I know nothing of this from the inside point of view however re-read the article
Quote:
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Applications are controlled from the headend rather than on the set-top itself
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To me this implies most of the processing being done at the headend and the set-tops being little more than terminals connected to a mainframe for example. The headend will do the processing and fire the result as an mpeg 2 stream to the set-top in question, depending on the application as data for a little additional processing or even as a complete video stream of the result of processing.
Liberate is a middle-ware, not an OS, it supplies the bridging between customer interaction and the set-top, it's probably more comparible to DirectX on a PC's graphics sub-system, it supplies an API and an interface to hardware rather than being the be and end all of it. Programmable DSPs deal with the DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS decoding and the MPEG stream decoding.
Re: Escapee - obviously you'd be happier with higher bills for custs than vendor financed deals (if these actually exist for the VOD project, I know little of it). ntl is a business like any other and will take the freebies wherever they can get them. This isn't being sneaky, it's good business and all companies do it.
This seems to be an extension of VOD, interactive applications on demand but far beyond those that Sky could provide, using both the greater downstream bandwidth on cable and more relevantly the return path.
BTW all digital TV is beamed down via broadband network, this is more a case of controlling what you watch and what you play! more than previously possible.
If all of this comes together it'll make Sky and Sky+ look pretty lame by comparison. I really hope it does, Sky needs the competition. *dislikes Murdoch
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