It was a moot point whether or not DirecTV would continue with NDS technology ‘ both conditional access and software, not to mention its DVR design – once Liberty Media had acquired it from News Corp, the erstwhile parent of NDS. But this week NDS must have breathed a sigh of relief as it renewed contracts through to 2016 with DirecTV for set top software and DVR technology in both the US and Latin America.
CanalSat Switzerland said this week it had announced a new partnership with Nagravision on conditional access, though we’re not really sure what the question marks were, the rest of CanalSat uses Nagra, has for ages. Looks like it has just upgraded to the next generation of Nagra for HD and DVR function.
Nagra also said this week that it had shipped 80 million secure MPEG Chipsets since 2003which have Nagra on-chip security. There were 22 million Nagra-certified chipsets produced in 2010 alone. Of course how many chips you ship is a function of how often you replace smart cards, which is to do with how secure they are, so it’s not really something which is definitively positive. Nagra first specified its Nagra On Chip Security to chip makers in 2002.
Canadian video optimization specialist Vantrix says that Russian cellular operator VimpelCom has selected its Multi-screen Video solution for a nationwide deployment of Mobile TV and Video on Demand (VOD) services on its Beeline network. Video is one of the key offerings of Beeline, Vimpelcom said.
Netflix is now responsible for 6 out of 10 digital movies which are streamed across the internet in the US, says researcher the NPD Group using figures from its VideoWatch tracking service. The precise figure is 61% between January 2011 and February 2011. Comcast is in second place with 8% and there is a three way tie for third between DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, and Apple.
US researcher Parks Associates has forecast that there will be 126 million tablets shipped globally in 2015 and that around 68 million of these will have a 3G or 4G connection. These are virtually the same numbers that we put out in our report three months ago (Tablets 2.0 ‘ This time think bigger). Parks says that in 2010 some 29% of the 16.5 million tablets sold in 2010 featured embedded 3G technology.
We wondered why Motorola bought software only conditional access supplier Secure Media and some clues may be present at IPTV World Forum, where it says that it will show how TV Everywhere initiatives offer new revenue opportunities to pay TV suppliers. It says expect to see it recast as a system which can work with a multitude of devices, multiple TV Everywhere services, keep down costs of encoding, storage and video distribution and deal with multiple video formats. So like about 20 other players it will show a combination of cryptography and HTTP adaptive streaming for Android tablets and smartphones, iPad and iPhone, PCs and Macs as well as new OTT set tops.
Time Warner Cable this week launched its TWCable TV app for the Apple iPad, and says that they can use it to watch live TV, something that most TV Everywhere initiatives have fallen short of so far. The service will not cost existing subscribers anything, but it relies on being connected to its own Internet lines. So far no US cable company has come up with a service that allows you to go over the top across another company’s broadband lines, although they have been promised.
The HomePNA Alliance this week said that Pace, the world’s leading pay TV set top maker, has joined the HomePNA Board of Directors as a Promoter Member.
US researcher In-Stat says that the number of 3D TV channels will go past 100 by 2015 and added that early expectations of 3D TV were over hyped by the press. 3D channels have been launched in North America, Europe, and Asia in 2010. More will come in 2011. In addition to linear TV channels, 3D content is being made widely available on pay TV providers VoD systems.
Netflix is in the process of negotiating for the rights of the original TV series “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher. This is in line with Faultline predictions that it would begin going up against rivals like HBO to fund content, and retain its exclusivity, to drive online video sales. You can’t get a bigger film cult figure than Kevin Spacey. Netflix has not confirmed the deal but early reports that it has paid $100 million, appear way too high.
Smart card maker Gemalto said this week that in partnership with NetOne in Zimbabwe it will provide secure banking services for people using handsets, using the Gemalto LinqUs solution for Mobile Money Transfer. It says that the system works on 100% of deployed handsets.
French cableco Numericable is supposed to be selling off the networks it has in neighboring Belgium, but as yet no clear front runner has emerged, and with UPC’s Telenet this week being dropped from the shortlist, according to local newspapers, that leaves the far smaller Voo Group plus local Belgium businessmen. That means the price will be far lower we suspect, unless Telenet comes back in later.
There will be more statements about Japan, but they will typically all say the same thing as the one from Qualcomm yesterday, which is that everyone is deeply saddened by what’s happened there and no we don’t think it will affect our ability to deliver. The Earthquakes there threaten to cause widespread financial mayhem running from an expensive nuclear tidying up operation to disrupted global supply chains for consumer electronics.
Japan’s Access Co said that Turkish video WiFi specialist AirTies has selected its Netfront DLNA software for its Media Gateways and set tops. Yeah we saw it demonstrated in the Summer so we already knew that, and it worked too. Meanwhile Access also says that its Netfront browser is now shipping in HbbTV products from OEM Vestel in set-tops and digital TVs. It says that Vestel produces 1 in 4 of all Europe’s TV sets.
In the US the Newspaper Association of America says that newspaper advertising revenue has reached an all-time low at $22.8 billion, something like half the amount it was in 2003, and down 8% from last year. It was last at this level in 1983 but not if you take inflation into account. The falls for the previous three years were 28.6%, 17.7% and 9.4%. The good news for newspapers has been the growth in revenues from their web sites, which has now reached an all-time high of $3 billion, 11% up on last year.