Search All News

Recent Articles

• Evolution, NCTC Ink Multi-Year Box Deal
• Evolution Pitches TiVos to NCTC Members
• Evolution Digital's DTAs available ...
• Evolution on evolution
• WEHCO Video Deploys Universal DTAs
• Evolution Notches Universal uDTA Deal
• Evolution Announces DTA Win
• Evolution Digital Continues to Secure ...
• Cablemas Expands Digital Service ...
• Cablemas Picks Digital TV Partners

Evolution "In The News" RSS

Add our feed to your homepage:

rss help

Digital Touch Points

By Linda Hardesty, associate editor, Communications Technology | Mon, 1 Feb 2010

New Digital Security and QoE Testing Methods Gain Traction

Separable security has won no popularity contests, but the experiment has generated changes, such as the introduction of DVB-CSA.

...Evolution DTAs

Brent Smith, president of Evolution Digital takes some credit for the success of DTAs and the use of DVB security in them.

"We're pioneers on the DTA side of things," he said.

A couple of years ago when the FCC mandated separable security, Smith saw an opportunity to take the DVB open standard used in much of the rest of the world and incorporate that into the North American market in a low-cost device with embedded security.

But Evolution had to apply for a separable security waiver for its DTA with limited capability. Evolution received the waiver in July 2009.

However, the FCC indicated in Evolution's waiver that it would look favorably on Evolution's DTA competitors if they requested similar waivers. And that appears to be the case.

"The Evolution order is now being used by everybody: Moto; Cisco; Thomson; Pace," said Smith.

...As for Evolution, the company has sold approximately 300,000 DTAs and has two new products coming out: the Universal DTA can interoperate with Cisco, Moto or DVB systems. And Evolution has submitted a waiver for an HD-DTA with Conax security, which is based on DVB-CSA.

"The rest of the world has benefited from mistakes made in North America," said Smith, adding that European operators ensured that all CA suppliers could interoperate with each other.

Other noteworthy users of SimulCrypt in the United States include Massillon Cable and Cablevision. Massillon primarily uses Motorola's security but can also use DVB-CSA with its Evolution DTAs. And Cablevision can descramble Cisco's security and DVB-CSA security from NDS. EchoStar also uses SimulCrypt for security.

To read the full article, click here.