CableNET Glimpses the Future – for the 15th Time – a preview of the annual technology showcase that began back in 1993 at the old Western Show

NCTA's Unflappable Eye of the Hurricane – a profile of Barbara York, NCTA's senior Vice President of Industry Affairs and organizer of The Cable Show

The Industry’s Convergence, the Consumer's 'Flow' – The Cable Show's co-chairs George Bodenheimer and Pat Esser offer a preview of this week

20 Years On, a New Climate – editorial by Cox's Pat Esser

Cable Tech Execs Talk OCAP – article on cable operators' rollout of OCAP

McSlarrow Preaches Calm Amidst Chaos – an interview with Kyle McSlarrow, NCTA's President & CEO, about cable’s legislative outlook

NCTA: Cable “Just Scratching Surface” of VOD – coverage of the panel “Cable 2.0: Growing Cable’s Next Business Opportunity”

Convention Speakers Call for Broadband Partnerships – article on the Town Hall of state & local regulators, mentioned previously

This year brought the first OCAP Developer’s Conference, which finished at noon today. As you can see from the photo, it turned out to be a standing-room-only event, attracting more than 300 attendees. Cable industry vet and tech expert Leslie Ellis was kind enough to share a few highlights from yesterday with me.

After a two-hour primer on OCAP (highlighted previously), the first panel featured four operators: Mike Hayashi, Time Warner; Chris Bowick, Cox; Arthur Orduña, Advance/Newhouse (Bright House Networks); and James Mumma, Comcast. Cox has OCAP in two markets now, with plans for five systems by year's end and a national footprint by the first half of '08. Time Warner Cable's set-tops will be OCAP or OCAP-capable by July 1, '07 and they will hopefully be in trial by year-end; Brighthouse is in a similar position. Comcast is ramping up to support an 80% footprint by year-end '08, with trials up in Denver, CO; Union, NJ; and parts of Boston, MA.

Some of the OCAP applications that are on the table so far include: ordering & changing cable services, email, bill payment, games, caller ID on TV, voting/polling capabilities in live TV, the ability to rewind live TV to the beginning of a show without having remembered to record it on your DVR.

Several sessions looked at applications development, from design to delivery. One interesting term was used: squeezeback, which which refers to what happens when an interactive application changes the size of the video currently displaying on the TV screen. For example, one might try to determine whether to do a squeezeback or an overlay in such a situation.

Some design tips were offered. When new content pops up on-screen, developers should be cautious with the transparency of the pop-up, since such transparency, although very elegant looking, is very processor-intensive. It pays to keep load times down as much as possible; while an instantaneous response is not necessarily realistic, there are compromises that can be made such as removing heavy graphics from the content. Developers were cautioned to keep it simple. As Comcast's Gerard Kunkel warned, "The more interesting you think you’re making it by adding features – chances are that you’re making it more complicated for the consumer."

A panel offering a business and deployment overview of OCAP, gave a glimpse of the complexity of OCAP rollout, courtesy of Cox's Steve Calzone. He began by saying, "I will talk about the highly technical nature of the onramp to OCAP."

He then proceeded: "You have the headend, including VOD and out-of-band, servers, multicasters, point-to-point asynchronous messaging, then the back office components in billing systems and load balancers and XMOL translation, and the on-demand assets identification interfaces." In light of all this, he offered this advice: "Minimize complexity."

- Paul Rodriguez

This morning, NCTA held a Town Hall meeting, entitled "Local & State Official Talk Telecommunication Policy." There was discussion of broadband deployment, which local officials are increasingly focusing on. Virginia State Delegate Terry Kilgore addressed the challenges with deployment and adoption of broadband access in rural areas.  He pointed out that there is great difficulty in attracting a redundant broadband infrastructure without businesses driving the technology deployment. Pennsylvania State Rep. Curtis Thomas believes that what is needed is a path to adoption through public-private partnerships.  Communities should encourage companies to invest and restrain public policy that hampers such investment. Massachusetts Senator Michael Morrissey addressed the challenges of low population density.  For example, in areas of Massachusetts, there are great distances between homes, and wiring them together is expensive.  He believes that tax policy to encourage investment should be explored.

Florida State Representative Rene Garcia expressed the belief that local government is closest to the people.  Over the years, cable has been a good local partner investing in communities.  Therefore, state and federal efforts to move the authority away from local government will lead to less broadband deployment rather than more. Rhode Island Rep. Peter Kilmartin said that while government moves slowly, technology moves much faster.  Local authority should govern with a light touch, and not hamper an industry that moves so quickly.

- Michael Turk

As part of the Supplier Diversity Connection Workshop (mentioned previously), Shelley Stewart Jr. addressed WMBEs about how to tap into new business opportunities. Stewart is senior vice president of operational excellence and chief procurement officer at Tyco International, a global, diversified company that provides services in four key areas: Electronics, Healthcare, Fire & Security, and Engineered Products. You can read a profile of him that appeared in Purchasing magazine.

Stewart attacked the perception that women- and minority-owned businesses are not competitive. He countered that claim by pointing out, "I have big suppliers who are not competitive and need extra TLC." He cautioned that supplier diversity efforts should not be top-down, but a part of a company's overall strategy. He said that he liked to "..put it in the drinking water."

As WMBE's approach companies to get business, Stewart said they have to focus on how they will add value and not simply champion themselves as a woman or a minority. He said, "Show value and drive costs down and you will grow your business." A company doesn't want to be in the position of finding some special way to bring in a minority business. Instead, make it a value proposition.

- Paul Rodriguez

Trade magazine reports stemming from Sunday’s OCAP Developer’s Conference focused, predictably, on the business models and deployment hurdles tied to an interactive TV technology that’s only beginning to get its legs. It was probably the right take from a skeptical-reporter standpoint, but I think it ignores the signature takeaway of the day: This stuff looks freakishly good on the screen. Having gotten a sneak preview of some of the design work going on with OCAP-fed TV navigation screens yesterday, I’m afraid it’s all over between me and my clunky DirecTV guide. (Sorry, cable people, but in the apartment complex where I live, it’s DirecTV or nothing.) Today’s generations of staid, workmanlike, immobile grids depicting what’s on TV are going to pale badly in comparison to some of the stuff that we saw yesterday from the OCAP people.

Screen designs showed off by Dale Herigstad of Schematic (an interactive TV design firm) blended rich, layered constellations of animated graphics that moved in and off screen with a grace and confidence rarely seen in today’s prevailing generations of TV on-screen navigation platforms. It was sort of like watching Star Wars for the first time (without any enhancements) and realizing a whole new array of possibility was emerging in the way stuff was going to look on the screen from here on out.

OCAP gives creative people a new palette of colors, graphic arrangements and visual possibilities to work with. Herigstad, who helped design screens for Time Warner’s early-era Full Service Network in Orlando, calls his firm’s approach a “fluid interface,” and that seemed right on. Stuff moves, twists and responds to user commands in smart ways.

Knowing the TV world is morphing into a place where there are thousands of program choices available at any moment, early OCAP developers are conquering by division: They’re reducing the deep maw of television into manageable chunks organized by different strata: networks, genres, times, whatever. The point is, it responds quickly, looks great (at least in the canned demos that appeared on screen at yesterday’s presentations) and elevates the world of navigation display to something modern, nuanced and cool. “Think layered,” was Herigstad’s advice to aspiring OCAP designers, and it seems as if he’s onto something. Taking the new-age TV guide from flat to multi-dimensional – with some typographical animation tossed in to keep things lively and always available at a click – is a smart idea that looks great. May it visit a TV set near you soon.

- Stewart Schley

Mike Grebb is a cable hack. He's Executive Editor of CableFAX Daily and a technology editor at Cable World. He's done his time at such trades at Communications Daily and the late Cablevision magazine, among others, and has also written for Wired, Business 2.0 and Forbes. But aside from that, he's also a musician and songwriter.

He's been playing guitar since the age of 15, did his time in a high school band, played parody songs with a comedy troupe, done the solo thing, the band thing, the solo thing again. His first solo record, Resolution, was released in February 2005. If you live in Washington, D.C., you've had multiple opportunities to see him perform, with the band Oddbox or on his own. But now you'll get a chance to see him perform live in Vegas, opening up for K.C. & The Sunshine Band as part of the closing night party.

I asked Mike about what we can expect from his performance. Much of the material from his album is designed for a rock band, whereas he will be playing solo acoustic guitar on Wednesday night. So, he has ended up only selecting one song from the Resolution album, a few older pieces and will actually be debuting some new material. He's picked from his upbeat songs, in keeping with the party atmosphere. Full disclosure: I've known Mike for years and I will be there cheering him on; I hope you'll join me,

- Paul Rodriguez

In the old days, cable shows were awash in premium giveaways. But in these more frugal, efficient times, such items are far more scarce. However, I ran into Cable Positive's Steve Villano tonight at The Cable Show's media reception and he showed me the premium they've brought to the Show. At first glance it appears to be a rubber wrist bracelet, along the lines of the Lance Armstrong LIVESTRONG bracelets.

But then he snapped it opened and showed me that there's a USB drive hidden inside, which contains Cable Positive's annual report and some of their PSAs. Nice! Positive and practical.

- Paul Rodriguez