Recent agreement by cable and CE industries on cable-DTV plug-and...

Recent agreement by cable and CE industries on cable-DTV plug-and-play standard and other DTV transition issues (CD Dec 20 p1) “was the culmination of months of negotiations” and “furthers the commitment” MSOs made in 2002 to support integrated DTV sets built to CableLabs OpenCable specifications. So said NCTA status update filed Tues. with FCC, last in series of semiannual reports to Commission on progress in implementing CEA-NCTA Feb. 2000 agreements on digital cable network interfaces and Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) navigational data and development of specifications for bidirectional DTV receivers. Letter to Commission from William Check, NCTA vp-science & technology, said status report didn’t “directly address” terms of recent plug-and-play agreement because it assumed portions would be subject of FCC rulemaking “in the near future.” Progress “has been ongoing in the 3 areas about which the Commission asked NCTA and CEA to report,” filing said. On PSIP issue, for example, Check said “each of the implementation scenarios outlined” in Feb. 2000 agreement “has been evaluated through testing now completed at CableLabs.” He said “most fundamental” scenario is for cable operator to ensure that when PSIP data are received from off-air broadcaster, they “can be carried on the cable plant,” consistent with terms of agreement reached with CE industry almost 3 years ago. Check said it was NCTA’s understanding that PSIP equipment “has been developed and is now available from several manufacturers.” Except to report progress was being made, filing broke little new ground on effort to develop bi- directional receiver specs. In announcing recent agreement on plug-and-play standard, cable and CE executives said talks would begin this month on bi-directional standards and they expected discussions would be protracted.