Intel was always going to reach a point with the CE 3100 processor where it would need to implement one of the major conditional access systems on-chip, if it was going to be taken seriously as either a DTV or set top component among pay TV operators. So its agreement to embed the core Nagravision element on-chip, what it calls its NOCS (Nagra On-Chip Security) system, is fairly unsurprising.
Usually a company like Intel would wait until it has sufficient interest from a major device maker, perhaps one of the big three, before adding it to its chip and that would only happen if a Pay TV operator had a plan to offer services using the 3100, which is now integrated with the Yahoo TV Widget platform.
It was just over a year ago that Intel introduced the chip line that it will push to dominate the digital home, with the aim of getting the same control over the TV set, as it has over the PC, but with Yahoo in the position that Microsoft holds on the PC, as software and architecture provider.
It is a generic video converter chip with an additional software layer to develop and deploy widget triggered services on TV screens. The sophisticated chip has a processor core, hardware codec support, dedicated multi-channel audio processing DSPs, a powerful 3D-graphics engine, a security processor and support for multiple peripherals on a single chip, in effect a completely alien architecture compared to a PC microprocessor.
But it uses the Intel instruction set, giving it access to the library of code built up over the last 20 years including tools, compilers and re-usable Internet applications.
Essentially it’s an 800MHz+ Intel Pentium M processor built in 90nm with a graphics accelerator and shading engine for fast video rendering, and Intel says it can handle two concurrent HD streams and will decode Microsoft’s VC1, for all that Windows Media video out there, as well as H.264 and MPEG2 for all the traditionally coded TV content, although it has no support for DiVX.
But a year is a short time in building a chip eco-system and we would have expected more support announcements than this from Intel and it looks like it is having to make the running by chasing companies like Nagra, and paying for a license and for the integration work.
Already Sony, Panasonic and Samsung all have their own internet TV converters built into their architectures, but these add around $300 to a device price, something that cannot be sustained if this functionality is really going to take off in the mass market.
At launch Intel only had the support of Tru2way specialist Alticast; Denmark’s DVR marker Futarque; Videon Central, a Blu-ray middleware specialist; VividLogic, another cable Tru2way software house plus Giga-Byte, Tatung and Unihan from Taiwan. Intel has said that the chip could be the key to delivering addressable advertising, as well as internet video.
In May Dutch CE builder Conceptronic introduced a reference framework around the Intel 3100 chip which would support new APIs for media players, webcams, storage and EPG, but it’s hardly a top of the line recommendation. Last September both Samsung and Toshiba said they would introduce products built around the chip but these have yet to emerge, despite Samsung showing a prototype at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Intel and Yahoo said at launch that they were already working with Blockbuster, CBS Interactive, CinemaNow, Cinequest, Comcast, Disney-ABC, eBay, GE, Group M, Joost, MTV, Samsung, Schematic, Showtime, Toshiba and Twitter, for the creation of widgets but so far there really are no devices to put them on, which is perhaps why the Nagra move is so important.
Nagravision is one of the two largest Conditional Access companies in the world, along with NDS, each with around 100 million TV devices under protection, with companies like Motorola, Cisco’s Scientific Atlanta and Irdeto also holding significant market share.
Essentially the move will lead to a version of the chip where the security element, something that was always on the chip, will be hard coded to support the Nagra conditional access keys and keep them hidden. The on-chip system will include encryption and decryption engines, software, software integrity checks, tamper protection, and unique chip IDs.
Nagravision certified Intel CE media processors are expected to be available to Nagravision licensees during the first half of 2010. ‘Content protection is essential for today’s designs,’ noted Keith Wehmeyer, General Manager, IPTV Segment, Intel Digital Home Group. We last came across Wehmeyer as one of the individuals that drove the Thomson effort into IPTV set tops, so Intel has snagged someone there who knows this market inside out.