be demo'ing its MTR700 Tuning Adapter.
According to the company, the product connects unidirectional UDCP's
(in this case, a TiVo device) to a cable network, accessing multimedia
content in the cable network's switched digital video tier. It says the
demo will showcase "seamless tuning of the TiVo device across both
broadcast and SDV tiers." - Oversi, which will be demo'ing its OverCache multi-service caching
and content delivery platform for Internet video and P2P traffic.
According to the company, the platform enables cable operators to
relieve heavy network congestion, while improving customers' quality
of experience and monetizing over-the-top video traffic. - Pixel3 (formerly Clique Communications), which will be demo'ing
ImageIQ, an application which is billed as taking SD video and
upgrading it to HD quality. The company claims that the resulting
video "is not just a scaled-up version of low-definition content, but an
actual, full-bandwidth 1080p image" with high-frequency detail. - Samsung, which will be demo'ing downloadable conditional access,
and digital program insertion for advertising. - Sigma Designs, which will be demo'ing an integrated, tru2way-based
set-top box that features four narrowband tuners that can display three
video channels (HD as well as SD). According to the company, the
tuners can be linked to enable channel bonding based on DOCSIS 3.0,
enabling high-speed throughput. - Softel-USA, which will be demo'ing its MediaSphere TX carousel
playing both tru2way and ETV applications, as well as what it
describes as the "flexibility and ease-of-use" of the system's Web-based
configuration tools. According to the company, the carousel has been
integrated with Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta headends and set-tops,
and with various automation, scheduling and billing systems. The
company also bills its MediaSphere product line as fully supporting
DSG delivery via GigE and ETV I04 updates. - Symmetricom, which says it will be demo'ing "the importance of
video QoE from a viewer's perspective." According to the company,
mean opinion scores from a streamed video signal, along with video
quality results, will be displayed to indicate perceptual video quality,
and validate video quality as perceived by end-users. - Synacor, which will be demo'ing various new features of its consumer
portal, including Web DVR scheduling. - thePlatform, which will be demo'ing an integrated delivery
framework, jointly developed with Cisco Systems, that it claims gives
service providers a mechanism for seamless delivery of broadband
video to multiple screens. The company says it will also be exhibiting
technology that allows cable operators and programmers to create a
branded, customized broadband video channel "in minutes," and that
can also manage the entire logistics process and enhance the overall
online video experience. - UniSoft/Strategy & Technology, which will be demo'ing various
aspects of tru2way and ETV application creation, testing and delivery.
The demos will include the company's TSBroadcaster 2.0 delivering
multi-service transport streams containing a number of OCAP and ETV
applications; ETV-based ad insertion and splicing; validation of ETV
and OCAP applications using XFSI's XAV; OCAP benchmark testing
using Sofia's OCAP Benchmark system; and generation of
authenticated OCAP applications using UniSoft's OCAP Security File
Generator. - Zodiac Interactive, which will be demo'ing its tru2way Zidget
framework, which utilizes a plug-in architecture to support such
applications as local search, weather, traffic, sports scores, and local
news, without disrupting the TV viewing experience.