04.18.2008 — Looks like we’re finally getting ready to chuck the digital cable box. CableLabs is moving forward with tru2way, the technology formerly known as OCAP.

What CableCard has done for one-way cable-ready TVs, tru2way is expected to do for two-way, meaning you won’t need a settop box to enjoy interactive video through your TV. No settop box means no more toiling with multiple remotes and messy IR distribution systems.

I quipped after CES that the new tru2way moniker is nothing more than a marketing ploy for the inelegantly named OpenCable Application Platform, which has failed to gain traction over the many years they’ve been talking about it (although Panasonic’s new mobile tru2way player looks pretty cool).

But it looks like momentum is afoot. At the forthcoming Cable Show, May 18-20, one of the tracks is a tru2way Developers’ Conference, and the lineup is impressive – Motorola, Cisco, Comcast, Time Warner, CableLabs (of course), Showtime and some other technology and content providers.

What’s missing?! The CE vendors.

Panasonic is the lone representative from the TV world. Where are the rest of them? All of two-way technology in the world is worth nothing if the CE makers don’t step up to the plate.

Perhaps they’re still reeling from CableCard?

Thanks Derek Flickinger, Interactive Homes Inc., for the link to the conference.