A CableLabs Preview… Fox Testing 4K: ADB Upgrades Biz Offering: Smart Home: Liberty Taps ActiveVideo
CableLabs will focus its demonstrations at the Cable Show on 3 areas: WiFi, DLNA CVP-2 (Commercial Video Profile-2, which enables sharing of pay-TV content) and The Internet of Things, said a rep. The consortium won't showcase DOCSIS 3.1 but plans to integrate it into show activities in partnership with members and NCTA. The group announced the availability of the DOCSIS 3.1 PHY (physical layer) and MULPI (MAC and Upper Layer Protocol) specs last fall and since then, first versions of the Cable Modem OSSI Spec and the CCAP OOSI spec have been released. CableLabs expects rapid deployment once products are available and certified. At the show, the group will host 23 vendors demonstrating at CableNET, the industry pavilion within the main show floor. Showcased wares will include WiFi technology with speeds up of 1 Gbps or more, in light of the FCC's recent move to expand WiFi access in the 5 GHz band where 802.11ac, or gigabit WiFi, lives. Demos also include a Quality of Service solution on the WiFi air interface. Meanwhile, CableLabs' Light House demonstration “illuminates” the opportunity for diverse ecosystems to coexist and operate harmoniously. The group will use various “smart” light fixtures using technologies such as Zigbee, DLNA and Allseen from a standard remote control and an Enhanced TVB Binary Interchange Format application on a set-top box. CableLabs will also showcase several features of recently published CLNA CVP-2 guidelines including MSO HTML5 navigation, video playback with trick modes, and authentication.
Fox Networks has installed a ClearView 4K video quality analyzer in its network engineering and operations lab in LA to test the quality of new encoding products for processing 4K video, said Video Clarity, the provider of ClearView 4K analyzer. Combining high-rate playback and side-by-side analysis with perceptual video quality measurements, the service allows the net to try different bit rates on the encoding and compare the quality of encoded/decoded content to the original 4K video.
Advanced Digital Broadcast, a video tech firm that counts cable MSOs like Charter and Bright House as customers, launched a 2.0 version of its “Commercial Video Solution” that aims to allow ops to provide broadcast, IP and VOD services to businesses wanting to monetize video services using an existing residential network. The platform aims to enable ops to manage their entire footprint of CPE devices from a central location, including provisioning, real-time monitoring and reporting.
iControl Networks, which provides smart home technology to major cable MSOs, partnered with cable network equipment vendor Netgear to launch the Netgear Security Touch Screen, an Android touchscreen for iControl Connection services. The solution is expected to allow end-users to manage their connected security and home automation devices from a graphical user interface from anywhere in the home.
Liberty Puerto Rico is teaming with ActiveVideo to launch a cloud-based user interface using real-time viewing metrics to display program popularity. Leveraging the cloud UI, Liberty will deliver to existing set-top boxes a video-rich mosaic named Social Content Navigator to enable content discovery based on what's trending across communities and in areas of personal interest. According to the companies, the new UI is expected to overcome the limitations of single-tuner STBs to simultaneously display on a single screen up to 8 different live video channels. Web-based metadata provides continuously updated rankings of viewership for each of the channels. Rollout of the Social Content Navigator has begun in Liberty's Puerto Rico system. Availability to all of Liberty's 250K subs in Puerto Rico is expected by year-end.
