Satellite News January 2010

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Industry creates Connected TV Game Forum

By Robert Briel
January 5, 2010 13.15 UK

Several interactive companies have established the Connected TV Game Forum for the development of games on connected TV. They are Accedo, Betfair, PlayJam, RallyPoint and Two Way Media.

The Forum aims to galvanise a common approach to gaming requirements for connected TV devices including functionality, features and open standards. The Forum seeks to voice a clear, collective opinion on the requisite technical and commercial factors for compelling games services, primarily targeting key consumer electronics platforms. The Connected TV Forum openly invites all companies wishing to work closely on and benefit from this opportunity.

Online games are a major driver in the multi-platform digital entertainment arena, attracting 38% of internet users whilst generating billions of downloads via mobile phone applications and digital TV platforms. For example, gaming on social media sites already generate more than $500 million (€345 million) in micro-transactions every year. The Forum’s partners believe games will act as a prime motivator for consumers to connect their TVs to the internet.

“Casual gaming is clearly one of the great opportunities for connected TV and has proven consumer interest and willingness to pay,” commented Michael Lantz, CEO, Accedo Broadband. “At Accedo we remain committed to the vision of connected TV, and will through the forum jointly drive gaming and application requirements and standards for any online TV solution”.

The Connected TV Game Forum is inviting other companies developing games and gaming related applications to join the forum to provide synchronised requirements to the connected TV Industry.

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Most pirated TV shows of 2009

By Robert Briel
January 5, 2010 13.00 UK

Heroes is the most illegally downloaded TV-show, with over 6 million downloads for a single episode, according to a Top 10 published by website Torrentfreak.

Heroes (NBC) was downloaded 6.58 million times in 2009, meaning more fans tune in illegally than watch the show legally on television. Showtime’s Dexter is the only other show with more illegal sharers than weekly viewers: the show ranks number 4 with 2,780,000 downloads as compared with an average of 2,300,000 weekly viewers.

The runner-up is Lost (ABC) with 6,310,000 downloads (11,050,000 weekly viewership); number 3 is Prison Break (Fox) with 3,450,000 downloads (5,300,000 viewers) and at number 5 it’s House (Fox) with 2,590,000 downloads (15,600,000 viewers). (The figures show average number of downloads per episode and number of weekly viewers)

Number 6 – 24 (Fox) with 2,440,000 downloads (12,620,000 viewers); 7 – Desperate Housewives (ABC) with 2,180,000 downloads (15,500,000 viewers); 8 – Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox) with 1,960,000 downloads (6,340,000 viewers); 9 – Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) with 1,740,000 downloads (15,640,000 viewers) and at 10 True Blood (HBO) with 1,600,000 downloads (12,400,000 viewers).

Commenting on the piracy of US TV-shows Torrentfreak observed: “The rise of unauthorised downloading of TV-shows is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels. Availability seems to be the key issue why people turn to BitTorrent, and this is also reflected in the fact that most downloads occur from countries where the show has yet to air on TV.”

The blog continues: “Despite massive piracy of TV-shows, there are plenty of opportunities for distributors and broadcasters to win viewers back. The piracy figures simply show that TV viewing habits are changing. There is a huge interest in on-demand TV and there are millions of viewers that can potentially bring in millions of dollars in revenue.”

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Viaccess PC 2.6 and 3.0, broken by pirates?

* 2009-12-31 15:13:31 / Hacking
* Last update: 2010-01-05 08:59:00
* Source: Inf / sat-elita.info / Happysat / AoF

Dark clouds gather over solutions provider CA (Conditional Access in English) - a company Viaccess SA, a company governed by the France Telecom Group. Even before Christmas, December 19, 2009, the network software available for selected models and digital receivers for DVB cards, enabling the decoding of the Italian broadcaster Channel offers erotic Satisfaction SCT, using a PC card Viaccess 2.6.


Spice up the whole situation being that the hackers made available on the web full source code written in C, allowing the addition of unauthorized decoding packages of SCT for almost every receiver, if you only have actively developed emulation software coding systems. Despite the relatively robust security (number of times the transformation of data before decryption), the system has been so successfully overcome, it appeared even the ripples in a completely forgotten your Gold Card.

One of the hackers on the forum devoted to the popular DVB cards commented that, in practice, Viaccess is now helpless, made public the data represent a serious breach in security. Are shrouded in secrecy, only the method of gaining the keys, but apparently this is not an excessive problem since shortly after the spill showed SCT is also input to the new modules DiabloCAM CI 2, called Ipnosys, with added successive packages: * Swiss SRG SSR (13 ° E ), erotic Free-X TV (13 ° E) and French BIS (13 ° E and 5 ° W).

Unofficially it is said that the next packet after SCT, which will be made publicly available, it will just * Swiss SRG SSR. At the same time there is a list of packages, which are broken. In foreign fora strongly suggests that their availability is only a matter of time i. .. money, that is a manufacturer of receivers pay "under the table" more for its products sell better!

Exchanged among the platforms to be at risk: the Russian platform NTV Plus (36 ° E), the Arab channels Al Jazeera Sports (26 ° E, 13 ° E and 7 ° E), French CanalSat (19.2 ° E) and ... Orange Poland platform TP. This may mean that the newer card Viaccess PC 3.0 has been compromised, though here the possibility of blockade of the CA are apparently larger. Not to be affected the most recent card PRAHA called Viaccess PC 4.0.

Consequences of the piracy threat, then certainly the exchange of cards erotic channels in Viaccess, and that are sometimes huge problems, especially when someone bought the card in a small shop online, or abroad. It will probably gradually to exchange cards or even to renounce and eliminate system Viaccess among vulnerable platforms. Possible, for example, that dispenses with NTV Plus Viaccess typical for the Russian system of DRE-Crypt, but for now is pure speculation.

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Digi TV exchange cards (Nagravision 3)

* 2010-01-05 15:11:21 / Anita Dabek
* Last update: 2010-01-05 16:02:56


The company RCS / RDS, the Romanian operator Digi TV satellite platform, by replacing old code Nagravision 2 cards for the new operating system Media Access Nagra (N3 - Nagravision 3). The purpose of this activity is to better security against unauthorized removal programs. Information on the exchange of papers appeared on the official website of the Hungarian version of Digi TV.


It is likely that the replacement card will be carried out in all six countries in which the platform works.

Digi TV customers will receive a letter with the new card code, which should be mentioned in the decoder in accordance with the instructions contained in the message instructions. The old card should be returned to the provider within 7 days. In gratitude for the cooperation, the customer will receive a package of HBO MAX PAK per month.

Recall that the platform already uses three coding system Nagravision - CAID 1801 (the so-called Nagravision 2), 1802 (the so-called Media Access Nagra. Nagravision 3). The third system with CAID 1880 was added in the summer of 2009 and is a newer version of the Media Access Nagra.

Digi TV operates in six countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The platform uses capacity on satellites Intelsat 10-02 (1W) and THOR 5 (0.8 W).

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BBC monitors website with Witbe

BBC is using Witbe's quality of experience (QoE) technology to complement its existing quality of service (QoS) measurements with end-user experience data, based on actual visual clues, for the BBC.co.uk web site. Witbe robots technology continuously reproduces user behaviour on the BBC.co.uk web site, in particular on the Home page, the Weather page, the News page and the Sports page. In addition, the same robots technology replicates the usage of the iPlayer such as video viewing and video downloading.

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More illegal viewers than legal for ‘Heroes’


For the second year in a row, NBC's ‘Heroes’ has been named the most-pirated TV show. Despite TV viewership dwindling from 14 million viewers a week in 2006 to six million viewers a week in 2009, the show remains a hit among downloaders.

According to Torrentfreak, a blog dedicated the latest news about BitTorrent file-sharing, "Heroes" was downloaded 6.58 million times in 2009 - meaning more fans tune in illegally than legally.

Showtime's ‘Dexter’ is the only other show with more illegal sharers than weekly viewers.

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InOutTV and Electra launch interactive TV platform


InOutTV and Electra have entered into a long term partnership to offer broadcast and connected interactive television services to consumers in Spain over DVB-T (DTT).

Nationwide service availability will commence from first quarter 2010 over InOutTV’s digital terrestrial TDT (DVB-T) network. Launch will commence on zapper and PVR STB silicon free-to-air and Premium TDT solutions, following shortly afterwards in digital TVs.

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Oz Freesat


Australia government is to build a free-to-air digital-satellite platform to extand reception of digital TV in rural areas. The federal government is committing A$40 million per year over four years to the service. About 247,000 households across the nation are expected to receive "free-to-air" satellite services.

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Portugal digital subs grow



Portugal had 2.44 million TV subscribers at the end of September after adding 71,000 subs during the third quarter of 2009 with subscriber growth across all platforms, according to regulator Anacom.

Cable accounted for 60 cent of TV subscriptions during the quarter, cable now passes 4.28 million households, compared with 4.19 million a year earlier, and has 1.45 million TV subscribers around half of which are digital.

At the end of September, 624,000 subscribers, or 25.5 per cent of the total, received TV via satellite, up 26,000 quarter-on-quarter and 63,000 year-on-year. IPTV subscriptions rose by 39,000 during the quarter to a total of 356,000. The number of IPTV operators increased to four when Vodafone launched a TV service during the quarter.

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Levin apologises for AOL: ‘worst deal of century’


Jerry Levin, who sold Time Warner for AOL shares inflated by the dotcom boom, has marked the 10th anniversary of the disastrous $164 billion deal with a call for today’s corporate titans to accept responsibility for the recent financial crisis.

The former Time Warner chief executive, who had avoided apologising for the billions of dollars destroyed by the deal, was speaking during an appearance on CNBC. "I presided over the worst deal of the century, apparently, and I guess it’s time for those who are involved in companies to stand up and say: you know what, I’m solely responsible for it," said Levin. "I was in charge. I’m really very sorry about the pain and the suffering and loss that was caused. I take responsibility."