Buried in the latest Mobile TV release from Alcatel-Lucent is the claim that its DVB-H installation in Singapore is the very first using the BCAST Smartcard Profile. During the past year there has been a mad rush to claim top spot in the provision of this Profile, expected to be the dominant way of securing video content on DVB-H mobile TV systems.
Until recently there had been a scrabble for power in DRM systems for mobile TV with competing standards from OMA (BCAST) and DVB (Open Framework), as well as another system from Nokia (18Crypt).
Many of the existing installations have be put together with DVB systems from existing broadcast conditional access suppliers with the bulk of business going to Nagravision and Irdeto.
Throughout the past year Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) DRM software house Coremedia with Israeli security chip partner Discretix, was one of the first to announce support for BCAST, and in June 2007 SafeNet, middleware supplier S3, and multimedia software provider Nextreaming also came to market with a system. This was followed by ESG server companies EXPway and Roundbox proving their ESG’s would work with BCAST and then Nagravision with smart card company Gemalto joined the clan. Somewhere in there Thomson launched an OMA BCAST systems as well.
By claiming that the Alcatel system is first to market, it perhaps means it is one of the first commercial installations, which is in Singapore with the broadcaster MediaCorp and the cellular operators MobileOne, SingTel and StarHub. However this trial has been operating since 2007, and really it should be a live system by now, so calling it a new August 2008 trial is a little disingenuous, perhaps just the BCAST profile is new. Earlier in 2006 Nokia had a similar trial in Singapore, but this trial is from Alcatel with Samsung providing handsets. We might even say that Alcatel is virtually the last likely company into the BCAST market, given that the KPN Digitenne system that went live in the Netherlands in June used technology from Nokia, and also uses BCAST.
However given that very few DVB-H systems have so far been installed, this is a perfect opportunity for both Alcatel and encryption partner NDS to get a working reference system. Gemalto also provides the smart cards for the system.
The trial is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s Mobile Interactive TV solution, which will power the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) platform for the trial.
OMA had a perfectly good DRM called simply OMA DRM 2.0, but this requires a return path for authentication, and DVB-H is a one way broadcasting system, so the technology had to be adapted and use a SIM-based protection system so that flexible subscription models such as pay-per-view, pay-per-time, and recorded content could be facilitated.
Samsung has provided the new SGH-P960 for the consumer mobile DVB-H trial and NDS is providing its VideoGuard Conditional Access system.