TV Without Borders

TV Without Borders is a web site dedicated to open standards for interactive TV. They provide tutorials and information for developers who are involved with the interactive TV industry, and who need to learn more about the current crop of open standards. Although this site is mainly aimed at the DVB Multimedia Home Platform (MHP), OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP), and JavaTV standards, there is some mention of other open standards where it's appropriate.

TV Without Borders

BLOBbox

TVBLOB LAUNCHES INTEGRATED SOFTWARE-SERVICE TV PLATFORM
IN THE HEART OF THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY

Opens Regional Asian-Pacific Office in Japan

Milan,  22 December 2008 – TVBLOB™ (www.tvblob.com), a software and services development company with a TV-centric platform that brings the power of the Web to TV, without a PC, announced the opening of an Asian-Pacific division and the appointment of Tre Zimmerman as VP Sales & Marketing. Targeting the Consumer Electronics industry, Mr. Zimmerman will bring TVBLOB's extensive software platform and integrated backend services to the heart of CE, making possible a new generation of hybrid TV - Internet devices and enabling new television business models that follow the proven successes of the Web.

Through a new kind of Internet set-top box called BLOBbox™, TVBLOB gives consumers new TV possibilities including blended DVB-T and WebTV access; HD video podcast subscriptions with automated BitTorrent® downloads; access to Web services such as YouTube®, Picasa®, and Miro®; consolidated PVR, time-shifting, and video archiving functionalities; and even TV-to-TV  content sharing and video communications, all using standard televisions and broadband connections.

For the CE industry, the TVBLOB software platform that underlies BLOBbox is already integrated on major chipsets and enables the fastest time-to-market for next generation TV devices. It offers several advantages including a fully W3C-compliant, Java-based Web browser able to support all current TV standards including MHP/DVB, Blue Ray, and Thru2way (previously OCAP); a range of Javascript extensions allowing developers to leverage the television platform

features; Client-side services including File transfer, Podcast, and BitTorrent® engines; Backend Services including box management, events recording, NAT traversal, and single user sign-on; as well as BLOBkit™ development resources and a Development Community (called “the BLOBforge™ “)to accelerate the creation of new TV services without a middleman, so that anyone can realize the next killer application on TV and become the next Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg.

“The appointment of Tre represents a critical step in our growth, as the heart of the CE lies in Asia-Pacific," said Fabrizio Caffarelli, founder and CEO of TVBLOB. "We have envisioned a new television world for sometime now and consumers expect this to come from CE. His notable experience in this market, managerial capacity, and drive are well adapted to our objective to work with CE manufacturers to bring forward a new range of Consumer Electronic devices for a new world of TV."

Mr. Zimmerman’s principal function will be to launch TVBLOB Asian-Pacific commercial operations and develop business with CE manufacturers, content producers and service providers. He has been in the digital technology industry for over 10 years specializing in mobile media & emerging technologies. Over his career, Mr. Zimmerman has served in a variety of senior management and corporate development positions at Nero, Extreme Media Pte., SID Information Technologies, and Gateway KK.

The TVBLOB Asian-Pacific office is located in Yamato-shi, Kanagawa, Japan. For more information, please visit www.tvblob.com.

Tru2Way , DVR/DVD - Comcast and Panasonic

I was supposed to have published this back in January, some how it got lost in the bit bucket.

Tru2Way DVR/DVD - Comcast and Panasonic jointly introduced AnyPlay, a portable combo tru2way DVR-DVD. It looks like a regular portable DVD player and also a DVR that works like a Tivo. It sits in your living room by the cable box and then undocks and becomes a portable DVD player with recorded TV shows or other content.

http://www.tru2way.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tru2way

Can Tru2way succeed where CableCard failed?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9953439-1.html

Other things you really should know about.

Open Cable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCable

OCAP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCable_Application_Platform

Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS

DOCSIS Set-top Gateway (or DSG)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS_Set-top_Gateway

Triple play
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_play_(telecommunications)

Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoCA