Details Released on Progress

First Draft Sent for Comment to Over 400 Vendors Who Have Agreed to Non-Disclosure

Louisville, Colorado, March 5, 2001—Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs®) has released for comment the OpenCable™ Application Platform (OCAP), or middleware software, specification. This collection of specifications establishes a road map for companies from around the world to create applications for interactive services that operate seamlessly over the broadband cable network.

In addition, by adding software interfaces to the existing OpenCable hardware platform, OCAP provides consumer electronics manufacturers even greater ability to build and market set-top boxes or integrated television receivers directly to consumers. These devices enable the same services available on set-tops provided by the cable operator.

Consumer electronics manufacturers receiving the draft OCAP specifications can participate in the development of the specification. Attached is a list of approximately 120 NDA companies who attended a recent OpenCable Developer's Conference. So far a number of consumer electronics companies have worked with CableLabs and its members to build OpenCable-based product.

CableLabs and representatives from a number of its member cable operating companies worked with many of the world's leading software firms to produce these OCAP specifications. The specification enables cable to merge the power of the World Wide Web with cable's broadband capacity, creating an interactive television delivery mechanism to provide enhanced services to cable customers.

The specification has two major components: an Execution Engine (EE), which will provide a programmable environment, and a Presentation Engine (PE), similar to a Web browser, which will provide support for creating and using the Web's standardized markup and scripting languages, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and ECMAScript.

Sun Microsystems was the lead contributor on the EE, while Liberate and Microsoft served as the lead contributors on the PE. Canal Plus, OpenTV, and PowerTV were additional key contributors to the specifications.

These companies and others will help the cable industry to advance its interactive digital services to its customers. By working with industry experts in both cable modem (DOCSIS™) and digital set-top devices (OpenCable™) arenas, CableLabs has a proven record of completing complex specification development, which has delivered open, widely supported interface specifications for interoperable equipment for the cable industry.

"The release of these specifications puts cable on a road to welcome set-top software from companies located around the world. It also provides for a smooth migration for first generation interactive services being deployed today onto this even more capable OCAP platform," said Time Warner Cable CEO Joseph Collins, who also is Chairman of the CableLabs Board of Directors.

"We continue to receive great support from the computer industry and from the consumer electronics manufacturers in this enormous undertaking to get open hardware and software specifications," said Brian L. Roberts, Comcast Corporation President and a member of the CableLabs Board of Directors.

"This process will soon give the CE community even more incentive to go full steam ahead into competitive manufacturing of set-top boxes. The faster we can get their input, the faster we can move to final specifications," said Dr. Richard R. Green, CableLabs President and CEO.

Because many elements of OCAP are adapted from work that is nearing completion elsewhere, some companies have announced that first implementations of the middleware will be available by summer 2001. It is contemplated that these OCAP implementations will be deployed in consumer set-tops, digital televisions and other devices shortly thereafter.

The OCAP specification has been submitted to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for consideration as an international standard. What this means is that when applications are written to this specification, they can be supported by cable systems throughout North America and the world. The CableLabs OCAP effort has been coordinated with Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) developers and with the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), two other groups which are developing middleware platforms for digital services. CableLabs intends to continue working with these groups in order to eliminate issues of incompatibility among these software efforts.

The PE and EE specifications consist of open, royalty-free application program interfaces for content. This will allow any vendor to develop a compliant middleware implementation that will work on any hardware operating system. Thus, the compliant implementation can be sold directly to developers of OpenCable-compliant set-top boxes, television receivers, and other digital devices in the home. Indeed, it is hoped that those companies will participate in the specification drafting and review process that precedes adoption of any OpenCable specification.

This specification will allow cable customers to take full advantage of the developer community providing interactive technology for the World Wide Web. At the same time, the emerging community using Java technology will be enabled by this middleware and can advance applications and services that will run interchangeably on cable systems worldwide.

OCAP is a separate effort from the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum (ATVEF) content specification, but OCAP does call for support and extension of ATVEF as a part of the PE requirements.

OpenCable is an interoperability initiative supported by more than 400 cable television companies, software technology companies, and hardware manufacturers. OpenCable is managed through CableLabs with a goal of attaining interoperable digital set-top boxes and other advanced digital devices manufactured by multiple vendors. OpenCable reached its initial goal of a common hardware platform in mid-2000, with the availability of interoperable Point-of-Deployment (POD), or removable security, modules.

A list of companies participating in the developers conference follows.

• AdExact Corporation
• AT&T Broadband
• ATI Research
• BeComm Corporation
• BigBand Networks, Inc.
• Broadbus Technologies Inc.
• Broadcom Corporation
• CableLabs
• Canal+ US Technologies
• Canon Information Systems
• CastleNet
• C-Cube Microsystems
• Centre ITV Partners
• Circuit City Stores, Inc
• Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Comcast
• Conexant Systems, Inc
• Coresma (formerly NetGame)
• Data Distributions Corporation
• Digital Video Arts
• Diva Systems Corporation
• Ellacoya Networks
• EnjoyWeb
• Excite@Home
• Eye 2 Buy Technology Company
• Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
• Gartner Solista
• GoldPocket Interactive
• Grundig Digital Systems
• Hamilton Technologies
• Hewlett Packard
• Hitachi America Ltd
• Hitachi Home Electronics America
• Hughes Network Systems
• IBM
• ICTV
• Infineer, Inc.
• Intellocity
• Interact-TV, Inc.
• Interlink Electronics
• Internet TV Network America
• ITV Strategy & Production
• Jovio, Inc.
• Keen Personal Media, Inc.
• KPMG
• LG Electronics
• Liberate
• Livewire, Inc.
• LSI Logic
• Macromedia, Inc.
• MARGI Systems
• MetaTV
• Microsoft
• Microtune, Inc.
• Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America
• Motorola
• Nagravision
• Navic Networks
• NCTA
• nCUBE
• NDS
• NetTV/Lumenati
• Nielson Media
• OpenTV
• Oxford Semiconductor
• Pacific Broadband Communications
• Panasonic Technologies, Inc.
• Philips Electronics/Research
• Philips Digital Networks
• Philips Semiconductors
• PowerTV
• PRISMedia
• Probita Inc.
• Qbeo
• Qpass
• Quantum Corp
• Rachis Corporation
• RespondTV
• Rogers
• RQ Interactive, Inc.
• Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. Ltd.
• Samsung Electronics
• Sarnoff Corp.
• Scientific-Atlanta
• SCM Microsystems
• Seagate
• ShareWave, Inc
• Sharp Electronics
• Sharp Laboratories of America
• SNAP2 Corporation
• Sony Electronics Inc.
• Sony Semiconductor & Devices Europe
• Sony TSO
• SSH Communications Security, Inc.
• STMicroelectronics Inc.
• Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Tech-X Corporation
• Telcordia Technologies, Inc.
• Telecruz
• TeraLogic, Inc.
• Terayon Communication Systems
• Texas Instruments Inc.
• Thomson Multimedia
• Time Warner - Prasara
• Time Warner Cable
• Toshiba America Information Systems
• Tranceive
• Triveni Digital, Inc
• Ucentric Systems
• UniSoft Corporation
• Universal Electronics, Inc.
• Verance Corporation
• Verizon Laboratories
• Vertigo Multimedia Inc.
• Vidiom Systems
• Wind River Doctor Design Services
• ZAQ.iTv

About CableLabs: Cable Television Laboratories (www.cablelabs.com) was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. A non-profit research and development consortium, CableLabs delivers innovations that enable cable operators to be the providers of choice in their markets. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains web sites at www.cablelabs.com; www.packetcable.com; www.cablemodem.com; www.cablenet.org, and www.opencable.com.

CableLabs® is a registered trademark of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. Other CableLabs marks are listed at http://www.cablelabs.com/certqual/trademarks. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.