Sony plans to file a ‘comprehensive’ proposal at the FCC that wou...

at the Commission. Sony’s proposal would “build on” the CableCARD spec, requiring that retail boxes have access “to the navigation data or metadata necessary to construct a CE proprietary user interface,” Sony said. CE makers could include OCAP in set-tops that access basic VoD and PPV, and would have to include OCAP in products with more advanced interactive features, Sony said. It plans to urge the FCC to require changes to OCAP and the CableCARD Host Interface License Agreement “to ensure that any OCAP- based products are consumer-friendly and commercially viable,” Sony said. Sony also will propose a “date certain” by which all cable systems must deploy OCAP and a requirement that a “substantial percentage” of leased cable boxes include OCAP, it said. Sony has been a vocal opponent of the OCAP spec at the FCC. For example, in a Jan. statement at the FCC, Sony said it engaged in the OpenCable Engineering Change Request (ECR) process to try to change OCAP “in ways that would permit the retail availability of multi-function consumer electronics products that can receive bi-directional cable programming.” OCAP, “in its current form, does not meet this goal,” Sony said then, also demanding that the FCC interpret Sony’s participation in OpenCable ECR as “evidence” that the company “is dedicated to fixing what it considers to be the flaws in OCAP… It should not interpret either action as an endorsement of OCAP as it now exists, or the process by which CableLabs has controlled the development of the OCAP specification to date.” Cable industry representatives declined comment until they could review Sony’s proposal, which a Sony spokesman said would be filed imminently.