NDS And RRD Integrate VideoGuard® Conditional Access for Mobile TV, Including Full Simulcrypt Capability

Monday, February 12th, 2007
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NDS And RRD Integrate VideoGuard® Conditional Access for Mobile TV, Including Full Simulcrypt Capability

  • Successful integration of NDS VideoGuard® with advanced headend from RRD provides pay-TV operators deploying DVB-H technology with a secure and proven platform
  • Joint Mobile TV solution minimizes bandwidth requirements and delivers extremely fast response times
  • Simulcrypt offers new opportunities for mobile operators, content providers and broadcasters in the Mobile TV space
  • NDS (Booth Av100) and RRD will showcase this technology solution at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on February 12-15, 2007.

BARCELONA, SPAIN (3GSM World Congress) and LONDON, UK — NDS Group plc (NASDAQ: NNDS), the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, including content protection for mobile devices, together with RRD, a leading DVB-H solutions provider, today announced the successful integration of NDS’ VideoGuard Mobile™ Conditional Access (CA) with RRD’s DVB-H backend. The two companies have also demonstrated a full Simulcrypt solution running over the same platform. This combined solution enables mobile operators and other players in the rapidly growing DVB-H environment to quickly deploy a proven and secure solution for the cost-effective rollout of Mobile TV services.

Delivering on its mission to secure and enable content delivery anytime, anywhere and on any device, NDS has customized its world leading VideoGuard® CA, which is already deployed in more than 50 pay-TV platforms around the globe, to the world of Mobile TV. The solution, NDS VideoGuard Mobile, supports several broadcast standards currently being developed and implemented worldwide. In addition to VideoGuard Mobile CA, NDS also provides Electronic Service Guides (ESG), Interactive TV infrastructure and applications, and Digital Video Recorder (DVR) capabilities to Mobile TV operators to deliver to their subscribers.

RRD is a media service company with a unique knowledge base in the field of digital Mobile TV deployments. RRD developed and managed the launch of the world’s first and largest DVB-H service in Italy in June 2006 for Hutchison 3G and is actively involved in several other DVB-H trial deployments worldwide. RRD’s team of dedicated engineers have developed and produced their own ‘DVBH-3 Gap Filler’ and other hardware devices whose goal is to improve DVB-H reception. RRD and NDS worked closely on the successful integration and testing of the combined platform.

During the course of the integration with the RRD headend and system testing, the NDS DVB-H CA implementation proved to be very efficient in its use of EMM (Entitlement Management Message) bandwidth. Furthermore, response times seen in this deployment compared very favorably with those reported from other solutions providers. Given the scarcity of DVB-H spectrum, this EMM efficiency can facilitate the offer of additional broadcast channels and value-added services in live deployments. In addition to the successful integration of the VideoGuard Mobile CA platform with the RRD backend, NDS and RRD worked together to demonstrate full Simulcrypt capabilities.

“RRD has been an exceptional partner for us in terms of their experience and knowledge in the Mobile TV arena, having already successfully deployed their DVB-H platform,” said David Fagelston, Director of Mobile Business Development for NDS. “By integrating our CA with RRD we can jointly offer mobile operators and other service providers a fully integrated and secure end-to-end DVB-H system thanks to RRD’s extensive experience in this area and NDS’ proven track record as a world leader in service and content protection. Soon, we will complete the integration with our mobile ESG, as well as enable Interactive TV and DVR applications which NDS has already developed for the Mobile TV space,” Fagelston added.

Franco Ferri, General Manager for RRD, commented: “We are very pleased to be working with NDS, a world leader in security for digital content. Their CA system consistently showed very efficient bandwidth utilization and a superior service authorization response time. In addition, the NDS CA integration includes full simulcrypt capability, demonstrating the flexibility and comprehensiveness of the NDS VideoGuard solution. We see this as a major advantage for DVB-H deployments and look forward to working together with NDS in future Mobile TV projects.”