TVkey by NAGRA and Samsung reaches new milestones of retail bundling, deployments and chipset partners
September 15, 2017
NAGRA, a Kudelski Group company and independent provider of content protection and multiscreen television solutions, and Samsung Electronics, the market leader in home entertainment, have announced a series of new milestones and developments that are propelling the TVkey solution toward global implementation. They include the launch of new customers in India, expansion into the Latin America market, in-box bundling of TVkey in the German market, and the addition of additional chipset partners opening the path to integration into new TV brands.
Jointly developed by NAGRA and Samsung, TVkey, a CES 2017 Innovation Awards honoree, allows consumers to enjoy premium content directly on new TV sets through a simple sign-up process with their pay-TV provider and experience high-quality services, including 4K Ultra HD and HDR, directly on all Samsung Smart TVs using the TV remote control. The system provides the highest level of content protection and the USB dongle offers a fast and secure way for pay-TV operators to bring advanced services directly to new consumer TV sets.
Since launching in Germany with HD+ in February 2017, TVkey is now also being deployed in India with two major cable MSOs. In addition, TVkey is targeted for launch with two large Latin American operators in 2018. More operators in Europe, India, South East Asia and Latin America are expected to follow soon.
In Germany, Samsung and HD+ have now moved to a second phase of TVkey distribution. After initially including a TVkey voucher in new Samsung TV boxes, both parties have now started to bundle the actual TVkey dongle with new Samsung TVs at retail.
In addition, television System-on-a-Chip (SoC) manufacturers Mstar and Novatek have announced their commitment to support TVkey in new TV chipsets, enabling TV vendors using those chips to quickly add TVkey to their products. At the same time, other third-party dongle, CAS and TV vendors are currently evaluating the TVkey technical specification in anticipation of implementing their security solutions on TVkey dongles.
Finally, the addition of NexGuard as the first forensic watermarking technology supported by TVkey ensures that TVkey fully meets content owner requirements for Enhanced Content Protection. This opens the way for service providers using TVkey to license the latest and greatest Hollywood content including early release content.