LOUISVILLE, Colo. – CableLabs’ recent multi-faceted Advanced Advertising Interop successfully demonstrated interoperability across a number of advertising interfaces as envisioned by industry standards and specifications.
Held in conjunction with the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) DVS/Working Group 5 and Canoe Ventures LLC, the weeklong interop sought to further the capability to deliver new and compelling forms of advertising on cable.
Companies that participated in the interop include Alcatel-Lucent, Alticast, ARRIS, Avail-TVN, BigBand Networks, BlackArrow, FourthWall Media, Nielsen, OpenTV, SeaChange, Sigma Systems, Softel, Strategy and Technology (S&T), Texscan, This Technology, and UniSoft.
Collectively, these companies brought many capabilities to the interop, including ad campaign managers, ad decision servers, ad managers, content information systems, placement opportunity systems, subscriber information service, content marking systems, ad splicers, Enhanced TV (ETV) streamers, EBIF™ user agents, and ETV applications implementing the CableLabs Stewardship and Fulfillment Interface (SaFI) specification.
“Software and hardware developers are continuing to show significant advances in bringing emerging advanced advertising standards to ‘life’ through open, interoperable systems that give the cable operators flexibility in new product deployment,” said Paul Woidke, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Advanced Advertising for OpenTV, and Chairman of DVS/Working Group 5, the SCTE committee that is working on advanced advertising. “All of us in the development community appreciate the efforts of CableLabs to provide the environment and resources in which these tools can be tested and proven through our joint efforts.”
“The widespread adoption and implementation of these standards such as SCTE 130 as well as the SaFI specifications are critical for Canoe’s market deployments,” said Arthur Orduña, CTO of Canoe Ventures. “We applaud both the participating companies and our good partner, CableLabs, for yet another successful interop, which we are proud to have co-sponsored.”
The primary focus of this interop was to prove interoperability of the SCTE 130 interfaces. It was a true working interop where new integration relationships were formed. In addition to ad insertion into linear channels, the participants demonstrated inserting addressable advertising into VOD content as well as dynamic ETV application insertion.
Another goal of the interop was to develop profiles for SCTE 130 and the CableLabs Stewardship and Fulfillment Interfaces (SaFI). “A new feature in this interop was our first use of an SCTE 130 emulator tool,” said Don Dulchinos, Senior Vice President of Advertising and Interactive Services. “The tool will help us define recommended practices for SCTE 130 equipment, establish a roadmap toward better compliance testing, and ultimately help MSOs assemble scalable solutions for ad insertion,” he added.
“We are extremely encouraged to see the progress toward interoperability, not only in the VOD space but also in the linear space for advanced advertising,” said Terri L. Swartz, Director of Advertising Technology at Cox Communications, who attended the open house event held Thursday during the interop.
CableLabs’ interoperability events provide vendors with an informal, laboratory setting in which they have the opportunity to test their latest products within CableLabs’ headends and testing environment, determine compliance with industry specifications and the ability of their products to interoperate with other devices in an end-to-end system. Information on all CableLabs activities focused on advanced advertising technology, along with information on industry standards, may be found at www.advancedadvertising.tv. Vendors working on advanced advertising technology and formats should contact Sheila Keller, s.keller@cablelabs.com, Vendor Relations Program Coordinator at CableLabs, for information on how to participate in future interops.
The SCTE standards program provides an ANSI-accredited forum for the development of technical specifications supporting the cable telecommunications industry. “Working Group 5” of the SCTE Digital Video Subcommittee focuses on the development of advertising related digital cable television standards. SCTE Standards information is available at its web site: www.scte.org.
Canoe Ventures LLC is a company founded by the nation’s leading cable operators including Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems Corporation, Charter Communications, Inc., Comcast Corporation, Cox Communications Inc., and Time Warner Cable. Based in New York City, the company is focused on making cable’s advanced advertising solutions easier to buy, use and measure—www.canoe-ventures.com.
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.
