Wave Issue 0208 3/8/02 Article 4-01

***CableLabs Completes Specification Related to Video-on-Demand
(March 4)

Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs) has completed the
first of a set of specifications to create a common approach to
handling descriptive data that is associated with on-demand video
events.

Called Metadata, this information could vary from being data that
identifies a title of a video-on-demand (VoD) event or movie, to
how a movie or event may be licensed and displayed. At present,
there is no agreed upon common approach to how metadata may be
handled.

CableLabs members believe that by having a common approach to
metadata, VoD operating costs could be reduced, content encoding
costs could be lowered, and it will be easier to integrate VoD
metadata with program navigational features, electronic program
guides, and bandwidth management services located at cable system
headends.

Along with the release of CableLabs VoD Content Specification
V1.0, CableLabs also has formed a royalty-free Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR) pool that has been signed by contributors
to the specification: Time Warner Cable, N2 Broadband, DIVA,
SeaChange, Concurrent Computer Corp., and nCUBE. Licensed
implementers will have a copyright license to the issued
specification as well as participation in the royalty-free IPR
pool.

Work will continue on additional metadata specifications through
2002 with the assistance of the cable, hardware vendor, and
content provider communities.

www.cablelabs.com/metadata