Abstract
Conditional access system (CAS) is a key technical component in digital TV broadcasting through which TV operators manage the appropriate rights of different subscribers in order to protect their commercial benefits. The normal digital TV receiver can only receive and decode the pay TV programs scrambled by one specific CAS. In this paper, the authors proposed a smartcard conditional access interface (SCAI) scheme in order to make the digital TV receiver be a common receiving platform independent of any specific CAS employed at the broadcasting head-end. As a result, it only needs to include a common conditional access software package (CCAP) without any requirement of hardware modification in the receiver. Comparison between the two mentioned DVB-CI-based schemes showed that the cost of such kind receiver is greatly reduced. The main design points of the proposed scheme and its reference implementation’s architecture are presented in this paper. This scheme is also one of the candidate national standards for Chinese digital TV broadcasting industry.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, M., Dulchinos, D., 2001. OpenCable. IEEE Commu. Mag., 39(6):98–105. [doi:10.1109/35.925676]
Asami, H., Sasaki, M., 2006. Outline of ISDB systems. IEEE Proc., 94(1):248–250. [doi:10.1109/JPROC.2005.859690]
CENELEC En50221, 1997. Common Interface for Conditional Access and Other Digital Video Decoder Applications. Comité Européen de Normalisation Électrotechnique CENELEC.
Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC, Philips, 2000. Universal Serial Bus Specification, Revision 2.0.
Cutts, D.J., 1997. DVB—conditional access. IEEE Electronics & Communication Engineering Journal, 9(1):21–27. [doi:10.1049/ecej:19970104]
DAVIC 1.4 Specifications Part 10, 1998. Basic Security Tools. Digital Audio-Visual Council.
DVB Blue Book A011, 1996. Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB)—DVB Common Scrambling Distribution Algorithm. DVB Project.
EIA 679-B, 1999. National Renewable Security Standard (NRSS) Part B. Electronic Industries Association.
ETSI ETR 289, 1996. Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB)—Support for Use of Scrambling and Conditional Access (CA) within Digital Broadcasting Systems. DVB Project.
Giachetti, J.L., Lenoir, V., Codet, A., Cutts D., Sager, J., 1995. A common conditional access interface for digital video broadcasting decoders. IEEE Trans. Consum. Elec., 41(3):836–841. [doi:10.1109/30.468076]
ISO/IEC 7816-3, 1997. Information Technology—Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts, Part 3: Electronic Signals and Transmission Protocols. International Organization for Standardization.
ISO/IEC 7816-4, 1997. Information Technology—Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts, Part 4: Interindustry Commands for Interchange. International Organization for Standardization.
ISO/IEC 8825-1, 2002. Information Technology—ASN.1 Encoding Rules: Specification of Basic Encoding Rules (BER), Canonical Encoding Rules (CER) and Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER). International Organization for Standardization.
ISO/IEC 13818, 1996–2004. Information Technology—Generic Coding of Moving Pictures and Associated Audio Information. International Organization for Standardization.
ISO/IEC 14496, 2001–2005. Information Technology—Coding of Audio-Visual Objects. International Organization for Standardization.
Kamperman, F., Rijnsoever, B.V., 2001. Conditional access system interoperability through software downloading. IEEE Trans. Consum. Elec., 47(1):47–64. [doi:10.1109/30.920419]
Macq, B.M., Quisquarter, J.J., 1995. Cryptology for digital TV broadcasting. IEEE Proc., 83(6):944–957. [doi:10.1109/5.387094]
Mooij, W.G.P., 1994. Conditional Access Systems for Digital Television. Int’l. Broadcasting Convention’94, p.489–491.
PCMCIA, 2001. PC Card Standard Release 8.0. Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA).
Reimers, U., 2001. Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB)—The International Standard for Digital Television. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Song, W.J., Kim, W.H., Kim, B.G., Kang, M.H., Choi, M., 2003. Contents protection system using smart card interface for digital CATV network based on the OpenCable specification. IEEE Trans. Consum. Elec., 49(3):693–702. [doi:10.1109/TCE.2003.1233806]
Stinson, D.R., 2002. Cryptography Theory and Practice, 2nd Ed. CRC Press, New York.
Whitaker, J., 2001. DTV Handbook: The Revolution in Digital Video, 3rd Ed. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Xie, Q., Zheng, S.B., Yu, X.J., 2005. A smart-card-based conditional access subsystem separation scheme for digital TV broadcasting. IEEE Trans. Consum. Elec., 51(3):925–932. [doi:10.1109/TCE.2005.1510505]
Zheng, M., Zheng, S.B., 2004. A common smart-card-based conditional access system for digital set-top box. IEEE Trans. Consum. Elec., 50(2):601–605. [doi:10.1109/TCE.2004.1309434]
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Project (No. 200442) supported by the Electronics Development Foundation for the Key Industrialization Project of the Ministry of Information Industry, China
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Xie, Q., Zheng, Sb. & Yu, Xj. A smartcard conditional access interface scheme for conditional access subsystem separation in digital TV broadcasting. J. Zhejiang Univ. - Sci. A 7, 1008–1017 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2006.A1008
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2006.A1008