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The fight against piracy has scored some significant wins in the past 12 months.
Digital Broadcast speaks to some of the top conditional access vendors to assess just how long the pirates might remain sunk.
The evolution of the pay TV industry is having serious consequences for the companies providing the conditional access (CA) products that protect the content they have invested in from being accessed illegally.
The emergence of a growing number of IPTV and hybrid architecture networks has created a market for software based CA systems, rather than the smartcard based hardware systems that have dominated previously.
As well as the pressure created from the number of operators opting for software systems, hardware only manufacturers have also had to content with codeword sharing – a successful form of piracy that as until recently running rampant – as well as the technological challenges created form having to keep up with the new services that operators want to provide their viewers.
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“From a global perspective, I believe that the future of smartcard-based pay TV systems is fairly limited,” says Pierre Hunter, VP sales EMEA, Verimatrix. “The company has seen its customers replacing them in one of two ways: either with secure low cost system-on-chip security in set top boxes (STB) and increasingly with the deployment of hybrid network topologies. Smartcards will be favoured by traditional broadcast only operators in satellite environments. Ultimately, new deployments of this technology will be phased out.”
Albert Tzulman, SVP, sales and marketing at CA provider Logiways, is less pessimistic.
“Smartcard-based CA systems are still the best solution to secure content, especially on a one-way broadcast system,” he says.
“Software-only CA can be efficient for a connected STB, but it is also easier for hackers to upgrade these boxes. There are now on the market some hardware solutions – such as USB dongles – to add security on top of software-based CA. The future solution is probably the new generation of software CA linked with IC security features.”
At present as long as both one-way and two-way networks remain in wide use it is likely demand for both hard- and software systems will continue.
“Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages and the industry needs to give operators the choice of what best fits their particular operation,” says Christopher Schouten, advanced products marketing director, Irdeto.
In addition to its hardware solutions for one-way networks, Irdeto also claims to make the only software only system without a return path.
“There have not been any software based solutions other than the one we launched last year that is sufficient to address the needs of a one-way broadcast networks and that because most of the software systems today have been predicated on the presence of an IP return path,” says Schouten. “In situations where that IP return path is available then a software solution is superior from a logistics perspective but in the millions and millions of legacy devices that are out there on one way networks smart cards will continue to play a crucial role in content protection now and for the foreseeable future.”
Schouten also makes the point that the presence of a broadband network determines whether the option of using a return path based system is present, noting that this is an issue outside of the main urban centres in the Middle East.
Latens has a different background to many of its contemporaries in the CA industry as it has always been a software-based developer since its inceptionn in 2003. The company continues to be bullish on its prospects moving forward.
“At the time of our launch, existing CA providers said [software based CA] was not safe and would not be accepted by the operators. Latens has seen all its competitors follow its example in respect to software security for IPTV,” says Andrew Pons, marketing manager, Latens. “Gradually more are following the example of using software only CA for one-way broadcasts. Therefore given that smartcard piracy is rampant in the Middle East it can only be a question of time before smartcards are no longer part of a CA solution.”
As well as a technological advantage, Pons also says that the business model behind software based security also creates extra incentives for the system to withstand attacks from pirates
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