FORT LAUDERDALE — The ability to target individual TV sets with custom advertising is real and it’s here – but you’re going to have to wait a couple more years before it gets really real.

With deployments from Cablevision, Comcast, DirecTV and DISH Networks, the number of targetable TV sets is growing but, lately, we have heard still-optimistic executives sound a note of caution – don’t go expecting the technology to reach prime-time in 2016.

“We still only have 40+ million set-top boxes that are addressable,” Videology CEO Scott Ferber tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “Big marketers want to drive goods. They really need scale.

“As the addressable footprint grows in the linear feed, we’re going to see a massive increase very quickly in the amount of money spent on it. (But) it will be another couple of years before it gets mainstream-big.”

Ferber is pegging threats from Google and Facebook as likely to stimulate the roll-out of wider footprints from cable operators. The fireside chat  was moderated by comScore executive chairman and co-founder Gian Fulgoni.

This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.  You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page