ANGA Cable 2012 – Cologne. SmarDTV and Wiztivi are introducing VOD for cable networks by combining CI Plus and HbbTV.
The companies intend to launch the first CI Plus SmarCAM with Cable VOD in 2012.
“We believe that the addition of VOD, on top of the premium TV decryption, is a major milestone in the history of CI Plus” said Guillaume Reillon, head of product strategy at SmarDTV.
“By combining the successful CI Plus specification with the emerging European standard for interactive applications, we have the ideal solution for cable operators wishing to deploy VOD.”
The solution demonstrated at the ANGA Cable show will use CI Plus v1.2 modules along with HbbTV v1.0 with interfacing between the application and the SmarCAM module provided using standard OIPF (Open IP forum) defined interfaces. This means that the solution is entirely based on open standards and will not require specific developments for each different brand of iDTV.
“HbbTV is rapidly becoming the European standard solution for interactive services and combining it with CI Plus makes complete sense” commented Olivier Cechura, CEO at Wiztivi.
“Wiztivi is at the forefront of HbbTV system development and is delighted to collaborate with SmarDTV on this innovative project. The HbbTV VOD application demonstrated at Anga is designed to be easily customized to the requirements of the Operator, both for the User Interface, and for the VOD back-end interaction”.
SmarDTV will also provide an update of its Interoperability Partner Program (IPP) kit to allow CI Plus host vendors (iDTV & STB) to validate the compatibility and interoperability of their products with the Cable VOD SmarCAM-3.