Software-based security systems, which provide conditional access and digital rights management, are emerging as a key component of IPTV deployment as service providers seek to prove they can securely deliver premium content and prevent piracy. Software vendors offer an alternative to more traditional hardware-based CAS/DRM technology that proponents say is more cost-effective and secure.

For its Microsoft TV product, Microsoft is providing CAS/DRM as part of its end-to-end system, but a group of other software players are avidly competing for the other global IPTV business, including Latens, Veramatrix and Widevine, all three of which are exhibiting at next month's NXTcomm show in Chicago. In addition, there are vendors who offer hardware-based solutions, including NDS, also exhibiting at NXTcomm.

The software-based providers integrate their products with existing set-top boxes, PCs and head-end systems to provide end-to-end security.

The attraction of the software solution is its renewability, said Matt Cannard, vice president of marketing for Widevine, which recently announced SureWest Communications as a customer and also has major deployments in Canada, including FastTel, MTS Allstream and Telus.

“We believe that smart card systems are obsolete,” he said. “In the satellite industry, 50% of all piracy is the result of those cards being cloned. Someone can capture encryption keys from a card, build a like device and create a cloned card. The only way to overcome that is to ship a brand new bunch of cards as often as every six months. And that is nothing but raw costs for operators and cash cows for security vendors.”

What software-based security providers offer is a virtual means of providing CAS/DRM that can be renewed via a network download, Cannard said. Widevine provides what it calls the Cypher Virtual SmartCard, a client that is downloaded onto a set-top box and can be renewed within 24 hours.

Verimatrix, which has been doing IPTV security since 2003 when its Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) was deployed by Korea Telecom, today is offering a digital watermark solution to further deter video piracy, said Steve Oetegenn, chief sales and marketing officer for the company. He admits software-based solutions were highly questioned when first introduced several years ago but believes they are now seen as credible and even preferable alternatives.

Today's hardware-based solutions, deployed in set-top boxes and PCs, can determine if a user has the right to access the content in question and, if so, issue a decryption key for that content.

“So far, so good,” he said. “But when you are playing the content at the set-top box, you have negated the DRM. If I'm the bad guy I can grab the analog signal, re-digitize it and make copies.”

What Verimatrix is now providing is a digital watermark that lies within the content, but is invisible to the human eye, Oetegenn said. “It is a unique ID embedded within the video stream itself that identifies the set-top box the content was played on and the date and time and ID number from our control system.”

If someone does make an illegal copy, that copy then bears a mark which says the copy is being distributed illegally, which will deter further piracy, he said.

IPTV providers have been focused on CAS/DRM because they have to prove to the many premium content providers that their distribution networks are secure or lose access to that content or be forced to pay more for it, Widevine's Cannard said.

One area of necessary improvement for IPTV players, said Oetegenn, is the protection of access to their own exclusive content.

“As they have exclusive content, they are going to suffer the same kind of cloning and piracy that the cable and satellite [industries] have been subject to for years,” he said. “They have to look at security as more than checking the box and making a solution acceptable to other content providers. They should be looking for a lot more.”