Nagravision appears to be heading for a clean sweep of the mobile TV arena, something that is irking all of the cellular community and especially those that have invested heavily in OMA DRM.
Nagra this week said that it has been selected by Vodafone to protect the content on its Italian mobile TV operation.
Obviously this announcement is not really new and many insiders already knew this, and it comes as no surprise that Nagra was in a strong position given that 3 Italia is already using Nagravision and Mediaset, the media conglomerate that runs half of Italian TV services, already uses Nagravision, and has actually built the DVB-H mobile TV service for Vodafone.
We understand that Vodafone is sharing Mediaset channels with Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), and that each of them have then additionally got dedicated channels of their own. To complete this they have had to have mini-head ends each, and conduct content negotiations separately, and have the ability to offer their own license server across the system, regardless of the DRM which is used.
Vodafone has been using OMS DRM for some years, in many countries, supplied by German specialist CoreMedia, but DVB-H requires a special broadcast version of DRM to be used and until now this has not been ready.
OMA allows for frequent authentication of the device using a two way channel, but since DVB-H can be picked up by portable devices which are far simpler than a cellular handset, a system which does not allow a two way channel had to be built, similar to the Nagravision and NDS systems for satellite conditional access. In these there is a secret private decryption key in each of the devices, usually securely put in place in a tamper proof card or chip. This decodes media entitlement messages (content decryption keys) which come in the stream with the content and which are used to decrypt the content itself.
A version of OMA is being built for such a purpose, and a broadcast version of the DVB Project’s conditional access system is being built. The Nagravision system is analogous to the DVB system, but uses it own peculiar form of scrambling algorithm.
Faultline was told by suppliers that each of the participants in the service could select their own DRM, but this would have meant a more complicated software set up on the handset and it was perhaps easier for the handset maker to push for the same DRM not only on each of the Mediaset operations, but also throughout Italy, including the 3 Italia rival. With LG providing the handsets to each of them (and Samsung), certain economies would have been possible (cheaper handsets we suspect) if they all used the same specification.
Vodafone’s own channels include Fox 1, Sky Sports and the Disney Channel as well as premium TV services like Serie A football.
Just where this leaves Vodafone DRM incumbent CoreMedia we are not sure, but Nagravision is bound to try to extend its grip on mobile TV in Europe to unicast services, by making the pricing irresistible for companies like Vodafone and undermining OMA entirely.