I neglected to mentioned that Brian Roberts had three guest appearances as part of his presentation. Toshihiro Sakamoto, President of Panasonic AVC Networks Company, came out to talk about the two tru2way-enabled HD sets that will be available later this year, as well as the AnyPlay device. The ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest came out to chat up the new Fancast service and let slip a couple of colorful ad-libbed remarks that might have been of interest to fans of Kevin Bacon, Justin Timberlake and Andy Samburg.

Saving the best for last, the event was closed out by New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo Flight of the Conchords. As seen in the photo, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement showed off their integrated media center, which consisted of a disposable camera, taped to a cell phone, and then thrown on top of a TV equipped with rabbit ears (antennae augmented with foil).

They closed by singing their hit song of seduction, “Business Time.” You can see a video of them performing that song on another occasion.

UPDATE: I am reminded that they then added a toothbrush to their converged device by placing a toothbrush on top of the TV as well.

UPDATE #2: You can now see the video of their performance by clicking here and then fast-forwarding to the last 12 minutes.

I’ve been to CES a few times over the last five years. On my first few trips, it did seem a little odd to notice cable’s absence. Comcast Chairman & CEO Brian Roberts described a very similar experience in his keynote this morning, talking about walking the show floor a few years ago with Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Britt. As Roberts put it, “Cable was almost invisible.”

Following that experience, the cable industry reached out to the consumer electronics industry. He said that they heard complaints that cable was a regional business that operated in silos, that cable set-top boxes are closed and proprietary, and that, in general, cable made it too tough to innovate and to create products and services that could be sold in the retail environment. This morning’s address seemed a valuable pay-off to those efforts, with Roberts describing cable as a real partner to consumer electronics and retail.

He went on to describe the latest stage of his company’s development: Comcast 3.0. As part of the new Comcast, he said they were committing to a series of issues:

• Having the best fiber optic networks and IP infrastructure
• Delivering superior experience in hi-def and interactive
• Providing new levels of excellence in customer service
• Being a leader in innovation by providing “products and services that are converged, plug-and-play, user-friendly, and most important, easily open for third-party innovation.”

Many in the cable industry have debated over whether content is king or distribution. Roberts said that today the answer is clear: The consumer is king. The best way to serve consumers is by offering a wide array of choice.

He went on to profile such new services as wideband, Fancast, Project Infinity, the AnyPlay portable DVR, and the SmartZone communications center. You can read about the details elsewhere, but the important feature was that Comcast was preparing to offer more video that could be consumed in a more flexible fashion, more bandwidth and more features on its communications services. In a word: more.

On May 8th of last year, during NCTA’s annual Cable Show (also held in Las Vegas), Roberts demoed a DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem capable of delivering 160 Mbps using its “channel bonding” technology. You can see a video of that demo here and, as a sign of how far we’ve come over the last decade, you can also see Roberts demo a high-speed cable modem in 1996. Look at how fast the photos download! Check out the White House website!