Source : Cartt.ca

LAS VEGAS – Dominant American cable company Comcast unveiled the U.S. industry's new "tru2way" technology, the new name for the Open Cable Application Platform (OCAP), which will open up formerly closed, proprietary cable systems and allow interoperability with consumer devices.

"The age of the closed, proprietary cable box is behind us," said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, suggesting that cable-decoding hardware will soon be integrated into many devices.

(Ed note: For years, North American cable companies were either "GI" or "SA" shops, referring to the dominant box and headend manufacturers General Instrument (now Motorola) and Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco). In fact, most cablecos in the U.S. and Canada still deploy either one or the other company's boxes, despite the fact that a number of other tech companies, like Pace, for example, have made set tops that work well with either Cisco or Moto networks for years, so look for the legacy companies to continue to thrive.)

Roberts used his keynote speech – the first ever by a cable industry executive at CES – to announce the platform which was developed in partnership with Panasonic and enables cable service to be integrated directly into a variety of consumer electronics devices. Initial partners include Motorola, TiVo, Intel, Samsung Electronics, Microsoft, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Cisco Systems, and Sun Microsystems.

When consumers buy a device with tru2way, they can bring it home, plug it in, and get all interactive cable services available from a traditional set-top box.

"It's a totally different business model," Roberts said. "Virtually the entire cable industry will support tru2way by the end of this year." By that time, supported devices will already be available, he added.

The biggest consumer benefit of tru2way is that it can be built into television sets, eliminating the need for discreet set-top boxes. The platform also solves internal problems for cable providers. "Their time-to-market to upgrade an electronic program guide has been horrible because they have to write software for 15-20 different set-tops on their network. This gives them a single platform to write to," said Paul Liao, chief technology officer of Panasonic on hand for the keynote.

With tru2way, cable companies such as Comcast are complying with mandates from the Federal Communications Commission to open up their closed set-top boxes. At the same time they are seeking new ways to compete with telephone and Internet companies such as Verizon and Google who are aggressively getting into the delivery of TV and video.

There are no such mandates in Canada from our Commission.

"We will enable tru2way for future Windows Media Center PCs without the need for a set-top box," Roberts said. "All cable content including video-on-demand and electronic program guides will be available to the Media Center ecosystem," he said.

Until now, the Consumer Electronics Association wanted a simpler approach called DCR Plus, which, the cable industry argues, is limited in scope and would require reengineering just to get systems ready for it. How the CEA will respond to the tru2way initiative is still unclear.

In order to participate in tru2way and build interactive devices based on the platform, CE firms must sign the CableLabs CableCARD Host Interface Licensing Agreement (CHILA).

As an example of the kind of new devices the tru2way standard enables, Roberts, along with Toshihiro Sakamoto, president of Panasonic's AVC Networks company, unveiled a set-top box that users can take with them. The AnyPlay DVR -- announced by Panasonic at CES, but not available until early 2009 - is designed to slide out of a docking station on the set-top box and has a pop-up screen, so you can watch it in a plane or a car.

It features 60GBs of digital video recording capacity, an 8.5-inch folding LCD display screen, and integrated stereo speakers. Dual audio headphone jacks are included to support personal viewing. When placed onto a companion docking station that functions as a standard DVR set-top box, the AnyPlay P-DVR lets viewers watch and record their favorite television programs from their television sets. However, unlike a traditional set-top box, it can be taken out of its docking station, so recorded programs can be watched anywhere in or out of the home on the AnyPlay P-DVR. It also can playback DVDs and audio CDs.

"This is a historic step for both Comcast and Panasonic in delivering to consumers a product that gives them a far more expansive benefit as a Comcast customer," said Sakamoto. "When Panasonic began developing the portable DVR platform, we focused on creating a product that would give consumers flexibility in enjoying their recorded content wherever and whenever they wanted to."

Roberts also unveiled Fancast, a TV-and-movie search site that the company hopes will become one of the Internet's top entertainment destinations.

Fancast will allow consumers to search for content from most major networks and a myriad of video sources, with the option to view the selected items on TV, the computer or DVD. In addition, the service offers remote DVR recording capability, meaning consumers can direct their television to record shows from a PC or handheld device (an option Videotron already offers, actually). In the future, Comcast plans to enable access to the web site through the customer's television set.

"The problem is that people don't know how to get their hands on something," says Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media. "We thought, let's give consumers a one-stop shop."

The company also announced details of its coming DOCSIS 3.0 modem connection technology, the next generation successor to broadband. Wideband, as Comcast has termed it, transmits at 100 Megabytes per second (Mbps), roughly fifty times the speed currently available, with the potential to reach 160 Mbps. While current cable connections typically run around 5 Mbps, fibre optic systems like Verizon's FiOS boast 100 Mbps capability (because Verizon, unlike most other North American telcos, decided to rebuild its network to fibre to the home or nearly FTTH). Roberts said that Comcast's intention is to offer wideband to consumers this year. Cable companies, however, can handle the speed on their hybrid fibre coax networks.

"It's the content hungry consumer's dream," Roberts said. "With user-generated content, there's the possibility of millions of choices. You'll never want to get off the couch."

Comcast's On Demand service has already made it the largest provider of mostly-free on-demand TV shows and movies in the world. The system receives 275 million requests a month, and has served over 6 billion shows, movies and clips. By the end of 2008, Roberts said, there will be more than 1000 HD "choices" on demand.

Furthermore, Roberts stated that Comcast plans to offer 1,000 HD screening choices by the end of 2008 to its cable subscribers. Additionally, a new architectural structure for its cable system called Project Infinite will make putting up 6,000 movies, with 3,000 of them in HD, possible. The development of Infinite means that Comcast will deliver any conceivable video from any type of business model.

Phew. That was one newsy keynote.

John Bugailiskis is Cartt.ca's consumer electronics editor and is in Las Vegas this week covering the Consumer Electronics Show.

Cartt.ca Copyright Notice: The above article was published in the Jan 9, 2008 issue of Cartt.ca. For subscription information, visit the Cartt.ca website.