Tru2way seemed a cable industry & consumer electronics retail force at its International CES debut in 2008. Here's how it flopped

Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor

January 4, 2011

11 Min Read
Tru2way: Epic Fail at Retail

Three years ago, tru2way had its coming-out party at the International CES as the annual gadgetfest welcomed Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts as the first ever keynoter from the cable crew to grace the CES stage.

It was supposed to mark the start of the retail era for tru2way, the new consumer-facing brand of the OpenCable Platform, a set of "open" CableLabs specs that defines a common headend and software architecture for TVs, set-tops and other types of interactive "hosts." Heck, it even had its own logo.

Panasonic Corp. (NYSE: PC), a giant of the CE world, placed some big bets, too, by promising to release new tru2way TV sets while it collaborated with Comcast on a range of tru2way boxes, including a portable DVR that never saw the light of day. (See Comcast, Panasonic Unveil Portable DVR .)

Although tru2way will continue to play an important role in leased boxes, it's abundantly clear now that tru2way is a retail failure.

The culprits are many: tru2way failed to evolve beyond cable; consumer demand for tru2way products was nonexistent; the platform had trouble generating support beyond major US MSOs. On top of that, several CE companies balked at tru2way's restrictive licensing terms, certification hurdles, and integration costs (over $200 per device, by most estimates). And, instead of going through all that trouble, most TV manufacturers found it easier to spruce up their products with over-the-top (OTT) video strategies that were largely under their control, and not the cable industry's.

The partnerships that came out of tru2way efforts did help cable squelch a competing effort called DCR+. But now, the cable industry must get ready to face a possibly more problematic (and expensive) challenge with the emergence of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 's ambitious "AllVid" initiative. (See All About the FCC's AllVid.)

Here's a look back at the more significant tru2ways hits and misses over the last three years, along with a predictions on what to expect at this week's CES:

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable

  • January 2008: CES: Roberts Declares Open Season
    In the first CES keynote to feature a cable exec, Comcast's Brian Roberts talked up tru2way, the new consumer-facing brand of the OpenCable Platform, promoting an industry commitment to "openness," and a proclamation that the "age of the closed proprietary set-top box is behind us."

  • May 2008: Cable Makes Big 'tru2way' Play
    Cable continued the tru2way push at The Cable Show in New Orleans, with demos galore on the floor, and new set-top entrants from the retail end of the CE world that would throw some weight at the platform, including Funai Electric Co. Ltd. (OTC: FUAIY), which makes equipment under the Sylvania and Emerson brands. The show also served as an event suitable to reveal Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) as the first (and only) vendor to obtain tru2way certification for a set-top. (See ADB Scores tru2way Certification and ADB Develops Tru2way 'Set-Back'.)

  • May 2008: Sony Supports tru2way
    In a blow to DCR+, an alternative interactive platform favored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and a handful of CE firms, Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) and the six largest "incumbent" US MSOs ink a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) designed to build "common reliance" for tru2way between the cable and consumer electronics industries.

  • June 2008: Revealed: The Tru2way MOU
    Light Reading is the first to reveal the details of the Sony MOU, which gave five MSOs -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC), Cox Communications Inc. , Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) and Bright House Networks -- until July 1, 2009, to get their headends tru2way-ready. Financially troubled Charter Communications Inc. got an extra year to meet its obligation.

  • June 2008: Telcos: Climb Aboard the Tru2way Train
    Speaking at NXTcomm 2008, CableLabs President and CEO Dr. Dick Green urges telcos to adopt tru2way, arguing that it's not exclusive to cable because it's based on an international ITU-T standard and uses Java components that are core to the Blu-ray platform. The telcos ignore him.

  • July 2008: Mark Cuban: tru2way Should Be More Open
    During a keynote Q&A at a Light Reading event in Los Angeles, Mark Cuban echoes some CE industry concerns about tru2way, claiming it has "got to become more open. Right now it's a definitive walled garden."

  • August 2008: Verizon: No Way on tru2way
    Despite cable's claims that tru2way is "open," Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) tells the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) it's just the opposite, holding that tru2way is proprietary to cable and not compatible with other video provider networks, including FiOS. However, Verizon does show some interest in the creation of a system that could apply to all forms of multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) -- an idea that the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) had suggested earlier to the FCC, and brought up again in a letter to the Commission later in the month. (See NCTA Counters Verizon's Tru2way Claims .)

  • October 2008: Denver, Chicago First to Get Tru2way TVs
    Panasonic Corp. (NYSE: PC) begins selling two tru2way-certified HD sets -- 42-inch and 50-inch models -- in select Abt Electronics, Ultimate Electronics, and Circuit City Stores Inc. outlets in Comcast's Denver and Chicago markets. Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy the following month, complicating the tru2way effort.

    Next page: 2009 – A Missed Date & Other Tru2way Troubles

  • January 2009: Sony Keynote: Tru2way Denied
    At the CES, tru2way news was scarce. Comcast and Panasonic claimed to be still working on their portable DVR while Sony, the CE lead on the landmark tru2way MOU, had zero to say about the technology during its keynote at the Vegas gadgetfest whilst cheerfully chirping about a coming line of Internet-connected TVs that would feature over-the-top video services. (See Comcast, Panny Polishing Portable DVR .)

  • March 2009: EchoStar Slings Its First Tru2way Set-Top
    Charlie Ergen's tech and set-top spinoff EchoStar Corp. LLC (Nasdaq: SATS) talks up a tru2way strategy that will employ its place-shifting Sling technology. However, the strategy is centered on sales directly to MSOs, rather than through retail channels.

  • May 2009: Is Tru2way Ready to Grow Up?
    Aiming to iron out some technical wrinkles between the variety of tru2way middleware stacks on the markets, CableLabs prepares to release a "reference implementation" (RI) to help out app developers and device makers. CableLabs formally releases the RI -- based on the tru2way stack developed by OCAP Development LLC (ODL) (a joint venture of Comcast and TW Cable) -- in mid-June. (See Tru2way Enters 'Open' Era .)

  • June 2009: MSOs to Miss Tru2way Date
    The MSOs that signed the tru2way MOU collectively miss an original deadline to have all the headends of their digital cable systems prepped for tru2way. Cable claims it made a good-faith effort to hit the date, but partly blamed the miss on a bad economy and shifting priorities brought on by the broadcast digital TV deadline. (See No Penalties for Missing Tru2way Date.)

  • August 2009: Tru2way's Retail Forecast: Cloudy
    A Heavy Reading report finds that tru2way's future may be largely limited to MSO-leased devices, citing "lukewarm enthusiasm" by the CE industry (and consumers) to the platform. "While MSOs need to demonstrate a good-faith effort to meet federal guidemarks and terms of the MoU, it is unclear whether consumer demand will drive significant sales of tru2way HDTV sets, if the only advantage is to remove a cable set-top box," the report finds.

  • October 2009: Rogers Seeks Tru2way Alternative
    Dermot O'Carroll, SVP of engineering and network operations at Rogers Communications Inc. (Toronto: RCI), acknowledges at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver that the Canada-based MSO is "looking for an alternative" to tru2way, dealing a blow to the technology's ambitions outside the US.

  • December 2009: Videotron Trots Out Tru2way
    In December, fellow Canadian MSO Vidéotron Telecom Ltd. agrees to sell tru2way-based boxes from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Korea: SEC) through its own retail outlets. However, one industry source notes that Videotron's main incentive with the Samsung-made boxes was not centered on retail distribution, but to get in on orders made by TW Cable and ensure Videotron could get attractive unit pricing.

  • December 2009: TiVo Gives Cable Both Barrels
    In a scathing letter to the FCC as the Commission began to pull together its National Broadband Plan, TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO) claims cable discriminates against third-party box makers by imposing strict licenses and conditions that limit product design and wrest control of the user interface. The filing reduces the possibility that TiVo will ever develop a tru2way box of its own and, overall, further dampens tru2way's retail potential. Next page: 2010 – Panasonic Bows Out, But Tru2way Flashes Some Retail Hope

  • March 2010: CableLabs Specs Tru2way Set-Back Box
    CableLabs quietly issues a new set of specs for a "thin chassis" tru2way box designed to attach to the back of digital TV sets. Although this could rekindle some retail possibilities for tru2way and give TV manufacturers more flexibility than they can get with integrated tru2way sets, it's far more likely that such set-back tru2way products will gain more traction with MSO-led efforts to get digital TV services into hotels and other hospitality venues. ADB continued to lead this product category later in the year by showing a next-gen "DVR-lite" model that uses standard SD High Capacity cards for video storage. (See Tru2way 'Phantom' Box Is a DVR Lightweight .)

  • March 2010: Cox Guides Tru2way Forward
    Cox reveals a strategy to use tru2way-based boxes and navigation systems to drive a new premium video product. While this effort gives tru2way some serious legs, Cox's strategy with the technology will not have much of a retail angle. (See Cox to Offer Tru2way Guide to Others.)

  • April 2010: FCC Inches Towards Net-Agnostic Gateways
    Tru2way's hope at retail further evaporates when the FCC opens a notice of inquiry (NOI) on the concept of "AllVid" and the use of gateways and adapters that can bridge the worlds of cable, telco, and satellite. The FCC, which wants MVPDs to be prepared to offer AllVid equipment to customers by the end of 2012, is expected to turn this NOI into a formal proposed rulemaking sometime in 2011. (See All About the FCC's AllVid.)

  • June 2010: Comcast, NDS Connect on Tru2way
    Despite tru2way's withered aspirations as a primary retail play, the major MSOs tied to the Sony MOU continued to push the platform forward. This time the news involved Comcast, which hired NDS Ltd. to serve as "prime integrator" of its tru2way software project. At the time, Comcast had almost 90 percent of its headends upgraded for tru2way.

  • July 2010: Panasonic Tunes Out Tru2way TVs
    The tru2way TV experiment appeared to be all but over after its foremost retail champion, Panasonic, told Multichannel News that it had stopped making sets with the middleware already baked in. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Korea: SEC) previously had won certification for a handful of LCD TV models with tru2way on-board, but it's unlikely that those will ever reach retail.

  • August 2010: Tru2way Flashes Some Retail Hope
    In what may be tru2way's last, best shot at extending a bridge to the retail world, CableLabs hosted an interop event that showed tru2way-based DVRs sharing pre-recorded content with other Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) -based devices, including a Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console.

  • January 2011: Everyone Loves TV Everywhere
    It's unlikely that tru2way will have a presence at all at this week's CES. However, it's more likely that cable will still have something to chirp about if it's able to pull a Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) and offer its own "TV Everywhere"-esque services on Internet-connected TVs.

    On that note, we'll be paying special attention to what Boo-Keun Yoo, Samsung's president and GM of the company's visual display business, has to say when he keynotes on Thursday (Jan. 6) afternoon. Perhaps cable will be on his announcement menu.

    Although Samsung never moved forward with a tru2way retail strategy, it's historically been one of cable's best CE partners, and is turning into a prominent set-top supplier as U.S. MSOs continue to seek out suppliers outside of the Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO)–Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) duopoly.

    This year's CES might be the perfect time for cable and CE to rekindle the retail flame now that TV makers and cable have more incentive than ever to work together. Internet-connected TVs and budding MSO TVE efforts could end up making the connection that tru2way never could.

    — Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable



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About the Author(s)

Jeff Baumgartner

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.

Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

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