In an effort to insure that DTV set-top boxes will understand interactivity data embedded in an MPEG signal that arrives over the air or through a cable system, the ATSC’s DTV Application Software Environment (DASE) and CableLabs Open Cable Application Program (OCAP) standards will become compatible. On December 11th, both groups signed an agreement to work together to serve consumers with advanced interactive services.
DASE and OCAP are middleware software that sits between the MPEG transport stream and set-top box application software. These two standards are essentially a set of APIs that inactivity application software running on the set-top box can call to extract data embedded in the MPEG transport stream representing inactivity content.
For more information visit www.atsc.org and www.cablelabs.com.
