BISS-CA System Helps Secure Live-Content Transport For Nevion's Virtuoso

The BISS-CA Conditional Access system has been selected by Nevion to strengthen the security of its Virtuoso platform for live-content transport.

With Virtuoso, the BISS-CA module can be used together with high quality H.264/AVC encoding or decoding, or any MPEG Transport Streams (ASI or TS over IP).

The new BISS-CA protocol is a supplement to the updated version of the Basic Interoperable Scrambling System (BISS). It is designed to help minimise the risk of piracy of live content, by strengthening transport security to secure the broadcast of future high-profile events similar to the British Royal Wedding and the FIFA World Cup. BISS-CA is a royalty-free open standard designed to be network-agnostic, as well as IP-and software-friendly, making its widespread adoption easy.

BISS-CA also offers new capabilities, which include allowing cryptographic entitlements to be transported together with the live video content in-band, and enabling the rights holder to grant or revoke usage rights in real-time. It also makes provisions for further safety measures such as watermarking, allowing live content to be traceable and helping further to discourage piracy.

Johnny Dolvik, Chief Product and Development Officer, Nevion, said: "We successfully demonstrated BISS-CA on Virtuoso at this year's NAB show in April. Judging by the reaction of the visitors to our booth, we believe this new standard will have significant take-up across the industry, particularly because of its open, royalty-free nature. We were delighted to work with the EBU on this important step forward for the industry."

"We recognised that scrambling standards needed to be updated to counter the ever-greater threats posed by piracy and meet the evolving requirements of the industry," added Adi Kouadio, Senior Project Manager, Technology and Innovation of EBU. "It made sense for us to work closely with media transport experts, including Nevion, to develop a new standard for the benefit of the whole industry. It goes without saying that we are very pleased with the outcome of this collaboration."

nevion.com