Tru2way cable TV standard cuts both ways

Sure, the new platform may spell the end of the hated cable TV set-top box, but it also gives cable carriers more control over the menus on upcoming HDTVs and DVRs.

Sony just announced that it's making a deal with the big six U.S. cable carriers to support Tru2way—a standard that promises to bring two-way control of cable TV services (such as video-on-demand and pay-per-view) to upcoming HDTVs and DVRs. Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, and TiVo are already on board with Tru2way, which was announced with great fanfare at CES in January.

Formerly known as the OpenCable Application Platform (or OCAP), the Tru2way architecture will do what the one-way CableCARD standard couldn't—allow you to change channels, access your carrier's electronic programming grid, vote in interactive polls, and order on-demand programming, all from your Tru2way-enabled TV or DVR. No set-top box required.

Also, if you order phone service from your cable company, you'll get caller ID info displayed on your TV screen when a call comes in.

The first Tru2way devices are expected to hit stores before the year is out.

Great news, right? Here's the thing, though: Sony, along with such big names as Dell, Hitachi, Sharp, and Microsoft, had actually been backing a competing interactive TV standard, called DCR Plus (Digital Cable Ready Plus).

As the L.A. Times Bit Player blog explains, DCR Plus would have allowed TV and DVR makers more control over their user interfaces—for instance, they could have designed a unified programming guide including not only cable channels and PPV/VOD offerings, but also Internet-based and "non-cable" services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Unbox.

With Tru2way, cable operators get the most say on what the programming guide will look like, and from the Tru2way demos we saw at CES, they're pretty much the same menus you'd find on a typical cable DVR. And of course, there's no integration with Net-based services, which would compete with your carrier's pay-per-view and video-on-demand offerings.

Now that Sony has acquiesced and gone with Tru2way, the DCR Plus movement is pretty much dead. That means if TV/DVR manufacturers want to give us access to Net-based movie download services, they'll have to build separate menus to do so.

Meanwhile, TiVo users who get upcoming Tru2way-enabled TiVo boxes will likely get two menu systems: The standard (and beloved) TiVo interface minus all interactive, two-way cable functionality (although you'd still be able to record), and a separate, non-TiVo "cable mode" that lets you order pay-per-view and video-on-demand shows. Ugh.

But as the L.A. Times points out, Tru2way has one big advantage over DCR Plus—the big cable carriers actually support it, which means the platform might actually gain the traction that the original CableCARD standard (which only got half-hearted support from the major cable players) never could.

And if that happens, the cable TV set-top box might—at last—go the way of the dodo.

Anyway, for more on the (essentially over) battle between Tru2way and DCR Plus, check out this informative L.A. Times blog post, along with this earlier background piece from Multichannel News