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Nagravision and PacketVideo brings pay TV to the iPhone

In an industry first, Nagravision is enabling pay TV on iPhones and all WiFi-enabled devices with mobile broadcast receivers. Working with mobile multimedia services software innovator PacketVideo to increase access to multimedia - regardless of where they are or what device they’re using - Nagravision is helping to expand mobile broadcast TV deployment.

Using PacketVideo’s conditional access (CA-) enabled mobile broadcast receiver Telly, mobile broadcast TV can be viewed on WiFi-enabled devices - including mobile phones, portable media players and PCs. This not only gives more choice to current users, but also opens up services to new subscribers.

Here’s how it works. The pocket-sized receiver, Telly, automatically recognises the end user’s device and optimises the compression rate and format of the video frame to suit the capabilities of each device. By processing TV and audio signals viewers receive a high quality broadcast, wherever and whatever they’re watching it on.

“This is a huge leap forward in the pay TV market,” said Jean-Luc Jezouin, senior vice president product management digital TV for the Kudelski Group. “With mobiles and portable devices becoming increasingly multifunctional - from ‘on the go’ communications such as email, web browsing and uploading content - pay TV is the next obvious step. It offers more viewing options for consumers, increases the operator’s subscriber base and provides new revenue sources. By building in authentication, conditional access and digital rights management at the beginning, it makes it easy to avoid piracy issues.”

Unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, the solution provided by Nagravision and PacketVideo supports the most popular operating systems available on the market, as well as major broadcast formats such as DVB-H and MediaFLO. The first version will be commercially available next quarter for launch on service operators’ networks.

“With the iPhone being one of the hottest devices this year, leading the way in internet and content consumption while ‘on the go’, it’s only natural that we work with PacketVideo to enable pay TV,” added Jezouin. “It also extends to the iPod Touch, Nokia N series handsets and Windows Mobile 6 based devices. The solution is highly innovative and easy to set up and we look forward to seeing it rapidly expand the mobile broadcast TV market.”

“While the mobile TV market has significant growth potential and stands to change the way consumers watch television, usability challenges have stunted adoption to date,” said Dr. Osama Alshaykh, chief technology officer, PacketVideo. “Our partnership with Nagravision is a strong step forward in accelerating the mass market adoption of mobile TV by putting broadcast TV services into the hands of new subscribers and current users.”