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–Specs Cover Converged Video and Broadband Services
–Organization Trumpets Success of its Addressable Advertising Interop

US cable industry research, development and standardization body, CableLabs, has released a set of specifications which it says defines a common set of interfaces for converged video and broadband services in a modular cable network headend. The so-called Modular Headend Architecture (MHA) specifications include the existing DOCSIS Modular CMTS specifications, as well as a series of new specs that define interfaces for narrowcast MPEG digital video services, such as VOD and switched digital video.

The new specs are the result of an effort conducted at CableLabs that involved a number of headend equipment manufacturers and cable operators. They are being billed as providing a “point of harmonization” between the Time Warner Cable-led Interactive Services Architecture (ISA) and the Comcast-led Next Generation on Demand (NGOD) architecture, both of which are used throughout the industry. “This is important because, for the first time, we have an interoperable set of specifications that will lead to integrated equipment from multiple suppliers for delivery of advanced video and data services,” Comcast CTO, Tony Werner, said in a prepared statement. Added Time Warner Cable CTO, Mike LaJoie: “Once again our industry’s suppliers have worked with us through CableLabs to achieve a common approach which benefits the whole industry and our suppliers.”

According to CableLabs, the MHA suite includes multiple specifications and an architecture overview technical report. The new specs define MPEG video processing functionality for VOD and SDV Edge Quadrature Amplitude Modulators (EQAM’s), as well as an interoperable resource management and video session set-up protocol, and an interoperable EQAM provisioning and configuration mechanism. CableLabs says that, with the addition of these new specs, the MHA suite provides a common, industry-wide approach for Universal EQAM’s, as well as for Video EQAM’s and M-CMTS EQAM’s. Cable operators, organizations and vendors that contributed to the specifications include Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Rogers, Shaw, Cable Europe Labs, ETRI, ARRIS, BigBand Networks, Broadcom, Camiant, Cisco, Harmonic, LiquidxStream Systems, Motorola, RGB Networks and Vecima Networks.

In other CableLabs news: During the week of November 10th, the organization held an Addressable Advertising Interfaces interoperability event at its laboratories. The event, which was billed as part of the technical support that CableLabs is providing to enable new forms of cable advertising, saw 15 companies demo interoperability among their products, based on SCTE 130 standards for advanced digital advertising. According to CableLabs, this is the first time that multi-company testing has been organized around these standards, and also marks an early integration of the SCTE 130 standards with the organization’s own ETV/EBIF standards for interactive TV and advertising. “We greatly appreciate the strong support and efforts by companies in this interop, as well as others who are working hard to comply with our common standards,” Paul Woidke, SVP and general manager of advanced advertising at OpenTV–who also serves as chairman of DVS/Working Group 5, the SCTE committee that is working on addressable advertising–said in a prepared statement. Added Don Dulchinos, CableLabs’ SVP of advanced platforms: “This is an important step in validating key technologies that will enable new forms of advertising.”

The companies participating in the interop event were Arris, BIAP, BlackArrow, Concurrent, Ensequence, Front Porch, Invidi, Microsoft Advertising, Motorola, OpenTV, Sigma Systems, Tandberg Television, This Technology, UniSoft Corporation and Visible World. Those companies’ products included ad campaign managers, ad decision servers, and information systems designed to support subscribers, organize content and define ad placement opportunities. According to CableLabs, the companies were able to demonstrate critical components in an end-to-end process demonstrating how an ad can be selected, dynamically inserted into a programming stream, and delivered to a digital TV customer; and how the customer responses can then be aggregated–without exposing personally identifiable information–and shared with either the cable operator or the advertiser.

CableLabs says it plans to use the interoperability event–which culminated with vendor demos that were observed by cable operators, programming providers and ad agencies–as a starting point for future activities into 2009, and that vendors specializing in digital ad insertion, placement or management should contact its senior manager of vendor relations, Phil Bender, if they are interested in participating. SCTE 130 will be key to efforts in this space, the organization says, and a number of additional parts of that standard are close to completion.