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Cisco Systems has come to Press Day on the eve of the 2013 International CES to talk about the future of television. ( Especially, television on cable operators running Cisco-based television network equipment.) 

The company isn't all about routers, after all.  Cisco also owns the set-top box business that was once called Scientific Atlanta; and it recently spent $5 billion to buy the cable technology company NDS.  And we know they are going to talk about TV, because on a screen in front of the room, Cisco is advising the audience to tag their tweets with #PersonalTV. 

The presentation starts off with a little video about the future of TV. 

Marthin DeBeer, SVP of the company's video and collaboration group is leading the presentation. 

Here are some of the highlights:

He is going to discuss the evolution of the company's Videoscape platform, called Videoscape Unity. 

NDS deal closed in July 2012; it was transformational.  Moved strategy ahead by 2-3 years. 

The platform is for all content: cable, over the top premium and free content. 

Jesper Anderson, GM of the Service Provider Video Technology Group, takes the stage to describe Videoscape Unity.  No longer acceptable to just have tablet client that is unrelated to content on the big screen.  Whole experience needs to be synchronized.  Need to leverage the second screen in context to what is going on the primary screen.  Also need to integrate social experience, blend in with entertainment experience.  TV entertainment needs to be more interactive and social. 

You need to combine the cloud, intelligent network and the branded client to create the experience.  Customers want unique, differentiated branded experience.  The platform is built on open principles. 

Professional services at the core help integrate the cloud/network/branded clients. 

Marthin is coming back to do a bit of a demo.  He says you won't be able to differentiate only on content in the future; you will need to provide experiences.  He brings out a demo dude to do some demonstations. 

Cisco's Snowflake video navigation platform. 

Demo: They use the Snowflake reference user interface.  Think of lots of live tiles.  You can get relevant content based on your preferences and habits.  The interface also offers cloud-based DVR - streaming content from anywhere in the guide that has been available throughout the day.  All content is available via a mobile device, anywhere in the world; also the mobile device largely replaces the remote control.  You can watch TV, and pull down relevant related data from the Web, which makes sense while watching sports, for instance. 

When you fire up application on smart device, you can push content to a large display.  You can actually send information from more than one device to the display at the same time; which is an interesting way to allow two people to use a display at the same time. 

There are some interesting takeaways here if you read between the lines.  For starters, Cisco is not going to back away from the cable infrastructure business.  Two, this is a whole lot more than the set-top box business, which is where Cisco started off when it bought Scientific Atlants.  Three, while every TV company at CES is trying to offer connected TV experiences, this is still the service providers' game to lose if they can figure out the economics and the technology.  At the core is this question: Who should own your television experience?  Your TV maker?  Your service provider?  A third party like Apple TV or Roku?  Cisco is obviously betting that the power here is in the network and the cloud - and the company intends to provide the equipment to make that all possible.