Zentek Launches a tru2way-Based Solution

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

TOKYO — Zentek Technology Japan, Inc. announced the availability of its tru2way-based solution for receiver set manufacturers. Tru2way, formerly known as OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP), is the brand name of the platform enabling new North American cable television services becoming available in late 2008.

On January 7, 2008, Mr. Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast, the largest cable operator in the United States, announced that Comcast would launch its tru2way service by the end of 2008. With this announcement it is expected that other cable operators will follow and the demand for tru2way-enabled TVs and receivers will grow rapidly.

Along with Comcast’s announcement, CableLabs, the consortium of North American cable companies responsible for the development of the tru2way specifications, announced their expectation that the cable television industry in the United States will rely on tru2way as the common platform for next-generation interactive services. The tru2way brand name highlights the bidirectional and interactive nature of the platform and services.

The middleware component of the tru2way platform is an API, the standardization of which enables application developers to write once and run on all tru2way devices. This API is defined by the OCAP Specification.

Zentek’s offering, MediaStack-tru2way, is an implementation of the OCAP Specification. The MediaStack solution for tru2way is now available to TV and receiver manufacturers.

Zentek offers DTV software compliant with North American DTV standards and readily integrated into many existing DTV applications. Zentek’s product offering includes CableCARD and DTV middleware and libraries to help manufacturers shorten their development cycle for tru2way-based DTV products targeted to the North American market. These software solutions can be applied to a variety of devices including tru2way-compliant TVs, STBs, and DVRs. In addition, Zentek can provide its customers access to the bidirectional headend located in their San Mateo, CA offices, thus enabling development-time testing with tru2way streams.

“Zentek has developed an integrated reference solution to reduce the development risk of tru2way for digital STB and TV manufacturers,” said Shozo Ohtani, CEO of Zentek Technology Group. “MediaStack-tru2way and Zentek’s ATSC and CableCARD libraries provide the software solution for many products targeted to the North American market, promising short product development and quick time to market.”