Nevion enhances Virtuoso with BISS-CA for strengthened security for live-content transport

BISS-CA conditional access system jointly developed with the EBU

Oslo, Norway, 20 June 2018 – Nevion, the award-winning provider of virtualized media production and digital terrestrial solutions, has announced that the BISS-CA Conditional Access system developed in collaboration with the EBU, is now supported in Virtuoso, its software-defined media node platform. The BISS-CA software module in Virtuoso, which offers a raft of new features to secure the transport of valuable live-content, can be used together with high quality H.264/AVC encoding or decoding, or any MPEG Transport Streams (ASI or TS over IP).

The new BISS-CA protocol is a supplement to the updated version of the Basic Interoperable Scrambling System (BISS). It is designed to help minimize the risk of piracy of live content, by strengthening transport security compared to existing standards, to secure the broadcast of future high-profile events similar to the British Royal Wedding and the FIFA World Cup. Crucially, BISS-CA is a royalty-free open standard designed to be network-agnostic, as well as IP-and software-friendly, making its widespread adoption easy.

BISS-CA also offers new capabilities, which include allowing cryptographic entitlements to be transported together with the live video content in-band, and enabling the rights holder to grant or revoke usage rights in real-time. It also makes provisions for further safety measures such as watermarking allows live content to be traceable, helping further to discourage piracy.

Johnny Dolvik, Chief Product and Development Officer, Nevion, says: “We successfully demonstrated BISS-CA on Virtuoso at this year’s NAB show in April. Judging by the reaction of the visitors to our booth, we believe this new standard will have significant take-up across the industry, particularly because of its open, royalty-free nature. We were delighted to work with the EBU on this important step forward for the industry.”

Adi Kouadio, Senior Project Manager, Technology and Innovation of EBU agrees: “We recognized that scrambling standards were needed to be updated to counter the ever-greater threats posed by piracy and meet the evolving requirements of the industry. It made sense for us to work closely with media transport experts, including Nevion, to develop a new standard for the benefit of the whole industry. It goes without saying that we are very pleased with the outcome of this collaboration.”

   Press release (PDF)