Set Top Box (STB) and PVR company NDS have today announced that they have reached an agreement with Frontier Silicon, a fabless manufacturer of digital media semiconductors based in the UK, to work together on technology to protect digital TV and DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) content on mobile devices.
Frontier Silicon are already well known for pioneering in next gen digital chippery with their DAB chips; the “World’s First” DMB and DVB-H mobile Digital TV chip – in their words; they’ve also innovated in DAB with the introduction of DABplus, a DAB radio with EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) built-in.
The deal sees NDS have their mVideoGuard DRM technology built-in to Frontier’s T-DMB, DVB-H and DAB receiving chips. Interestingly it also sees Frontier Silicon moving into producing kit for the head-end (where it’s broadcast from) – to ensure mVideoGuard is in place from end-to-end.
Many readers, especially the non-UK massive, may be thinking ‘So what? Who and who have signed a deal?’ Well the significance of NDS moving this way is that it may signal where Sky is moving. Sky, as I’m sure you know, is the satellite TV company who own the UK in satellite delivered TV, and who’s parent company News International now owns US satellite giant DirecTV.
For a long time Sky and NDS have been developing content protection schemes. They feel this is vital before they let their subscribers move their TV shows from STBs to other devices – including mobile devices.
Despite working on conditional access for mobile TV for a number of months (with NDS), this is the first time that Frontier have built DRM in to their chips, and it’s also thought that this is the first deal that NDS have done putting DRM in system apart from their own.
Is this a move to have NDS as an established provider of DRM? Well it having Sky as a reference client certainly isn’t a bad move.
Frontier Silicon has launched a new module that claims to bring personal-video-recorder (PVR) like capabilities to DAB digital radio. 
Recordings can be saved onto a memory card on the same radio or played back on any compatible audio unit. 
Frontier Silicon’s software provides an interface through which EPG and dynamic service information (DLS) can be viewed, with scrolling text allowing information ‘wider’ than the 16-character screen to be seen. 
Across Europe, interactive services using the DVB Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) standard have been launched on cable, satellite and terrestrial platforms. While not formally mandated by the European Commission, MHP has been embraced as an open and interoperable standard that can be actively encouraged and promoted. Already, several countries have launched MHP-based interactive services on the terrestrial platform. 
In Austria, a DTT trial with MHP-based interactive services provided 150 households in Graz with access to an interactive television service called !TV4 using the telephone connection for the return channel. Using their television remote control, viewers could retrieve information services and vote. Given the success of the trial, it is likely that MHP-based interactive services will be launched alongside DTT services. 
Of course MHP is not the only interactive television service system in the market. Proprietary systems such as MediaHighway and OpenTV have been installed in a large number of set-top boxes, often for cable and satellite platforms. In the United Kingdom, the MHEG standard is widely used on the terrestrial platform. As a result of the various products and services in the market, the DVB Project has been working on the development of the Portable Content Format (PCF) to deliver a wide range of interactive television services to multiple platforms with a minimum of re-authoring. It has significant interest for operators who wish to migrate towards MHP by allowing them to manage simultaneously a mixed population of devices. 
BBC Three viewers will be able to schedule their own Sunday night viewing in a pioneering multi-screen application trial starting on 1 May 2005. 
Emma Somerville, the BBC’s Head of Interactive Programming, added: “Interactive TV can really help our audiences engage with the BBC’s TV channels.” 
Old school TV listings magazine The Radio Times, has announced a partnership with Gemstar, the Murdoch-owned electronic programme guide (EPG). 
This partnership kicks the Radio Times firmly into the new digital age of television, with the company selling advertising on Guide Plus+ and boosting awareness of the EPG by plugging it relentlessly in its print magazine. 
Gill Hudson, editor of the Radio Times, declared: “There is now no format not covered by Radio Times – you can access RT via mobile, your PDA, online, and now the Guide Plus+ EPG.” 
TiVo has signed a multiyear deal to make a version of its personal video recorder software available to customers of Comcast Cable, currently the King Kong of largest cable operators in the US. 
The Comcast deal means that TiVo will have to adapt its software to work on Comcast’s existing DVR platform. This will enable TiVo to blast out the advertising it sells as interactive video clips in their onscreen menu to Comcast subscribers. 
Punching endless buttons and shouting at your video recorder could become a thing of the past thanks to Opera Software’s new voice-enabled Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for home media. 
Opera will also be rolling out a new voice-enabled edition of the Opera browser for PCs. 
PURE Digital announced today that it’s offering support for an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) for the Bug DAB digital radio.