Cheseaux, Switzerland / San Francisco, CA / Geneva, Switzerland, September 12, 2005 - Nagravision, the world's leading independent provider of value-added content protection, today announces a collaboration with OpenTV (NASDAQ-NMS: OPTV), a leading provider of enabling technology for advanced digital television services, and with Advanced Digital Broadcast (SMI: ADBN), a leading supplier of digital TV systems and software solutions for interactive television, to develop solutions for digital video recorders and to market those solutions jointly as the parties agree.
Nagravision, OpenTV and ADB intend to pre-integrate solutions to provide an accelerated time-to-market for set-top box manufacturers and Pay TV operators wishing to deploy secure, interactive digital video recorders. The first target platform is anticipated to be a high-definition, MPEG 4 AVC-capable digital video recorder (DVR) with a complete set of interactive applications including an electronic program guide and file-based Push VOD, with the parties targeting for the first deployment in Q1 2006.
These new efforts at collaboration build on existing relationships between Nagravision, OpenTV and ADB. The parties have some of the world’s largest Pay TV operators as common customers. Pierre Roy, Nagravision COO, said: "We are convinced that this integration of Nagravision’s DVR solutions with OpenTV Core 2.0 and PVR 2.0 as end-to-end solutions based on high definition-capable hardware from ADB is exactly what the market is expecting. Since such DVR solutions are highly complex, a fully integrated solution such as this one should help reduce certain risks and accelerate the time-to-market deployment of revenue-generating DVR-based services”.
The Nagravision DVR content protection solutions offer secure solutions ranging from basic DVR functionality (time shifting) through advanced recording options (record now, buy later) to complete end-to-end systems for DVR-based video-on-demand services. Nagravision DVR solutions have to date been deployed in over 1 million DVR set-top boxes and by the world’s leading U.S. based broadcasters and recently by Europe based Premiere in the first large-scale deployment of a satellite-based video-on-demand system. Nagravision has designed its DVR solutions to meet the needs of its customers, and this partnership with OpenTV will ensure that Nagravision customers wishing to deploy interactive DVR’s will have access to the highly innovative OpenTV Core 2.0 TM and PVR 2.0.
“We are delighted to build upon the long-standing relationship we’ve enjoyed with Nagravision and ADB,” said Jim Chiddix, OpenTV Chairman and CEO. “This enhanced collaboration should help create new opportunities for the companies by making it easier for operators to quickly deploy a state-of-the-art, fully integrated DVR solution for Pay TV.”
OpenTV Core 2.0 and PVR 2.0 are OpenTV’s latest generation middleware and digital video recording solutions, built from the ground up to support the requirements of PayTV operators. PVR 2.0 includes a state of the art file-system designed specially for digital video recorders helping to increase reliability and reduce operational costs. OpenTV Core 2.0 enables key operator services, such as Push VOD, to be easily enhanced to provide compelling viewer experiences.
“ADB is pleased to collaborate with Nagravision and OpenTV on this exciting project” says Philippe Lambinet CEO of ADB. “ADB believes that the introduction of MPEG 4 AVC brings enormous benefits to operators and that the advanced solutions we provide will be well received by the market. We have focused on the introduction of MPEG 4 AVC and the pre-integration of these solutions with Nagravision and OpenTV means that we are in a position to supply these solutions very rapidly to the market”.
About the Kudelski Group/Nagravision
The Kudelski Group (www.nagra.com) is a world leader in digital security. Its technologies are used in a wide range of applications requiring access control and rights management, whether for securing transfer of information (digital television, broadband Internet, video-on-demand, interactive applications, etc.) or to control and manage access of people or vehicles to sites and events. The Kudelski Group is headquartered in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland, and its stock is listed on the Swiss Market Index.
Nagravision, a Kudelski Group company, is the world's leading independent supplier of open conditional access and integrated solutions for digital TV operators and content providers. Its technologies are currently being used by more than 100 leading operators worldwide serving over 57 million subscribers.
About OpenTV
OpenTV is one of the world’s leading providers of technologies and services enabling the delivery of digital and interactive television. Deployed in over 57 million digital set-top-boxes in 96 countries, the company’s software enables a wide array of functionality, including enhanced television, interactive shopping, interactive and addressable advertising, games and gaming, personal video recording, and a variety of consumer care and communication applications. For more information, please visit www.opentv.com.
About ADB
Founded in 1995, Advanced Digital Broadcast supplies a diverse range of high quality products and services to the digital broadcast and broadband markets world-wide. Since releasing its first unit in 1997 the company has deployed over 5 million set-top boxes across high-volume markets incorporating a wide range of middleware, conditional access and hardware configurations.
ADB, with headquarters in Switzerland, has facilities in Australia, Israel, Italy, Poland, Spain, Taiwan and the United States. The majority of ADB's staff are development engineers, creating products that are universally recognized as the industry's best, both for current and future generation technology.
ADB is a member of ADB Holdings (www.adbholdings.com), a company listed on the SWX Swiss exchange (SWX: ADBN).
For more information or to arrange a meeting at the IBC trade show please contact:
Nagravision:
Ivan Schnider
Marketing & Communications Manager
+41 21 732 0940 / +41 79 778 9412 (cell)
[email protected]
Catherine Hugon
Corporate Communications Manager
+41 21 732 01 54
[email protected]
OpenTV:
Marc McCarthy
VP Marketing Communications
+1 415 217 9441
[email protected]
ADB Advanced Digital Broadcast:
Denise Kennedy
Marketing & Communications
+41 22 799 07 99
[email protected]