Zodiac Unveils Interim Step to OCAP Interactive TV

Zodiac Interactive will demo software at The Cable Show ’07 that enables rich, ad-supported interactive TV applications that can run on legacy set-top boxes while still supporting the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) standard due next year.

OCAP-based iTV middleware will require considerably more processing power and memory than offered by some 70 million digital set-top boxes (STBs) currently deployed by U.S. cable operators.

To keep up with emerging iTV capabilities offered by telco IPTV services, and to satisfy more than 50 million analog cable customers who won’t want or use expensive, high-end STBs, the cable operators will “need to think interactive” soon to achieve parity, says Zodiac co-founder and COO Alexander Libkind.

Although OCAP is “clearly the future” for STB’s and future two-way, plug-and-play consumer electronics devices, a new white paper by Zodiac explains, “the industry needs some way of enabling the widespread deployment of iTV applications before the deployment of OCAP STBs hits critical mass.”

Toward that end, Zodiac’s new “OnRamp to OCAP” initiative is built on a standards-based, downloadable Java virtual machine (JVM) that optimizes the graphics, sound, memory usage, and file management performance of legacy set-top boxes (STBs), the vast majority of which were built with processing power and memory insufficient for full OCAP capability.

“With the PowerRamp specification, we allow operators to go to OCAP, but first with a migration path: You create OCAP-light applications, and when you release OCAP, it’s just another java authoring environment,” says Libkind, who projects cable operator trials of the middleware will commence later this year.

Zodiac PowerRamp middleware uses features of Sun Microsystems’ CLDC-HI JVM, which it has ported initially to Cisco/Scientific-Atlanta PowerTV operating system boxes. Zodiac also is working to port the JVM to the other most dominant legacy box, the Motorola DCT series. Zodiac is developing a hardware abstraction layer for each specific set-top to optimize the middleware for the operating environment and processing and memory constraints. As a mean, the JVM is optimized for 4 megabytes of Flash and 4 to 8 megabytes of RAM memory.

By modeling its JVM client software and its application programming interface (API) as a strict subset of the OCAP specification, Zodiac says that OnRamp to OCAP provides a clear migration path to the OCAP environment, ensuring application developers that their applications will work across a wide variety of hardware and software platforms.

Other avenues to pre-OCAP interactivity via legacy cable set-top boxes do exist in cable. Last year, CableLabs released its Enhanced TV Binary (ETV-BIF) specification for that purpose. However, that ETV spec is limited to applications bound by and directly tied to associated linear TV programming.

By contrast, Libkind says, PowerRamp middleware enables rapid development of either bound or unbound iTV apps that can run on a JVM light enough to run on legacy STBs. While a bound app might, for example, allow voting on a TV show during a broadcast, an unbound app would allow viewers to multi-task with a 1/3- to 1/4-screen application unrelated to the TV show, but not interrupting viewing of that show.

Leveraging this capability, Zodiac demos at The Cable Show will feature an iTV widget framework that supports small, unbound interactive applications, many of which may integrate Web and other services into a sidebar “Zidget” application that complements the TV experience, but does not interrupt it. Zodiac’s PowerUp authoring tool and presentation engine allowing creators to develop widgets quickly, according to Libkind.

Noting that cable competitor Verizon’s newest user experience incorporates a remote control with a dedicated “widget” button, he explains that a PowerRamp viewer also can click a single button on a standard TV remote and pull up a menu that offers a variety of Zidget applications covering news, games, sport scores, auction alerts, traffic, weather, shopping and other information and activities.

Some of the Zidgets that will be demonstrated at The Cable Show, May 6-9, in Las Vegas, include:

TVwatchME, a VOD experience allowing instant scrolling among dozens of videos at a pace faster than typical digital STB channel changes without the need for buffering or session setup on each video—an application well suited to surfing user-generated VOD services like Comcast’s Ziddeo, Libkind says.
TVLocalSearch, allows subscribers to find and call local businesses from their TV using a standard TV remote control. In addition to supporting easy eXtensible Markup Language (XML) display of advertiser-specific data like store hours and menus, Libkind notes that the search service is free to consumers and provides cable operators with greater advertising shelf-space. “With this framework,” he says, “they can add value to their local ad sale.” Although the demonstration will be powered by Yahoo! Local Search, any local listing service can be connected to TVLocalSearch.
TVcallME, like Internet click-to-call applications, allows TVLocalSearch users to connect to local businesses via VoIP, earning operators a transactional fee per call.
TVPhoto lets users view photos from sharing sites such as Yahoo! Flickr, enjoy full screen slideshows of favorite photos, and navigate through and select photos based on a given tag, category or keyword. At The Cable Show, Zodiac will utilize Flickr but says any photo feed can be connected to TVPhoto.
Casual Games that incorporate multi-player capabilities, high-resolution graphics and high quality sound enhancements and that are designed to support in-game advertising, which allows advertisers and marketers to insert their brand or messages into the games. Zodiac also will show how cable subscribers can send their favorite TV game to their mobile phone with the TV remote control.

Libkind says Zodiac also is expanding its pre-OCAP initiative ecosystem through partners like Sun and Cisco on instant VOD session set-up and SkyWorks on ad-supported games.

Cable’s existing generation of digital STBs was “designed for linear broadcast, program guides and VOD, so all the other stuff is kind of an afterthought,” he says. “As telcos roll out richer, interactive services, for cable to maintain just parity, we have to think interactive. We have to think widgets. Can the hardware and operating system support it? That is where PowerRamp comes in.”