[June 06, 2011]

CableLabs® Demonstrates Newest Advertising Specifications

Eleven suppliers collaborated at an interoperability lab event held May 23-27 at CableLabs (News - Alert) to demonstrate the latest SCTE-130 and SaFI 2.1 advanced advertising specifications.

The event consisted of two video on demand (VOD) servers which were supported by several ad management servers (ADMs) and ad decision servers (ADSs). Video content was stored in these systems, and each participant could utilize their software interfaces to dynamically insert advertisements into the VOD sessions.

Participants at the interop included: Ad-ID LLC, Arris (News - Alert), Avail TVN, Canoe Ventures LLC, Ericsson, Harris Corporation, The Nielsen Company, Sigma Systems, S&T, This Technology LLC and Unisoft.

As part of its SCTE-130 Emulator Project, CableLabs provided its Document Profile Architecture (DPA) Toolset which helps the industry formalize interoperability criteria. Additionally, the participants brought other SCTE-130 components, such as subscriber information services (SIS) or placement opportunity information services (POIS) and had the opportunity to validate how their interfaces interacted with the other SCTE-130 implementations.

One of the major accomplishments of this interop was demonstrating the ability to run interactive applications within VOD content by following the latest version of the proposed Stewardship and Fulfillment Interface (SaFI) 2.1 specification. One of the technical details was the inclusion of a VOD server playing an advertisement with a pre-bound interactive RFI (News - Alert) (request for information) application. The RFI data was processed in an aggregator at which point the data may be accessed by the appropriate cable operator.

"The interp's results are valuable to cable operators, programmers and advertisers," said Don Dulchinos, Senior Vice President of Advanced Platforms & Services, CableLabs. "Providing a national footprint where advertisers can dynamically place ads on cable VOD assets has been a goal for a number of years. With the introduction of dynamic advertising into cable operators' VOD libraries, consumers will ultimately benefit through an expanded choice of VOD titles," he added.

"The progress made during the CableLabs interop week was significant, and we are pleased to support these events in our role as the national stewardship platform for dynamic ad insertion in on-demand content," said Bruce Dilger, Vice President of Advanced Advertising Architecture, Canoe Ventures. "There's no substitute for this level of hands-on teamwork within the technology community. Moving forward from this event, we have deployed our latest ADS software revision at the CableLabs facility to continue integration with vendors through CableLabs' Ad Lab and the Canoe Innovation Program."

Noteworthy in this interop was integration of the Advertising Digital Identification LLC (Ad-ID™) advertising asset identifier and metadata within the broader SCTE 130 architecture. "By tagging each advertising asset, the most appropriate ad is selected from available inventory and our metadata ensures shared identification of the advertising asset across multiple cable operators," stated Harold Geller, Managing Director, Ad-ID.

CableLabs plans to continue holding advertising related interoperability events. Future plans may include utilizing the DPA toolset to create a virtual interoperability lab. A virtual environment would benefit participants by providing a continuous development environment on a 24x7 basis.

Cable Television Laboratories was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. The Emmy Award winning laboratory is a non-profit 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. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org, www.ebif.tv and www.tru2way.com.

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