OnRamp the new digital TV API standard

BANGALORE - Top U.S. cable operators and technology providers today jointly announced the formation of a Java Community Process (JCP)Expert Group (EG) to develop a new Java technology-based digital television API standard - OnRamp to OCAP - targeted at legacy, resource-constrained cable television set-top boxes.

OnRamp is a Java technology-based middleware platform targeted at the legacy set-top boxes that are currently deployed in large numbers by U.S. cable companies. It will bring digital television applications including video on demand, enhanced program guides and interactivity to set-top boxes incapable of running OCAP - OpenCable Applications Platform - allowing the widespread deployment of these applications even before OCAP set-top boxes become common. In the future, most set-top boxes and digital cable-ready televisions will be built to the OCAP specification to allow the cable industry to deploy a wider range of more sophisticated interactive services.

CableLabs, Charter, Cox, GoldPocket, Liberate, Motorola, Philips, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner Cable, and Vidiom Systems are working together as members of the Expert Group to define the new specification. Upon finalization of the specification (JSR 242), OnRamp to OCAP, a profile of the J2ME CLDC technology specification, will be available to all set-top box vendors, DTV application developers and service providers.

"We are very excited that the cable industry is continuing to work together toward its goal of developing an industry standard for the development of interactive programming," said Lisa Shankle, vice president of ITV and VOD for The Weather Channel. "This will help save time and development cost, enabling us to launch robust interactive services quickly."

"OnRamp will make the interactive TV environment available on millions of legacy set-top boxes, allowing our industry to compete with iTV services deployed by DBS," said Chris Bowick, senior vice president of engineering and CTO for Cox. "OnRamp is a subset of OCAP and applications written to OnRamp will be forward compatible with our OCAP enabled devices. Cox wants to thank the other cable operators and vendors involved in the OnRamp Experts Group and others in the industry for their past and ongoing support of the OnRamp effort."

"There's a virtuous cycle in the Java ecosystem. Java technology is in over quarter billion mobile handsets. This massive volume has enabled a dynamic, worldwide ecosystem of developers, applications, and services. This vibrancy results in significant additional revenue for mobile operators and increased customer satisfaction for subscribers," said Alan Brenner, vice president, Consumer and Mobile Systems Group for Sun Microsystems. "A new J2ME-based standard for resource-constrained cable set-top boxes brings these same benefits to the cable industry, while paving the way for full adoption of the OCAP standard on new devices."

The availability of a standards-based platform will help enable cable operators to save time and money when launching new applications and services to over 30 million set-top box users in North America. As OnRamp to OCAP is a subset of OCAP, applications developed for this platform will be compatible with the full OCAP specification, providing service providers an effective bridge technology before OCAP set-top boxes become widely deployed.

A demonstration of an OnRamp to OCAP implementation will be held at Liberate Technologies' suite at the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel during the NCTA conference (May 3 - 5, New Orleans). The demonstration will consist of a set of applications from third parties, including The Weather Channel and Buzztime, demonstrating interoperability between set-top boxes running OCAP and those running prototype OnRamp to OCAP middleware.