CableLabs recently hosted a three-day "Interop," with 13 companies demonstrating new advances in enhanced TV and digital advertising technologies.
The event, held at the Louisville, Colo. CableLabs facility, included the successful splicing of eTV ads into eTV video streams; a single eTV application running on three user agents; and interoperability among eTV and digital program insertion technologies. CableLabs is a consortium of cable operators and equipment manufacturers tasked with developing interoperability among cable technologies.
Application providers included Time Warner Cable, Ensequence, Emuse, Vidium and TVWorks. Headend gear was supplied by SeaChange International, OpenTV, C-COR, Terayon, Softel-USA, BigBand Networks and Strategy & Technology Ltd./UniSoft. Representatives from ABC/Disney, Discovery, Fox Cable Networks, Scripps, Starz, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable viewed the demonstration.
"We are very pleased with the results of the Interop event," said Paul D. Woidke, vice president of technology for Comcast Advertising Sales. Blending eTV and digital advertising "is a first step to creating an interactive, measurable component to television not available from other programming packagers and distributors."
