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Archive for the 'Digital Terrestrial' Category

Farncombe Consulting proposes replacement for DVB Common Scrambling Algorithm

October 26, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Farncombe Consulting Group, which hosts this blog, has published a second White Paper on TV Conditional Access (CA), which proposes a possible replacement for the DVB Common Scrambling Algorithm (CSA).

This is the hardware-based digital TV encryption technology mandated under European Law and which underpins today’s DVB-based pay-TV sector.

Farncombe’s in-house video security experts think it’s overdue for a replacement, arguing that - although it was introduced for the best possible motives in the early 1990s - the technology now raises serious commercial, regulatory and technical concerns for the digital pay-TV industry.

For instance, they point out, the CSA was designed for an era when operators were keen to avoid their content being distributed to PCs, and where broadband did not exist as a distribution medium. But neither of these factors apply today. This means operators are saddled with a technology which makes content distribution more difficult, and is not only already vulnerable to piracy but poised to become increasingly so.

In the White Paper, Farncombe accordingly proposes a next-generation replacement for the CSA, based on a ‘toolkit’ approach which mixes both hardware and software elements.

This will take time to implement, however. In the meantime, operators who upgrade their installed receiver base without addressing the security flaws in the CSA approach risk wasting their investment. Farncombe notes that the nature of this weakness is such that it only takes one hacked receiver to allow control words to be fed over broadband to any legacy DVB STB and enable pay-TV content to be pirated.

This implies that the industry needs to introduce a replacement as soon as possible.

A PDF of the new White Paper can be obtained from Farncombe by clicking here (or by pasting the following URL into your browser: http://www.farncombe.eu/index.php?menu=4.4) and filling in a simple registration form. Farncombe will then personally send you a copy.

Posted in Digital Cable, Digital Satellite, Digital Terrestrial and IPTV. 1 Comment

IBC Report - DVB-T2: a possible home for the DVB’s next-generation handheld standard?

September 13, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Connected TV met up at IBC for the first time with Peter Siebert, who recently took over from Peter MacAvock as executive director of the DVB Project office (earning himself the nickname ‘Peter 2.0′ in the process), and was treated to the latest version of the DVB standards road-map.

One of the most interesting elements to come out of our discussion concerned the fate of what used to be known as DVB-H2 - the next-generation version of the mobile/handheld broadcast standard DVB-H.

Temporarily shelved because of an intervening effort to get the satellite/terrestrial hybrid version of DVB-H (DVB-SH) underway (its first European implementation will be on the Solaris Mobile venture (see previous post), it is now back on the books again - under the working title of DVB-NGH (for ‘Next Generation Handheld).

Asked whether DVB-T2 - which has always encompassed advanced mobile broadcast capabilities as well as high-capacity fixed HDTV ones - mightn’t itself play the role of a DVB-H substitute, Siefert conceded that “maybe [DVB-NGH] is only DVB-T2. The elements of DVB-T2 are a good candidate.”

On the face of it, this might make good sense: operators in some countries are already looking upon robust profiles of DVB-T as a potential substitute for DVB-H, simply because such implementations re-use a pre-existing transmitter network.

Equally likely, perhaps, would be DVB-T2 with ‘add-ons’ - for instance, DVB-NGH could contain DVB-T2 plus LGE (4G) elements - or, indeed, it could end up as something entirely separate from DVB-T2, Siebert said.

In any event, the next DVB Technical Module meeting is expected to give the go-ahead to a new technical group which will decide what NGH will be based on.

At that same meeting, a study group will be reporting back on current industry 3D developments (very much the theme of this year’s IBC show) with a view to a decision being reached about what DVB’s role should be in the 3D standardisation process, if any. Siebert suggested DVB come contribute elements to do with service information and transport protocols.

Siebert said there was also an ongoing discussion going on between the HBBTV backers (see previous story) and DVB as to “whether DVB should play a more active role” in the hybrid DVB standardisation space, perhaps acting as an umbrella group for various industry initiatives.

Amongst other recent developments, nine European operators, including the likes of Kabel Deutschland, Kabel Baden Wittenberg, Ono and Com Hem, have now committed themselves to the next-generation version of DVB’s cable standard, DVB-C2. Siebert commented that in Germany in particular, cable operators were running out of capacity, so they required the extra capacity DVB-C2 could offer. As an example, he pointed to the fact that Kabel Deutchsland’s RFPs now contained questions about whether set-top box manufacturers were able to support DVB-C2.

The first DVB-C2 prototypes are due to be shown at the Anga Cable show in Germany next year, and IBC 2010 would certainly feature the technology, Siebert said.

Posted in Digital Cable, Digital Terrestrial, IPTV, Mobile TV and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments

IBC Report - Civolution water-marking technology poised for Q1 2010 rollout with major US pay-TV operator

September 12, 2009 by Barry Flynn

The first large-scale deployment of watermarking technology in the pay-TV world should take place in the US in Q1 next year, Connected TV has learned.

Watermarking is a technique which embeds invisible identifiers into broadcast and other content, which can survive multiple transmission, compression and copying stages, in order to identify the sources of pirated material. Each device in the pre-production, production and transmission chain, all the way down to individual set-top boxes, can be given a unique code to pinpoint where the ‘leak’ has taken place.

Speaking at IBC, Alex Terpstra, CEO of Philips watermarking spin-off Civolution, declined to name the US operator in question, but said the Civolution solution it would be supplying is a hybrid one, integrating the technology at the encoder end and the set-top box. This means that as well as identifying piracy taking place at the headend, any set-top box used to illegally re-distribute protected material  can be precisely identified.

“There will be deployments in the field, we hope, in Q1 in North America,” he said. “I believe it is a break-through in the development of this industry.” The water-marking technology will be targeted at  protecting HDTV content.

Previously, except for a few small-scale IPTV deployments where watermarking is integrated into the DRM system , such content identification technologies have been confined to the pre-release market.

Examples include protecting preview copies of films given limited distribution before events such as the Oscars or the Cannes Film Festival, or content aimed at in-hotel distribution (where premium movies are made available before standard pay-per-view and pay-TV release windows).

Terprstra said the fact that the technology was now mature would permit new business models: for example, consumers might be happy to pay a premium to watch a movie at home in VOD mode while (or even before) it was being shown in the cinema. Previously, the studios might have been reluctant to allow this to happen without some sort of guarantee that piracy risks were being addressed.

At IBC, Civolution also announced that Taiwanese company MStar Semiconductor had become the first chipset maker to integrate NexGuard - Civolution’s core watermarking technology - in hardware, as part of its MSD3A11 chipset.

Posted in Digital Cable, Digital Satellite, Digital Terrestrial and IPTV. 0 Comments

IBC Report - HBBTV set for pre-Christmas German retail launch using Humax and Kaon boxes

September 11, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HBBTV) - a European hybrid DVB/IP platform backed by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) - is due to be implemented in Germany in time for Christmas this year, using retail set-top boxes manufactured by Humax and Kaon. Launches will then follow in Q1 2010 in Austria and Switzerland.

Richard Baker, executive vice president of sales and marketing at ANT, a TV software solutions provider, laid out the schedule for the implementation of the new specification during a demonstration of the system to Connected TV this morning on the EBU stand. This used broadcast HD content from the German free-to-air satellite platform and a 2MBit/s ADSL link, running on a Kaon receiver.

The system was first demonstrated by public broadcaster ARD in association with the Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT) at the IFA show in Berlin a week ago. ANT’s role in the demonstration is the contribution of its Galio Suite, which now contains extensions which make it the first platform to implement the full HBBTV specification.

The three HBBTV use-cases shown at IBC were:

1) A combination of Teletext (written in HTML, CSS and Javascript) and HD broadcast content

2) Broadcast applications which can invoke additional material associated with a channel (i.e. calling up a new streamed OTT video)

3) Access to web services and third party content

In order to access such applications, the remote control used includes an extra Web TV button in addition to the standard coloured ones. Interestingly, the same content can be arrived at through use-cases 2) and 3). In the example Connected TV was shown, the red button could be used within a live broadcast to call up a menu from which a live video stream could be ordered (in this case a trailer for some ARD content), using HTTPS over the broadband connection.

Using the red button to access a Web-based entertainment portal, however, gave access to a separate list of streamable OTT content which included the same ARD trailer as mentioned above.

Asked if British players were interested in merging their rival proposals (namely the BBC/ITV/BT hybrid platform Canvas and the DTG’s D-Book 6/7) with HBBTV, Baker was diplomatic, saying only that ANT and its partners had entertained “an open dialogue with the BBC [about Canvas]. If we have the opportunity to support the desires of the BBC, we’d be very happy about that,” he said.

Posted in Broadband, Digital Terrestrial and TV-over-Internet. 1 Comment

Farncombe: Pay-TV shift to two-way networks will mean move away from smartcard-based conditional access systems

May 21, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Farncombe Consulting Group, which hosts this blog, has just published a new White Paper on how the Digital TV Conditional Access sector will be affected by the shift towards broadband-enabled pay-TV networks.

Written by Farncombe’s own highly-experienced group of in-house video security experts, the White Paper assesses the pros and cons of using smartcard-based and cardless systems in different types of pay-TV set-up, ranging from traditional one-way broadcast TV operations to broadband-enabled two-way IP and connected home networks.

The paper concludes that while smartcards continue to remain the solution of choice for protecting one-way systems, cardless-based solutions are preferable for protecting video content in IPTV, ‘over-the-top’ and home networking contexts.

For one-way networks migrating to broadband connectivity, meanwhile, both types of system have their advantages, depending largely on the availability, reliability and quality of the broadband network.

The White Paper’s authors go on to suggest that since the traditional one-way pay-TV world is slowly but surely changing into a two-way one, it is likely that there will be a gradual shift away from smartcard-based systems in favour of cardless ones - led by the digital cable sector.

A PDF of the new White Paper can be obtained from Farncombe by clicking here and filling in a simple registration form.

Posted in Broadband, Digital Cable, Digital Satellite, Digital Terrestrial, IPTV and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments