itvt

Comcast Media Center recently conducted a live demonstration of ETV/EBIF applications running on its HITS AxIS platform at the CableLabs Summer Conference (took place August 10th-13th). The applications, which were hosted at the CMC, were delivered via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to the headend for Comcast’s Summit County cable system, which then transported them over its local network to the Keystone Convention Center where the conference was being held. The apps ran on Motorola and Pace set-top boxes, and could be viewed at Pace’s and Vidiom’s exhibits at the conference. The demo represented the first end-to-end delivery of ITV applications using the HITS AxIS platform.

HITS AxIS (stands for “Headend In The Sky Advanced Interactive Services”) is a centralized platform that operates on the National Authorization System (NAS) and that is billed as being designed to support developers of advanced OCAP/tru2way and ETV/EBIF interactive TV applications and to facilitate the deployment and management of those applications on cable systems serving small- to mid-sized markets. According to CMC, the platform, which was developed in collaboration with Vidiom and TVWorks, two companies well-known for their work in the ETV/EBIF and tru2way/OCAP spaces (note: TVWorks is co-owned by Comcast and Cox), is currently supporting product development activities for a number of other ITV application developers, including Alticast, BIAP, emuse, Ensequence, NDS, Sofia Digital, Softel-USA, Strategy & Technology, Unisoft, vivoTRAK and Zodiac Interactive. Its product development services are expected to eventually encompass business modeling, licensing and application testing (both standalone and interoperability); its deployment services are expected to include configuration, hosting, affiliate sales, contract management, and product launches to HITS’ cable system affiliates; and its operations management services are expected to include application and network monitoring, updates and upgrade management, billing services and customer support, security, technical support, and disaster recovery. CMC positions the service as providing “cable system operators with an alternative to headend-based solutions for launching and supporting advanced interactive video applications,” and says that affiliates of its HITS Quantum service will be able to use HITS AxIS to offer interactive services to customers using their existing headend management systems. CMC recently announced that independent cable operator, Buckeye CableSystem (serves around 150,000 customers in Northwest and North Central Ohio and in Southeast Michigan), has signed an agreement to act as a beta site for advanced interactive TV applications that are tested, launched and supported by HITS AxIS.