CableLabs to Provide tru2way Reference Implementation

US cable-industry research, development and standardization body, CableLabs, announced Thursday that it plans to release a source-code reference implementation of its tru2way specifications, in a bid to accelerate the development and deployment of tru2way devices and applications. The organization bills the move as a "key milestone" in the cable industry's deployment of a common software platform, in that it gives device manufacturers and application providers a single, compliant software stack for building tru2way-enabled products and services.

CableLabs says that, with the support of its member cable operators, it will publicly launch the reference implementation later this year, both under a free, open-source license and under a commercial license. It plans to make the reference implementation available for use on a PC, in order to make it easier for device manufacturers and application developers to design and test new features and services on the tru2way platform without having to first connect to a cable plant. As new features are added to tru2way and approved for inclusion in the spec, CableLabs plans to issue an updated version of the reference implementation and a new compliance test plan. This, it says, will enable manufacturers and app developers to incorporate these new features into their products and services easily and cost-effectively. "With CableLabs providing a reference implementation and a compliance test plan, tru2way vendors and developers will have immediate access to a common source code that implements new features and functions on the tru2way platform," Phil Won, senior director of product management at Time Warner Cable, said in a prepared statement. "This open access will greatly enhance consistency, which will be beneficial to all parties within the industry." Added Craig Smithpeters, director of interactive services engineering at Cox: "Made available under an open-source license, the reference implementation will allow the industry to work with a wider community of technology contributors who will be empowered to more rapidly implement additions or updates to the specification modeled after the example implement. This is about more new services more quickly for our customers and that's important to us at Cox."

The reference implementation will be hosted, developed and evolved in an open-source community within the OpenCable Project area of Sun Microsystems' java.net. Because tru2way is based on the Sun PhoneME Java stack (i.e. on the same Java core that powers Blu-ray and the European DVB MHP interactive TV standard), CableLabs says that the release of the reference implementation could deliver "exciting device convergence possibilities" (note: for more on these possibilities, see [itvt]'s interview with Bill Sheppard, chief digital media officer at Sun Microsystems, in Issue 8.20). CableLabs says it will also continue to support tru2way device manufacturers and developers through events such as developer conferences and interops, and by providing access to a development lab.