put, OCAP creates the opportunity to establish a standardized plat- form, national and international, to launch a myriad of interactive services over a wide variety of digital devices. Supporters of OCAP believe that it will do for TV in the United States what DOCSIS has done for high-speed Internet access and what DVB-Multimedia Home Platform (DVB-MHP) is doing for TV in Europe. (DVB is discussed in Chapter 10.) In fact, much of the OCAP specification is based on or is compatible with MHP. In addition, South Korea has adopted OCAP to introduce a variety of interactive ser- vices, further strengthening its role internationally. VOD Metadata Another project established by CableLabs that is pertinent to the future of interac- tive services is VOD Metadata (www.cablelabs.com/projects/metadata). Its pur- pose is to examine the distribution of content assets, such as movies, coming from Cable TV Networks multiple content providers and being sent over various networks to the cable operators. Metadata refers to descriptive data associated with a content asset package. It can be something simple such as identifying the content title, or it can be much more complex, such as providing a complete index of different scenes in a movie. The initial efforts of VOD Metadata are focused on creating specifications for VOD and subscription VOD (SVOD) applications. CableHome CableLabs has a home networking initiative called CableHome (www.cablelabs. com/projects/cablehome) CableHome's objective is to deliver to subscribers high- quality, managed, value-added broadband services over any home network media. Furthermore, the objective is that by complying with CableHome, different manu- facturers can develop interoperable products, making it as convenient as possible for the consumer and reducing time to market, complexity, and costs. Cable operators and telcos are taking advantage of revenue opportunities pro- vided by home networking services. Major cable operators are conducting trials or have rolled out services that enable and sup