Industry suppliers got an opportunity to test pre - production and development versions of hardware and software applications from Oct. 4-8, 2010, as CableLabs (News - Alert) hosted another series of enhanced TV interoperability events, and included one day of demonstrations by the participants for an audience of cable operators.

Vendors worked in an informal, laboratory setting in which they had the opportunity to test their latest products within CableLabs' headends and testing environment, determine compliance with industry specifications and assess the ability of their products to inter-operate with other devices in an end-to-end system. 

Representatives from 21 companies, ranging from manufacturers, application developers, and implementers to cable operators, worked alongside each other to test the latest engineering changes to the ETV and the content definition format specifications. Many leading network and media companies participated.

These attendees were able to evaluate the interoperability of ETV applications and ETV user agents compliant with the I05 ETV specifications, as well as candidate features of the I06 version of the ETV specifications. 

A record number of industry guests from numerous cable operators and network programmers were treated to demonstrations showing some exciting and creative ways to use EBIF to enhance the consumer's viewing experience.

“These efforts demonstrated a significant amount of progress for the industry on I06 as well as on the CoDF specs,” Don Dulchinos, senior vice president of advertising interactive Services at CableLabs, said. 

George Peden, Ensequence Director of Services, was very pleased with the convergence of the ETV User Agents in the Interop (News - Alert), and was able to get the award-winning showtime sports interactive EBIF application working successfully across all of the user agents.  

Steve Reynolds, Senior Vice President, Premises Technology, at Comcast (News - Alert), and chair of the CableLabs Executive Technical Team overseeing the development and extension of the EBIF platform said that the event had been very timely as operators were about to bring to the market, EBIF based interactive applications.

Detailed information regarding all CableLabs activities is available at the company's advertising portal, including details regarding participation in future events.

Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a nonprofit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives.

In a related news release, CableLabs' recent multi-faceted Advanced Advertising Interop successfully demonstrated interoperability across a number of advertising interfaces as envisioned by industry standards and specifications.