Louisville, Colorado, November 16, 2006—Thirteen companies focused on enhanced TV (eTV) and digital advertising participated in a groundbreaking interoperability event last month at CableLabs.

Highlights of the three-day event included successful splicing of eTV ads into eTV video streams; a single eTV application running on three User Agents and good interworking between eTV and digital program insertion technologies.

“We are very pleased with the results of the interop event,” said Paul D. Woidke, Vice President of Technology for Comcast Advertising Sales. “Events such as this demonstrate cable's enhanced value proposition to its subscribers and its advertisers: The technology enables advertisers to create ‘sticky’ ad opportunities similar to subscribers' Internet experiences, and it provides consumers with a unique selective opportunity to participate in the television experience in a ‘lean-forward— mode.” Woidke added: 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.”

“The results of this event surpassed our expectations,” said Don Dulchinos, Senior Vice President of Advanced Platforms and Services at CableLabs. “Coming on the heels of last year's successful blending of eTV and OCAP™ (OpenCable Application Platform), this latest interop shows great advancement by the manufacturers and programmers.”

Among the companies participating in the interoperability event were application providers Ensequence, Emuse, Time Warner Cable, CableLabs and Vidiom. Companies who are producing tools for creation and testing in eTV and digital advertising and who were part of the event were TVWorks, XFSI, Emuse and Ensequence. User Agents were provided by TVWorks, Time Warner Cable and CableLabs, and headend gear came from Softel-USA, Strategy & Technology Ltd./UniSoft; Terayon Communications, BigBand Networks Inc.; C-COR, SeaChange International, and OpenTV.

Suppliers provided a one-day demonstration for an audience comprised of representatives from programmers ABC/Disney, Discovery Communications, Fox Cable Networks, Scripps, and Starz Entertainment. Cable operators who attended the demos represented Advanced Newhouse, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Comcast Corp., Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable.

Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org, www.ebif.tv and www.tru2way.com.

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