Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Digital Vendors | Taiwan | Chunghwa IPTV Expands

SmartCard vendor, Widevine Technologies of Seattle (funded by Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Charter Ventures TELUS (NYSE: TU) and others)has informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News that Taiwan’s state-owned Chunghwa Telecom has purchased a further batch of 300,000 Virtual SmartCards for IPTV premium broadcast and video-on-demand delivery for various consumer devices. Some 500,000 of the same cards were purchased in 2005.

The security embedded cards are usable across many devices, an indication, according to IP Media Research Analyst Colin Dixon of The Diffusion Group that Chunghwa having proven it can scale its IPTV service, so it is beginning to look at bringing those services to multiple consumer devices (including set top boxes, PCs and mobile phones) and resorting to a single security solution such as Widevine’s.

Widevine Cypher is used exclusively to protect the entire Chunghwa multimedia footprint across Taiwan.

Yi-Fong Chang, Chunghwa’s Multimedia Department MD said that by using Widevine’s comprehensive content protection solutions Chunghwa was able to license premium content for its fixed-line business and a further step in its its vision to offer multimedia on demand products to its entire subscriber base.

Chunghwa’s interactive TV service, Multimedia on Demand (MOD), is one of the largest IPTV deployments in the world.

[Digital Broadcasters Vendor News says that by utilising a combination of downloadable conditional access and digital rights management techniques, Widevine enables operators to acquire and license premium studio content and, through unique patented technologies, reduce capital and operational expenditures. It should be noted that Widewine is used by a number of Hollywood studios to secure their entertainment and movie content and is an industry leader.]

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