Nagravision to Secure New 'TDT Premium' Pay DTT in Spain

CHESEAUX, Switzerland — Nagravision, a Kudelski Group (SWX:KUD) company and the world’s leading independent provider of value-added content protection solutions, announced last Friday that its NAGRA Media ACCESS conditional access (CA) system was selected to secure the TDT Premium pay TV digital terrestrial television (DTT) horizontal platform operated by Spain’s leading audiovisual network operator, Abertis Telecom. NAGRA Media ACCESS is being integrated into TDT Premium homologated set-top boxes and conditional access modules (CAMs) to support the new platform.

The certified DTT set-top boxes and CAM modules will be compliant with the technical specifications for DTT CA enabled receivers agreed within Spanish Digital TV Forum by the main industry stakeholders to create an open platform for all broadcasters. The set-top boxes and CAMs will be sold to consumers via retail channels as well as through TV installers. The first set-top boxes and CAMs integrated with NAGRA Media ACCESS will be available in retail shelves by the beginning of September. In order to assure the availability of these devices in the market by that date, Nagravision has closely collaborated with numerous iDTV, set-top boxes and CAM manufacturers such as Oki Electric, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony Corp, Vestel, Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB), Echostar, Motorola, Pace plc, Sagem, Siemens-Gigaset, Zinwell, SmarDTV, and specifically the leading Spanish manufacturers Engel, Fagor, FTE Maximal, Ikusi and Televes.

With the recently approved new regulation in Spain, all current DTT broadcasters with more than one DTT channel are entitled to offer one channel in pay mode. The first pay DTT channel to go on-air for the TDT Premium platform is Mediapro’s “Gol Televisión”, 24-hour sports channel which broadcasts include the Spanish football league, Spanish cup and Champions League games. This channel will be available by the first of September. Other pay channels are expected to be launched in the coming weeks and months.

“Nagravision’s solvency in protecting high value content and proven experience in deploying pay TV platforms, along with the wide support of set-top box, iDTV and CAM manufacturers were the key aspects influencing the selection of its technology,” said Thierry Legrand, Senior Vice President for Nagravision SMEA. “The Nagravision solution is based on the one used successfully in Italy with Mediaset, which offers maximum security for content and includes the possibility of over-the-air updates. The solution will allow the television operators to also offer services of payment through either subscription and/or pay-per-view.”