Tru2Way Off To A Rocky Start With CE Vendors

Posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 by MegaZone

While tru2way is gaining increasing support from the consumer electronics industry, a post over at IP Democracy indicates things aren’t as rosy on the implementation side. They report that people close to CableLabs claim that tru2way certification testing on Pansonic’s first tru2way-enabled TV sets was a “disaster of spectacular proportions.” Panasonic has claimed that they’ll have tru2way-enabled sets in stores this September. However:

Panasonic failed the tests, with observers reporting “dozens and dozens” of bugs, so many that they doubt a Panasonic Tru2Way TV set will be available by Christmas, much less September.

There is more in the IP Democracy post.

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MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • Glenn

    I’m shocked by this. A complex standard from a set of companies with little interest in it succeeding and built around a previous standard (CableCARD) that was pretty much an abject failure turns out not to work very well? Oh the shame of it…

  • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

    If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were being sarcastic. ;-)

  • http://comcast.com Alana at Comcast

    Comcast continues to be completely committed to tru2way. We are confident in the technology and are on track to introduce this software platform and services at retail later this year in select markets. We are working closely with multiple CE companies to bring interactive services and products to consumers. As is the case with most certification processes for new technologies, there are many steps and trials that companies need to go through before technologies are introduced to consumers. As with any innovative and complex technology, the development, testing and certification phases require work and issues will arise.

  • Glenn

    Looks like the MOU is out in public, due to it being provided to the FCC:

    http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6569858.html?desc=topstory

    If you read thru it, there’s not a lot of meat, though certainly some interesting stuff. I particularly like the part about content protection technologies (if four media companies decide that some content protection technology–think broadcast flag–is necessary, then CableLabs implicity agrees with them). Anyway, it doesn’t answer the question about whether the box would be in OCAP all the time or not, though the part about how the MSO can’t block the TV Guide data is interesting in this regard, though it isn’t clear this would be relevant if the box uses tru2way or not. In fact it doesn’t say much of anything on how you would enable OCAP on your TV (turn it on or opt in?), whether OCAP might be a mode or not, etc. Sort of odd. Kind of implies that all of that is in the existing specs which are listed in the back…