Although multiscreen content is the future of cable television, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cable providers would just be happy with a good catalog of HD programming, according to Joseph Nucara, founder and CEO of end-to-end video solutions partner Adara Technologies.

“Most of the tier 2 and tier 3 operators we work with will be very satisfied to get to the present,” Nucara said during a conversation at the 2012 Cable Show in Boston. “Unlike the Tier 1s who have found novel ways to add lots of HD to compete against satellite and developed their own next-generation user interfaces, Tier 2s and 3s are very much living in yesterday’s world.”

A large selection of HD content and a next-generation user interface top the list of improvements most often requested by Adara clients, Nucara said during the show.

Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators would love to offer 200 or 300 different HD offerings, he explained, but many of them can’t for technological reasons. Adara fills in the gap with its cloud-based Switch Digital Video technology, which allows more digital video using the same amount of bandwidth.

“Tier 2 and 3 operators lack the economies of scale, and usually lack sufficient resources to do it themselves,” Nucara said. “That’s what we do. We take all the complication, put it behind a curtain, so to speak, and wrap it together in the form of a service so they can provide multi screen, unlimited high definition content, applications, IPTV (News - Alert), applications and next-generation user interfaces that the tier 1 folks are really putting together themselves.”

The other most-requested service among smaller cable providers, said Nucara, is a user-interface upgrade.

This doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of customization, though.

“They recognize that their markets don’t necessarily need the extensive customization,” he noted. “But there is a number of different elements of customization that we provide as a general part of our solution that allows them to present themselves in a unified way across not just first screen, but also multi-screen thereafter. They look like themselves, not like a bunch of disparate pieces that they are pulling together.”

Multiscreen comes later.

“While a lot of them would like to get to multiscreen, that is not what is burning them a lot right now,” he said.

When Tier 2 and Tier 3 cable providers upgrade to the present and are ready for multi-screen content, however, Adara will be ready.

“We’ll be ready for it because we’re deploying it later this year,” Nucara explained.

Adara Technology, a Cisco Systems (News - Alert) partner, helps small- and mid-sized network operators with advanced video services including HD and standard definition, interactive program guides, impulse pay-per-view, digital video recorder, whole home DVR and video-on-demand, and other video services.