Show Time: A Rundown of Some of What You'll See in Vegas

It’s hard to predict just what will draw the most buzz at this week’s Cable Show, so we won’t even try. Instead we checked in with a few of the usual suspects to see what sort of wares they’d be showing off in Vegas. Over at S-A‘s booth, the vendor will have several Web 2.0-type of demos, including putting photos from flickr up almost instantaneously onto set-tops and showing personal videos from Yahoo on set-tops. One of the more out-of-the-box things at the booth is a remote from Hillcrest Technologies that uses motion-sensing, gyration technology (like those Nintendo Wii controllers) to navigate through TV listings as opposed to scrolling through a grid. "We’re trying to show what’s possible in the future. If you have 10K hours of VOD on the server, that’s great. But if you have to shift through 1 screen at a time, that may not be ideal for consumers," said JT Taylor, dir, product strategy and marketing for S-A (Watch video of a Hillcrest interview and demo at http://www.cable360.net/events/conventions/21268.html). Another remote getting buzz is Universal Electronics‘ "Cricket Kids Remote" that is designed to restrict TV viewing to family-friendly programming. The remote comes pre-programmed with 14 large keys for small hands. Motorola will introduce Cable PON, which will deliver Passive Optical Network solutions (like what Verizon is starting to roll out) to existing cable infrastructures. It combines HFC and PON to "provide ultra broadband technology to boost cable’s competitive edge going forward," said Jeff Walker, dir product marketing, Motorola Connected Home Solutions. Moto also will announce that it successfully tested DOCSIS 3.0 services with speeds exceeding 145Mbps over StarHub of Singapore’s HFC network, using Moto products and Vyyo‘s "Ultraband" spectrum overlay. Pace will be showing off its newest CableCARD interface set-top, the Miami HD, as well as how it can upgrade its boxes to OCAP via a software download.