To accelerate U.S. cable operator awareness of the coming open standards and middleware solutions that will provide new, interactive and revenue-generating subscriber applications, Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) today announced it will show an end-to-end Multimedia Home Platform (MHP)/OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) demo. It will be comprised of ABD's own MHP/OCAP-ready digital set-top box, Sun Microsystems "Sun Blade" servers and Java software, Strategy & Technology's (S & T) head-end equipment and authoring tools, and a series of popular, revenue-generating applications including electronic program guides and video-on-demand.

The demo will be shown at the 2003 National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) annual meeting in Chicago June 8-11 at the Interactive Television association (ITA) area, S405B. The proof-of-concept, MHP/OCAP-ready, end-to-end system demo will feature an interactive, Java-based application from Gist, its OneGuide™ application, a video-on-demand application from Kasenna, Inc., and other interactive applications from Sofia Digital.

"This demo highlights revenue-generating applications that can easily be ported and utilized with MHP/OCAP technology," said Bill Luehrs, corporate executive vice president and president, Americas, for ADB. "This demo is an important first step in showing that OCAP is on the foreseeable horizon. We expect to see field trials up and running by the end of 2003," he said.

MHP/OCAP middleware delivers a variety of expanded benefits for the cable operator, including the ability to download new applications independent of the hardware vendor, consistency in the user interface and more application options.

"We are pleased to be working with these best-of-breed partners to demonstrate how an OCAP-based end-to-end digital TV infrastructure can be deployed quickly and effectively," said Manish Bhuptani, group manager for network services at Sun Microsystems. "One of the many benefits of the open standards approach for digital TV is that it enables an entire ecosystem of partners across the value chain."

The core technology for OCAP encoding and play-out is SoftOC/OCAP, provided by Strategy and Technology Limited (S&T) and offered in the US by UniSoft Corporation. This software is already capable of generating OCAP transport streams, building DSM-CC object carousels containing OCAP in-band applications and supporting out-of-band delivery. TSBroadcaster provides automatic scheduled encoding and play-out from head-ends and TSDeveloper allows application developers to author and test OCAP applications in a lab environment.

"The OCAP system being shown at NCTA incorporates many of the software requirements for creation and play-out of real OCAP content. It is available now for early adoption," said Guy Hadland, chief technology officer, UniSoft Corporation.

"Gist's OneGuide™ product is designed for the uses and flexibility demanded by enhanced television. It's an all-inclusive OCAP-based application with many features including an electronic program guide with or without DVR functionality, a video-on-demand guide, an on-screen entertainment magazine called 'TVMAG,' and APIs that enable third party iTV applications to tie into the OneGuide's TM common navigation system and take advantage of features such as parental control," said Jim Cantalini, president and chief executive officer of Gist.

About Sun

Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.

About UniSoft
UniSoft Corporation specializes in the provision of broadcast, authoring and testing tools specific to digital television standards. Currently concentrating on the DVB Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) and OCAP applications programming interfaces (APIs). Founded in 1981, UniSoft is located in Millbrae, California. For more information go to www.unisoft.com.

About Strategy and Technology (S&T)
S&T is a specialist interactive TV software supplier, working in the creation and implementation of open standards. For more information go to www.s-and-t.com.

About Gist
Gist, founded in 1996, is the leading independent developer of electronic program guides and related on-screen applications. Its products are currently in more than seven million households in the United States. For more information go to www.gist.com

About Kasenna
Kasenna is a software technology company building a standards-based video delivery platform for acquiring, managing, distributing and delivering audio and video content over IP, ATM and HFC networks. For more information, go to www.kasenna.com.

About Sofia Digital
Sofia Digital provides solutions for interactive TV across the world. It has a unique experience in launching iTV services based on open standards. For more information go to www.sofiadigital.com.