Comcast announces open cable standards one day early

Comcast Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts is slated to give a keynote speech at CES, and according to an Associated Press story this morning, he's going to be speaking about the "tru2way" initiative.

Sharon Fisher, BetaNews Senior CES Analyst: Formerly known as OpenCable or OCAP, the purpose of the specification is to enable electronics manufacturers to make industry-standard equipment regardless of the cable provider. Such compatibility would also make it easier to develop equipment that can transmit back to the cable network as well as receive from it (hence the '2way' part of the name), which would provide interactive services.

Roberts is expected to announce that Comcast will support the platform, which it has been working on since 1997, in all its markets by the end of the year, according to the article. Other vendors, such as Time Warner Cable, are supposed to be doing the same.

This would mean televisions and other equipment could include the technology currently contained in set-top boxes, and would make changing providers and exchanging set-top boxes less of a chore.

Lest you think this is altruism on the part of cable vendors, they're actually hoping to forestall a plan by the Federal Communications Commission, announced last summer, to standardize two-way compatibility between consumer electronics and cable providers. If cable providers can prove that they can play nicely with consumer electronics vendors, they're hoping the FCC will consider the issue solved and won't impose some other system or regulations.

Panasonic is also expected to announce a number of products compatible with the specification, including a plasma HD television, high-definition digital video recorders, and a portable DVR. The TV will ship this year and the recorder will ship early next year.

Tim Conneally, BetaNews: Sharon, here's the latest: Brian Roberts joined Panasonic President Toshihiro Sakamoto during this morning's Panasonic keynote speech, one day early. The announcement is that Panasonic and Comcast have created what used to be "OCAP," and what is, like you said, now being called "tru2way."

This will be rolled out nationwide, Roberts said. It'll give viewers access to live feeds and high-definition on-demand video, for interactive digital and cable-ready devices, through an open cable architecture.

The TVs themselves will be available next year, he added, directly implying that Panasonic's TVs will not need set-top boxes -- the functionality will be built in. Alternately, there will be some set-top boxes with their own LCD screens for other models, that can apparently be integrated "whenever and wherever" a component recognizes the wireless standard, for what Roberts is calling "AnyPlay."

One such component in this line-up will be a DV-R that lets you watch and record content, again, "whenver and wherever." A new IPTV broadcasting service will be part of the lineup, as part of Panasonic's new line of wirelessly connected displays called Viera (almost, but not quite, named after Meredith). It'll let users view news, weather, YouTube videos, and Picasa images.