Broadcasters Fuel Rapid Adoption of Irdeto Cloaked CA
One year after launch, Irdeto continues worldwide momentum with its software-based conditional access; seven more broadcasters embrace cardless CA solution trusted by Hollywood studios
Amsterdam(07 Sep 2012)
Underscoring the industry migration from smart card CA to next generation software CA, Irdeto continues to see rapid adoption of its Irdeto Cloaked CA solution across all broadcast technologies (DTH, DTT, Cable, IP). Since launching the new solution one year ago at IBC 2011, Irdeto has signed 18 pay TV customers in less than 12 months to deploy its fully-featured, studio-approved, software-based CA solution. Today, the company is announcing new customer wins including BBTV (Azerbaijan), HP Produkcija (Croatia), ICHD (U.A.E.), Kazteleradio (Kazakhstan), My-HD Media (U.A.E.), Austrian Broadcasting Services-ORS (Austria) and Towercom (Slovakia).
In 2012, nearly 200 million smart cards are expected to be shipped globally [source: ABI Research]. Given an operator typically incurs as much money to distribute a smart card as it does to purchase a card, Irdeto estimates that US$21 is spent every second around the world to ship smart cards, equaling US$450 million already spent in 2012 by the start of this year’s IBC. In addition to the tremendous financial burden on the pay TV industry, Irdeto estimates that as many as half a billion cards will be swapped from 2011 to 2015, generating 3,500 tons of smart card waste to negatively impact the environment.
Irdeto Cloaked CA, the only cardless conditional access solution on the market leveraging award-winning Cloakware-based technology, is a fully renewable solution and enables pay TV operators to eliminate complex and costly smart card logistics while ensuring uncompromising security for their premium content. Irdeto Cloaked CA customers realize up to 50% savings on total cost of ownership (TCO) by eliminating the costs associated with smart card storage, distribution, replacement and disposal.
Doug Lowther, EVP of Digital TV at Irdeto said: “The proven success of Irdeto Cloaked CA demonstrates a major industry shift towards software security. Irdeto Cloaked CA is designed to relieve the pain points experienced with smart-card based CA so that our customers can focus on what matters most to them, including building subscriber bases and developing multi-screen projects. In the coming year, we will introduce additional features that enable Cloaked CA to be extended to multiple screens and to two-way IP environments, enabling our customer to launch additional innovative services.”
Davor Kova?evi?, Strategic Projects Coordinator at HP Produkcija, a company owned by Croatian Post, commented: “With a new license to begin providing pay TV services on our DTT network, based on DVB-T2 broadcast standard, we were seeking a reputable and strong CA solution to ensure our success as a new market entrant. Irdeto’s Cloaked CA solution enabled us to offer premium content to our new subscribers without the complexity and costs associated with the deployment, disposal and swapping of smart cards, which was just the exact type of flexibility we needed.”
“As one of the largest companies withinin the field of broadcasting in Slovakia, Towercom needed a CA partner that could provide the flexibility, agility and efficiency required to make this move a success,” said Michal Šuran, marketing manager at Towercom. “Irdeto’s industry reputation and strength of its Cloaked CA solution provided us with the best possible protection against security threats and helped us form a hugely appealing offering to the pay TV market.”
Bazarbek Kartzhanov, Technical Director at Kazteleradio, Kazakhstan’s leading government operator of pay TV, added: “After launching the national Terrestrial Digitization Project earlier this year, we started seeking a trusted vendor in the area of content security. We were extremely impressed with Irdeto’s multiple successes in the EMEA region and selected Cloaked CA to safeguard our offering against future developments and advancing piracy models, ensuring that we can always offer a high level of security for our services”
The Irdeto Cloaked CA solution represents a revolution in conditional access technology, not only because it saves operators money and simplifies operations, but because it is the first one-way broadcast conditional access client to gain wide familiarity and trust from Hollywood studios. Achieving this level of conditional access protection in a one-way environment without a smart card requires advanced technologies, and Irdeto Cloaked CA uses technologies such as source code obfuscation, white-box cryptography, temporal and spatial diversification, and client renewability to maintain dynamic security for the deployment lifecycle of its services.
Irdeto Cloaked CA has been independently audited by industry experts including T-Systems Germany and Farncombe Technology Ltd.