Stuck in the Middleware?
Set-top box software standard faces political, technology hurdles
By Karen Brown
from the May 21, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
Cable-based interactive TV long has promised that next-generation digital set-top boxes will turn boob tubes into smart sets, loaded with information and entertainment marvels. But in trying to making that happen, the industry is finding a significant devil is in the middleware.
Creating a standard template for this innocuous piece of software--which links a set-top box's operating system with the applications software riding on it--is considered a vital step, because it will provide software developers a common blueprint to create the flashy applications expected to drive the interactive TV market. But while the industry's R&D consortium Cable Television Laboratories Inc. is close to nailing shut the OpenCable middleware standard, the process still faces challenges ranging from politics to the sheer task of configuring something to fit wildly different operating systems.
"With a software spec it is a little bit different than most other things that CableLabs does like DOCSIS--what all of the software guys tell you is you don't really know about the spec until you build it," explains Don Dulchinos vice president of advanced platforms and services for CableLabs and manager of the OpenCable initiative.
Dulchinos says a middleware standards draft has been released to vendors. But given this is software, the process won't be complete even then.
"We'll expect to have a larger number of engineering change requests--which is what you call it after we have finalized the spec--so there will be a lot of activity in that sense," Dulchinos says.
The biggest reason for this has to do with the nature of hardware available in the cable plant. Unlike the computer world, uniform systems are not the norm.
"The hardest part is figuring out the best way to do this in a cable environment," Dulchinos notes. "There's a lot of experience out there on how you do middleware--there's a lot of experience on how you do embedded systems generally. Now you have got a cable environment. It's a little bit different. It's not a homogeneous environment like your office LAN. This contemplates a retail distribution strategy, so you have a lot of different kinds of devices showing up on the network. So how do you handle that?"
For middleware developers such as Canal Plus Technologies, the OpenCable process also means challenges in getting software rivals to work together.
"I think that Don Dulchinos and the people at CableLabs are doing as good of a job as they possibly can trying to herd cats, because that's exactly what you have when you have Microsoft and Liberate and Sun all in the same room," says Arthur Orduna, vice president of marketing for the French company's U.S. subsidiary. While European-based Canal remains relatively neutral, Orduna says "the real crux of the issue is making sure that an application developer that writes an OpenCable application will still be able to run it on a MS environment."
That process is crucial because without a standard, applications developers will have less incentive to create interactive TV products aimed at cable. The cost of creating versions to fit every type of set-top box configuration simply will make it unprofitable, Orduna says.
"We are in complete accord that we want to have a single application interface--a standard way to write to our middleware and to our competitors' middleware for the content community," he says. "Because if we do not do that, it's game, set and match. This industry is not going to grow or expand at the rate that is required to keep us all in business."
Meanwhile, the box makers will probably start producing early beta versions for interoperability testing at CableLabs late this summer, Dulchinos says. After a few informal interoperability tests this fall, a certification wave will likely begin in the fourth quarter.
Philips Electronics is one such maker at work on a prototype OpenCable-compliant box. But Rudy Roth, director of business creation for Philips' digital network division, says summer may be an optimistic prediction for the first prototype from his company.
"We are pushing for demonstrations at the Western Cable Show. That is the target, or at CES," Roth says. "And that is on the condition of a number of things."
Other factors, including Microsoft's delay in delivering its Microsoft TV platform to cablers such as AT&T Broadband and the merger of AOL and Time Warner Inc., have slowed efforts to develop the middleware for the next-generation set-top boxes, Roth says. Then there is the persistent economic cold front.
"The economic situation is not really helping you to go for huge investments in high-end set-top boxes," Roth notes. "So from that view I think many MSOs are wondering what direction to go."
Philips is continuing to work with various middleware providers, including Microsoft and Liberate Technologies to support their platforms. But Roth also says the industry will ultimately benefit from a uniform middleware standard.
"For any manufacturer and also for the market it is very beneficial to have a standard that is open," Roth says. "Products like DVD, like CD, could not happen if there was not an open standard. Otherwise you would have a very small market, and the market and the consumer benefits if you have one platform."
Orduna agrees, adding the content providers won't put up with a fragmented interactive TV market, either.
"There is no hope of profitability for them if they have to target multiple closed systems with their single application," Orduna says. "You are not going to convince a major Hollywood studio or major television program producer or a major game developer to target more than two viable platforms. Three is really pushing it."
For that reason, the "days of a totally closed system in terms of how you write an application ... I think those days are numbered," he says.
Because changes to the middleware in existing systems can largely be handled by a software download, U.S. cable operators aren't necessarily waiting for the final OpenCable spec to begin dabbling with interactive TV.
Liberate just snagged a deal with Charter Communications Inc. to supply its middleware to at least 300,000 subscribers via Motorola Inc. DCT-5000 set-top boxes, but the MSO also is considering rollout of a Microsoft-based system. Liberate is also deployed to 125,000 subscribers in Insight Communications' Midwest territory, running on Motorola's DCT-2000 box.
The company also just completed a middleware trial in the Denver area with AT&T Broadband and is in trials with Comcast Cable Communications and Cox Communications Inc. On the satellite DBS side, Liberate is the chosen middleware platform for AOL TV, which is now developing an interactive service with Hughes Network Systems. That system is currently in lab trials.
Rival Microsoft cut a middleware deal back in 1998 with AT&T Broadband and word has it trials of that platform will begin some time this year.
Canal Plus's MediaHighway middleware was part of AT&T's recently ended multivendor trial using Philips boxes.
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