Time Warner Cable has signed a five-year agreement with interactive TV software developer BIAP for the use of BIAP’s ETV User Agent as part of the cable operator’s advanced-advertising platform.
The license agreement, terms of which were not disclosed, will allow Time Warner Cable’s digital set-top boxes to run Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format applications created by the operator or by television networks and other third parties.
In addition, Time Warner Cable will use the BIAP ETV User Agent as part of the next version of its interactive program guide.
BIAP’s ETV User Agent is “a robust application platform that will serve Time Warner Cable well in the deployment of EBIF and properly support our interactive applications and advanced advertising," Mike Hayashi, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president for advanced engineering, said in a statement.
Time Warner Cable has deployed other BIAP applications, including an interactive fantasy-football tracker.
EBIF is a multimedia content format standard developed by CableLabs designed to run on cable set-top boxes with a wide range of capabilities. EBIF is one of the key technologies to be used by Canoe Ventures, the six-operator advanced advertising initiative currently in development.
BIAP provides a platform to develop and deploy EBIF application, as well as a portfolio of EBIF-based applications. The vendor also offers an advanced advertising product called “Canoe in a Box,” which can generate ad-targeting information for addressable advertising to individual set-top boxes.
