nCUBE Corporation, provider of on-demand media and digital advertising solutions and Lifetime Movie Networks, have deployed the world's first Digital Program Insertion (DPI) system utilising the DVS-253 (ANSI/SCTE 35 2001) cueing standard for digital ad insertion.

The major milestone in local digital cable advertising, says a company release, will give cable ops the unique ability to conduct both analog and digital ad insertion from the same server. The DVS-253 standard defines cue messages that notify insertion systems of where and how to insert digital advertising without analog cue detection equipment. DPI provides cable operators the ability to better address the untapped revenue opportunities of local advertising as they migrate to digital programming, the release says.

In the past, cable operators have relied on analog cueing for inserting local advertising into digital network feeds. With the accessibility of new digital cueing, operators can now take advantage of other benefits, including the adjustment of advertising schedules to accommodate sporting events and the incremental revenue generated from schedule management when last-minute changes occur. nCUBE's DVS-253 ready server helps Lifetime Television and other programmers provide higher-quality advertising spots due to more accurate frame insertion. Additionally, digital cueing offers encryption to protect advertising revenues. Random encryption messages can prevent personal video recorder (PVR) commercial skipping by bypassing pattern-matching capabilities in set-top boxes.

In addition to nCUBE's equipment, Lifetime is using Scientific-Atlanta's PowerVu Plus D9210 advanced encoder, which compresses signals and injects DPI signaling based on cue trigger inputs. nCUBE's DPI platform is the most widely deployed solution for digital advertising insertion, supporting more than 500 digital channels combined for AT&T Broadband in Los Angeles and Time Warner Cable in Milwaukee, the release adds. nCUBE DPI is available in two forms, depending upon operator needs and stage of digital technology adoption.

DPI Premium is an advanced ad insertion system that can simultaneously manage up to 40 channels each of digital-to-analog and digital-to-digital insertion. DPI Classic supports eight to 20 channels of digital-to-digital ad insertion, providing a low-cost means to retain local advertising as systems migrate to digital programming.

The company offers cable operators and telecommunications network providers the most comprehensive business and technology management solutions for advanced television services such as video-on-demand (VOD), subscription VOD (SVOD), network personal video recording (nPVR) and digital advertising insertion.

nCUBE provides operators with a proven technology and business model deployed throughout the world. The company's hypercube interconnect server architecture offers the only video server solution capable of allowing more than 53,000 users to simultaneously access the same piece of content from one server. With the nABLE On-Demand Management System, nCUBE offers a comprehensive on-demand business management solution. nCUBE also provides the most scalable advertising insertion solutions on the market today, including a Digital Program Insertion (DPI) product -- the only advertising insertion platform in the world capable of scaling up to 40 analog and 40 digital channels from the same server.


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