Since video is increasingly taking to the airwaves – literally – it’s opening a demand for content protection and security over mobile and portable wireless devices. NDS, best known for its digital rights management (DRM) and conditional access (CA) software, is stepping into the fray and will be demonstrating a number of applications at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, including teaming with MobiTV.
The integrated solution allows MobiTV to move to what some consider fourth generation mobile delivery, 802.16e or mobile WiMAX. With it, MobiTV hopes to enable operators to deliver secure and protected video content to a growing number of broadband mobile devices that move beyond current 3G versions.
“We’re giving MobiTV the ability to sell the video package and make sure it’s secure,” said Dov Rubin, vice president and general manager of NDS Americas.
MobiTV already transmits is TV service to 3G mobile devices and PCs. The latest move is to put it on the newly developing mobile WiMAX devices that are expected to be introduced later this year either in conjunction with mobile phones or as standalone devices.
Because it will be a very rich broadband service with high levels of bandwidth, mobile WiMAX will “have really good resolution phones,” said Rubin. “We’ve given MobiTV the ability for 3G and migratable up to 4G (mobile WiMAX).”
The two companies integrate the NDS DRM and CA with MobiTV’s backend system to support encryption and management of subscribers. On the client side, they have integrated the NDS DRM and CA client into MobiTV’s mobile TV client which runs on an Ultra Mobile PC, a new category of mobile devices optimized for uses such as Internet-to-go, entertainment-to-go, and education-to-go. The MobiTV client connects to the video sent over the WiMAX network and displays it only after verifying subscriber rights for the service.
On another more conventional – if there is such a thing – level, NDS also said it will provide end-to-end content protection for KT Mobile’s new “toest” mobile content platform that delivers a wide variety of video content to Wi-Fi hotspots. The NDS encryption lets content owners deliver secure video that can be downloaded to mobile devices.
“KT is using the technology to really encourage people to use more bandwidth,” said Rubin. “They are seeing some competition from satellite and they want people in the habit of using more and more bandwidth getting out to their Wi-Fi phones.”