EBIF getting traction from New York to Colorado

EBIF, the tongue-twisting Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format developed by CableLabs and heavily supported by Comcast, is getting some traction. For the uninformed, EBIF is a multimedia content format that pretty much blends the Internet and TV, although that is by far too simple an explanation.

Anyway, in keeping with the acronyms, OEDN, (OpenCable Application Platform/EBIF Developer Network) said it completed the first end-to-end test of a university-developed EBIF app with NYU's (and the initials keep on coming) Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) lab using the free TVWorks XDK PC-based authoring and simulation environment.

The application was created at ITP and uploaded to OEDN partner enableTV in Boulder, Colo.--just a hop, skip and jump away from CableLabs--where it was loaded onto a desktop headend and streamed to a cable set-top box. The signal was then sent on a return trip over the public Internet to the originating workstation at NYU.

Elsewhere in the EBIF world, MediaFriends said its caller ID ITV application is available for commercial launch by cable systems using HITS Advanced Interactive Services (AxIS) product suite. HITS, to complete the circle, is operated by Comcast Media Center (CMS) which in turn is a subsidiary of Comcast Cable.

For more
- see this release
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