--Says New Tools Will Facilitate Creation of Advanced Interactive TV Applications for Cable
US cable-industry research, development and standardization organization, CableLabs, announced Monday that it has completed the beta development phase of its previously announced (see article published on itvt.com, April 2nd) tru2way Reference Implementation and that it has made it publicly available through the OpenCable Project area on Java.net, Sun Microsystems' open-source project site. The organization bills the release as facilitating the creation of advanced interactive applications for cable networks. "I would encourage content creators and others to visit our Java.net project site which contains a wealth of resources for tru2way application developers and device manufacturers," So Vang, CableLabs' VP of OpenCable, who led development of the Reference Implementation, said in a prepared statement. "With the addition of the tru2way Reference Implementation to the OpenCable Project site, the cable industry is opening its doors to the independent Java application developer."
According to CableLabs, the tru2way Reference Implementation is a source code implementation of the organization's OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) middleware specification that provides device manufacturers and application developers with a consistent interpretation of the spec. The Reference Implementation includes the OCAP DVR extension, CableLabs says, and future versions will track with other OCAP extensions such as Home Networking. It is accompanied by a PC Emulator, which is billed as allowing Java developers to run precompiled OCAP applications within a Windows-based PC development environment, with no headend or live cable plant required.
The tru2way Reference Implementation can be downloaded from the OpenCable Project (opencable.dev.java.net) under Gnu Public License (GPL) v2 open source license terms. Under this open source release model, CableLabs says, developers will also be able to contribute back to the evolving software code and tool base. As an alternative to the open source licensing model, CableLabs is also offering a parallel commercial license.
The release of the tru2way Reference Implementation was welcomed by various industry players, who provided quotes for CableLabs' press materials announcing the release: "Having an open source reference implementation to help developers interpret the specification will lead to a more consistent and stable
television platform across the various retail devices, and set-top boxes provided by each different cable operator," said Sree Kotay, SVP and chief software architect at Comcast. "This should improve the pace of innovation, evolution, and deployment of the tru2way platform, which in turn should enable more interactive services and features for our customers." Added Bob Fritz, VP of the communications practice at IT services company, Cognizant: "We have been involved in the beta development phase of the reference implementation and are pleased to see its public release. We have developed a prototype application using the tru2way Workbench SDK and successfully run our application on several cable set-top boxes without any technical issues at a recent CableLabs interop event. The technology marks a great leap forward for interactive TV." Added Macrovision's standards and emerging technology director, Adam Powers: "Macrovision believes this reference implementation will foster innovation, accelerate the adoption of tru2way, and be helpful to industry development, as we continue to improve the user experience through advanced interactive on-screen guides for both the cable TV and consumer electronics industries." And added Randall Waynick, Sony Electronics' SVP of marketing: "This release marks a great milestone because it will generate more tru2way content for consumers and that will translate into more tru2way presence at retail. With CableLabs providing an open source reference to its specifications, the process to collaborate among the authors of the specifications, the manufacturers of the hardware and the software developers of the applications just became more accessible."
CableLabs points out that because the tru2way specifications are based on the Sun PhoneME Java stack--i.e. the same Java core that powers Blu-ray and the DVB Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) middleware technology--the release of the new tru2way Reference Implementation "could enable exciting device convergence possibilities."
