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Viodi View Newsletter – April 13th, 2005

Local Content Workshop

Impressions of the National Cable Show

By Ken Pyle, [email protected]

With only three hours to cover a show that needs three solid days, the following is a superficial view of the things that left an impression and should be of interest to independent telcos. These impressions have been split into equipment (hardware and software) and cable programming. To some extent, these once distinct disciplines are becoming increasingly entwined, with the rise of interactive television applications. It is sort of ironic that cable programming and equipment were located in separate halls.

Equipment (hardware and software)

OCAP – The use of the OpenCable Applications Platform appears to be on the rise. OCAP is a standard that CableLabs has been driving to allow interactive television developers to effectively write once and deliver the same interactive application to multiple set-top platforms. OCAP was being touted in many booths. There were many OCAP offerings, but the one that caught my eye was from a European company, Osmosys. ADB the European set-top box maker, was showing off their set-top with the Osmosys middleware. Osmosys is about to open an office in San Jose, so we should be hearing more from them. Alticast is another company providing OCAP and DVB-MHP solutions that was new to me and is also worth closer examination.
A tool that caught my eye was from a company called Bluestreak Network. Blue Streak’s tool allows developers to use Macromedia’s Flash 7 product as an iTV development tool. Their network of developers has created games, “AdverSkins” (advertising surrounding video content) and email/chat applications. This company should be on the radar, if no other reason, than their Senior Vice President of Product Development is Guy Charbonneau. Charbonneau was doing state-of-the-art interactive applications (like directed pizza advertising and multiple camera angles) fourteen years ago when he was with Videotron.
Speaking of middleware, Sieman’s purchase of Myrio is significant. A few years ago, I thought Myrio would be a good fit for Next Level, but then Motorola came along and snapped up NLC. It will be interesting to see what Siemans does in the U.S. independent market with their acquisition of Mryio.
Siemans did have a presence at the show. Their video phone offering caught my eye. Video phones were all of the rage, as there were offerings by Ojo (the WorldGate name has apparently been dropped), Packet 8 (check out the December issue for my review) and Viseon. Viseon is making quite a bit of noise as their subsidiary, ViseonMedia, announced pilot programs with Fox News Channel and Discovery whereby those entities will supply select content that can be delivered to the screens on Viseon’s phones.

Networking over existing coaxial cable was also a big deal. There were offerings from Entropic, Coaxsys and TMT Coaxial Networks. Coaxsys has made great headway with independent telcos of late, having been deployed in over 20 telcos. TMT Coaxial Networks has been selling their multi-dwelling unit to Comcastone (Comcast’s group that is serving the hospitality industry) and are now making an assault on the residential market. Entropic, which has investments from Cox, Comcast, Time-Warner as well as many tier one venture firms, announced successful interoperability testing based on the emerging MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) standard.

What wasn’t there…the traditional RF amplifiers and other outside plant equipment that used to be a mainstay of any National Cable show. Apparently, the traditional providers of this equipment relegated this equipment to their online catalogs and did not give it any booth space. The booth space was devoted to High Definition set-tops and Digital Video Recorder solutions.

More on the programming part of the show in the next issue of the Viodi View…..

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