Digital Video Broadcasting – Common Interface (or DVB-CI), is a normative for DTV Receiver in order to enable the add of a conditional access module, CAM, in a Receiver DVB-CI « standard » to adapt it to different kinds of cryptography. A DTV receiver is a Set-top box that permits the reception of Digital television. A conditional access module (CAM is an electronic device usually incorporating a slot for a Smart card, which Indeed, one of DVB's main strengths is the option of implementing the required conditional access capability on the common interface.
This allows broadcasters to use modules containing solutions from different suppliers in the same broadcast system, thus increasing their choice and anti-piracy options.
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Technical
A DVB receiver may have one or two slots implementing the common interface. For the chemical compound see Divinylbenzene. Digital Video Broadcasting ( DVB) is a suite of internationally accepted They use the PCMCIA connector and are conform to the Common Scrambling Algorithm (CSA), the normative which specify that such a receiver must be able to accept DES (Data Encryption Standard) keys in some miliseconds intervals and to use them to decode private channels according to one algorithm. The Common Scrambling Algorithm (or CSA) is the Encryption algorithm used in the DVB Digital television broadcasting for encrypting video The Data Encryption Standard ( DES) is a Cipher (a method for Encrypting information selected by NBS as an official Federal Information
Those algorithms are providers issues. Each one uses his own algorithms and there are no normative for that.
The receiver can send the full MPEG-2 transport data stream as it comes out of the demodulator and error correction units through the card plugged into the Common Interface, before it will be processed by the MPEG demultiplexer in the DTV Receiver. A DTV receiver is a Set-top box that permits the reception of Digital television. If several CI cards are present, the MPEG transport data stream will be passed sequentially through all these cards.
An embedded CAM may not physically exist as it may be in CPU software. In such as case only the ISO card reader normally in the CAM is fitted and not the PCMCIA type CI slots.
Even if the Common Interface has been created to resolve cryptography issues, it can have other functions using other types of modules such as Web Browser, iDTV (Interactive Television). A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a IVI Publishing is an American -based home computer software company based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota in 1990 as Interactive Television . .
In Europe, DVB-CI is obligatory in all iDTV terminals.
Standard
The normative DVB-CI has been defined in 1997 by the CENELEC, European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization EN 50221. CENELEC (Comité Européen de Normalisation Electrotechnique is the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization.
According to the Common Interface scheme:
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- host : A device where module(s) can be connected, for example : an IRD (Integrated receiver/decoder), a VCR, a PC . An integrated receiver / Decoder ( IRD) is an electronic device used to pick-up a radio-frequency signal and convert Digital . .
- module : A small device, not working by itself, designed to run specialised tasks in association with a host, for example : a conditional access sub system, an electronic program guide application module, or to provide resources required by an application but not provided directly by the host
The specification only defines two aspects, two logical interfaces to be included on the same physical interface,. The first interface is the MPEG-2 Transport Stream. MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information" The link and physical layers are defined in this specification and the higher layers are defined in the MPEG-2 specifications. MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information" The second interface, the command interface, carries commands between the host (receiver) and the module.
The specification does not define the operation or functionality of a conditional access system application on the module. The applications which may be performed by a module communicating across the interface are not limited to conditional access or to those described in this specification. More than one module may be supported concurrently.
See also
References
- DVB-CI normative.
- Gerard O'Driscoll, The essential Guide to Digital Set-Boxes and Interactive TV, reprinted April 2000
- Jerry whitaker, Television Receivers, 2001
External links
Free-to-view ( FTV) is a term used in the United Kingdom for certain television channels on the Sky Digital satellite platform which require a working The Common Interface is an extensible digital Interconnect found in the Digital TV marketDapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic