Collaboration Aims for VOD without a Set-Top
TANDBERG Television, Sony, Neotion and Strategy & Technology (S&T) have teamed up to deliver a VOD solution to enable cable operators to deliver network-based time-shift services and targeted ads direct to the TV set, without the need for a set-top box. The collaboration is designed to allow standard TV sets to support VOD right out of the box.
At the heart of the system is a common interface specification (CI Plus), an emerging industry standard defined by Sony and Neotion and their partners in the CI Plus Forum, which will soon be supported within 80 percent of Sony digital TV sets and approximately 70 percent of all new integrated digital TV sets.
Coupled with more secure conditional access, the interface enables applications – once downloaded from the CI Plus module – to be launched from a browser in a CI Plus TV set or other compatible receiver.
The CI Plus VOD system will be demonstrated at Cable Congress ’09 in Berlin at the TANDBERG stand (No. 21).