Coalition of Advanced Advertising Leaders to Demonstrate Dynamic Linear Ad Insertion, Interactive EBIF(TM) Ads at The Cable Show

LOS ANGELES, May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cable Show -- A coalition of leading advanced advertising vendors announced today that they will jointly demonstrate addressability in linear dynamic ad insertion and an EBIF™ interactive ad environment at NCTA's The Cable Show.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090302/PH77214LOGO )

OpenTV, ARRIS, FourthWall Media, RGB Networks, Strategy & Technology (S&T), Unisoft, Sigma Systems, Nielsen, Avail-TVN and This Technology will conduct the demonstration in OpenTV's pedestal in the CableNET^® Showcase area. The demonstration is driven by a linear content feed that simulates a typical ad-sponsored network with both national and local ad breaks containing embedded spots.  

The joint demonstration is also a use case for several Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) standards and CableLabs^® specifications, including SCTE 35-compliant messaging within the stream, out-of-band metadata, CableLabs^® SaFI specifications, and SCTE 30- and 130-compliant messages among the participating vendor systems.

The Cable Show attendees who view the demo will see the following:

• Local ad insertion that replaces embedded network promotional spots in the feed with dynamically selected local spots that include an addressable late-bound overlay, addressable late-bound EBIF™ application or an addressable pre-bound EBIF™ application.
• Creative version substitution whereby an embedded paid spot is replaced by an addressable, audience-specific version from the same advertiser, showing replacement in any position within the break.
• Ad content overlaid on the program segments using both splicer insertion and late-bound EBIF™ applications.  
• Deployment control for enabling/disabling EBIF™ and addressable ads by zone and time without duplicating or re-encoding the stream.

"Interoperability of emerging technologies is the key message of this demonstration," commented SVP/GM of OpenTV's Advanced Advertising division, Paul Woidke, who also chairs SCTE's Digital Video Subcommittee Working Group Five. "Cooperation by vendors in support of SCTE and CableLabs standards and specifications provides our cable and network business partners with the opportunity to invest in new cutting-edge technologies without being trapped into inflexible operational silos.  We are proud to show, along with nine other developers, that advanced advertising technologies for delivering new revenue streams are here today."

"The promise of cable TV being able to address specific audience profiles with personalized, relevant advertising is at hand," said Brian Cappellani, CTO and VP of Engineering for Sigma Systems, which provides the Subscriber Information Service (SIS) in the demo for audience qualification. "This collaborative live use case demonstrates that by using SCTE and CableLabs standards and specs, operators can rapidly launch advanced advertising offerings and drive new revenues."

"We greatly appreciate the strong support and efforts by this impressive group of technology leaders collaborating together to accomplish this advanced advertising achievement. Advertising revenues play an essential role in monetizing the programming offerings available to subscribers," said Joe Matarese, Vice President and General Manager of the ARRIS On Demand Systems Division. "We are very excited to be able to bring these addressable advertising solutions to the industry."

Playout of the demonstration can also be seen in the Strategy & Technology/Unisoft booths, located in the CableNET Showcase.

For more information about the participating advanced advertising vendors, visit their websites:

• OpenTV at www.opentv.com
• Sigma Systems at www.sigma-systems.com
• ARRIS at www.arrisi.com
• FourthWall Media at www.fourthwallmedia.tv
• RGB Networks at www.rgbnetworks.com
• S&T at www.s-and-t.com
• Unisoft at www.unisoft.com
• Nielsen at www.nielsen.com
• Avail-TVN at www.availmedia.com
• This Technology at www.thistech.com

EBIF, CableNET and CableLabs are trademarks of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. Participation in a CableLabs interop or event is not indicative of an endorsement by CableLabs.

SOURCE Sigma Systems