Cisco Videoscape

Last updated
Cisco Videoscape
Type Division
PredecessorNDS Group Ltd.
Founded1988
FateAcquired by Cisco Systems
Headquarters Staines, United Kingdom
Key people
Chuck Robbins, CEO
Abe Peled, Executive Chairman
Products VideoGuard Conditional Access
Videoguard Connect DRM
MediaHighway - Set Top Box Software
Broadband IPTV
XTV Digital Video Recorders DVRs)
OTT
Unified Headend
Gateways
Interactive TV
Number of employees
5,500 as of Mar 2012
(4,200 technical)
Parent Permira
Subsidiaries Jungo
CastUp
SiVenture
Website synamedia.com
Footnotes /references

Other statistics:(12/2011)
CA/DRM              125 million pay TV households
Middleware          214 million devices

Contents

Digital Video Recorders    47 million deployed;

Cisco Videoscape (formerly NDS Group and currently known as Synamedia) was a majority owned subsidiary of News Corp, which develops software for the pay TV industry (including cable, satellite and others). NDS Group was established in 1988 as an Israeli start up company. [1] It was acquired by Cisco in 2012 before being sold back to the private equity company Permira in 2018 for US$1 billion. The company is currently headquartered in Staines, United Kingdom.

Filling The Executive Chairman and CEO roles at NDS is Abe Peled with former CEO Dave Habiger having left in 2012. The company's major product is the VideoGuard conditional access system, which is used by more than 85 leading pay TV operators around the world. NDS technology includes end to end connections for satellite, broadband IPTV, Hybrid, OTT, and EPGs. It has launched VideoGuard Connect, the DRM for Pay-TV, designed to help TV operators to seamlessly extend their pay-TV services to connected media devices, enabling secure ingestion, delivery and consumption of premium content over both managed and OTT networks while maintaining subscription privileges across devices. NDS also provides advanced advertising, professional services and system integration services. New ways to secure content on PCs, tablets, and other devices are displayed at IBC and CES.

Cisco Systems announced the acquisition of the company in March, 2012. [2] It was later acquired successfully and in 2014 its name was changed into Videoscape, becoming a part of Cisco. In 2018 it was announced that Cisco would sell this part of the business, with Permira successfully acquiring it and it being branded as Synamedia.

History

NDS Israel headquarters in Har Hotzvim, Jerusalem NDS Rainbow.JPG
NDS Israel headquarters in Har Hotzvim, Jerusalem

The development of the technology on the basis which the company was founded on, began in 1983, at the Weizmann Institute by Professor Adi Shamir (who had previously developed the RSA encryption algorithm), together with his research students Amos Fiat and Yossi Tulpen. The first application they developed was a digital rights management solution aimed at protecting software from being copied illegally. They then developed a smart card to prevent counterfeits, which were first intended to protect credit card transactions. The patent of the card is registered in the name of Yeda Research & Development Co., the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In those years, media mogul Rupert Murdoch began to develop his television business, which included satellite TV broadcasts for a fee, and a pay-per-view service for movies and sporting events. In order to charge a fee based on viewing, and to maintain his agreements with the film companies and the owners of the sports broadcasting rights, he looked for a way to encrypt the broadcasts. An Australian entrepreneur named Bruce Hundertmark contacted Shamir and the Weizmann Institute and between them and Murdoch's News Corp. corporation. News Corp. was impressed with their "smart card" technology and decided to invest in its development. [1] [3]

The company was established in 1988 as News Datacom (NDC) by Dr. Dov Rubin, Jonathan (Yoni) Hashkes, Michael Dick, and Yishai Sered - and soon joined by Mickey Cohen and Gershon Baron - in partnership with News Corporation and the Weizmann Institute, a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. The company was renamed News Datacom Research, and additional investors joined. The company signed a contract with BSkyB, in which News Corp. had a 35% stake, for the development of an encryption system.

In 1992, one year after finalizing its product, the company was acquired by its primary customer, News Corp, for $15 million, and renamed News Digital Systems (NDS). [1] In 1996 NDS merged with Digi-Media Vision (DMV) a video compression company that News had acquired in 1995 which had been the Advanced Products Division [APD] of National Transcommunications Limited [NTL] in the UK. In 1999 the video compression division of NDS was sold to Tandberg Television (now MediaKind) and, separately, the company began trading as a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. In 2009, Permira and News Corporation announced a $3.6 billion arrangement for buying the public holding in NDS, turning it into a privately held company. [4] [5]

Acquisitions

Israeli tax investigation

In 1996, NDS was investigated by Israeli authorities for allegations of tax irregularities. None was proven but NDS later paid a $3m settlement to close the case. [15]

Canal Plus lawsuit

In 2002, Canal Plus accused NDS of extracting the UserROM code from the MediaGuard cards and leaking it onto the internet. [16] According to The Guardian, the NDS laboratory in Haifa, Israel had been working on breaking the SECA-produced MediaGuard smartcards used by Canal+, ITV Digital and other non-Murdoch-owned TV companies throughout Europe. Canal Plus brought a $3 billion lawsuit against NDS but later dropped the action. News Corporation agreed to buy Canal Plus's struggling Italian operation Telepiù. [17] [18]

Echostar lawsuit

Echostar sued NDS for $1 billion for piracy and copyright infringement of the Echostar viewing card codes and for aiding the distribution and supply of pirate Echostar viewing cards for the Echostar-owned Dish Network. EchoStar alleged that in the 90's NDS was responsible for the compromise of EchoStar's satellite television programming platform through the posting of code on the DR7 website. NDS vigorously defended the allegations made against it, establishing that NDS played no part in the compromise of EchoStar's security system. In 2008, a jury in California convicted NDS of violating the Federal Communications Act and California Penal Code, cleared NDS of other charges, and awarded $1,500 in damages. [19]

In August 2010, the Ninth Circuit stated in its decision that “EchoStar did not succeed 'on any significant issue' or 'achieve any of the benefit it sought in bringing suit' under the Communications Act.” The Ninth Circuit awarded NDS US$18 million and concluded that “There is no question that NDS successfully defended against all of EchoStar’s claims based on or related to its theory that NDS was responsible for the compromise of EchoStar’s satellite television programming security system.”

In February 2011, the Ninth Circuit further stated, “NDS was the prevailing party in this litigation and that EchoStar fails to meet the legal definition of a prevailing party on any of its claims.”

In January 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States of America denied a petition to hear a challenge by EchoStar. EchoStar and NDS agreed that the terms for satisfying the judgment should be met by 9 March 2012.

On 9 March 2012, NDS received from EchoStar the remaining balance of US$18,935,399.49, in full satisfaction of the final judgment, including district court fees and costs, appellate court fees and costs and all interest.

BBC Panorama

On 26 March 2012, the BBC programme Panorama broadcast that NDS employed computer hacking to undermine the business of ONDigital. [20] At the time, ONDigital was the primary TV rival in Britain of BSkyB, a News Corporation company. The accusations arise from emails obtained by the BBC, and an interview with Lee Gibling, the operator of a hacking website, who claims he was paid up to £60,000 per year by Ray Adams, NDS head of security. [21] UK broadcasting watchdog Ofcom is to investigate these claims. [22] These claims are vigorously denied by NDS and NewsCorp. [23]

Australian Financial Review Allegations

On 27 March 2012, the Australian Financial Review published further allegations about NDS' involvement in hacking the systems of competitors. [24] The Australian Financial Review also published online a sample of 14,400 emails allegedly taken from the computer of former NDS head of security Ray Adams. [25] The investigation by the paper alleges that NDS illegally undermined rivals Austar, Optus and Foxtel at a time when parent company News Corporation was moving to take control of the Australian pay TV industry. In response to these allegations, Australia's communication minister Steven Conroy called for a police investigation. [26] In response to the allegations, News Limited, the Australian arm of News Corporation released the following statement: "The story is full of factual inaccuracies, flawed references, fanciful conclusions and baseless accusations which have been disproved in overseas courts,"[ citation needed ]

Products and customers

As of December 2011, NDS VideoGuard CA and DRM were deployed in more than 125 million digital pay-TV households. MediaHighway set-top-box software has been deployed in more than 214 million set-top boxes. XTV PVR/DVR technology is used by more than 20 operators in more than 47 million set-top-boxes. It is more commonly identifiable under the names Sky+ (in BSkyB) and DirecTV+ (in DirecTV). NDS also supplies interactive TV applications, platforms, and development tools. NDS has over 5000 employees, with offices in the UK, Israel, India, United States, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Russia, Singapore, France, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Australia.

Leading customers include DirecTV (in the USA), Sky UK, Sky Italia, Sky Deutschland, SKY México, SKY Brasil, SKY Network Television (in New Zealand), beIN (in MENA), Viasat (in Sweden, Norway & Denmark), TotalTV, Foxtel (in Australia), China Central Television (CCTV), Yes and Hot (in Israel), SkyLife, CanalSat (in France), Astro (in Malaysia), Cablevision (in the USA), Indovision (in Indonesia), Tata Sky, Airtel, Hathway, ACT and Den (in India), Telecom Italia (in Italy), TrueVisions (in Thailand) and Oi TV (in Brazil).

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Murdoch</span> Australian-born American business magnate (born 1931)

Keith Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American business magnate, investor, and media proprietor. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK, in Australia, in the US, book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News. He was also the owner of Sky, 21st Century Fox, and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITV Digital</span> Former British subscription-based digital terrestrial TV service

ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners of multiple licences of the ITV network. Starting as ONdigital in 1998, the service was rebranded as ITV Digital in July 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cisco</span> American multinational technology company

Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products. Cisco specializes in specific tech markets, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), domain security, videoconferencing, and energy management with leading products including Webex, OpenDNS, Jabber, Duo Security, and Jasper. Cisco is one of the largest technology companies in the world, ranking 82nd on the Fortune 100 with over $51 billion in revenue and nearly 83,300 employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sky Group</span> British media and telecommunications conglomerate

Sky Group Limited is a British media and telecommunications conglomerate, which is a division of the American conglomerate Comcast, and headquartered in Isleworth. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Sky is Europe's largest media company and pay-TV broadcaster by revenue, with 23 million subscribers and more than 31,000 employees as of 2019. The company is primarily involved in satellite television, producing and broadcasting. The current CEO is Dana Strong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News Corporation</span> American media company (1980–2013)

The original incarnation of News Corporation was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Prior to its split in 2013, it was the world's largest media company in terms of total assets and the world's fourth largest media group in terms of revenue, and News Corporation had become a media powerhouse since its inception, dominating the news, television, film, and print industries.

Ericsson Television, formerly Tandberg Television, is a company providing MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-2 and HEVC encoding decoding and control solutions, plus stream processing, packaging, network adaption and related products, for Contribution & Distribution (C+D), IPTV, Cable, DTT, Satellite DTH and OTT.

Pirate decryption is the decryption, or decoding, of pay TV or pay radio signals without permission from the original broadcaster. The term "pirate" is used in the sense of copyright infringement. The MPAA and other groups which lobby in favour of intellectual property regulations have labelled such decryption as "signal theft" even though there is no direct tangible loss on the part of the original broadcaster, arguing that losing out on a potential chance to profit from a consumer's subscription fees counts as a loss of actual profit.

News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Corp.

VideoGuard, produced by NDS, is a digital encryption system for use with conditional access television broadcasting. It is used on digital satellite television systems - some of which are operated by News Corporation, which owned about half (49%) of NDS until its sale to Cisco in 2012. Since 2018 VideoGuard is improved and maintained by Synamedia. Its two most widely used implementations are Sky in the United Kingdom and Ireland and DirecTV in the United States, the former of which launched the digital version of the system in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sky Italia</span> Italian satellite pay-television platform

Sky Italia S.r.l. is an Italian satellite television television platform owned by the American media conglomerate Comcast. Sky Italia also broadcasts three national free-to-air television channels: TV8, Cielo and Sky TG24.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sky Deutschland</span> German media company

Sky Deutschland GmbH, branded as Sky, is a German media company that operates a direct broadcast satellite Pay TV platform in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It provides a collection of basic and premium digital subscription television channels of different categories via satellite and cable television.

MediaGuard is a conditional access system for digital television developed by SECA, a subsidiary of Canal+ Group, sold to Thomson. Then Canal+ Technologies SA was broken in two pieces by Thomson in 2003, the MediaGuard sold to Nagra France and the MediaHighway to NDS France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gemstar–TV Guide International</span> Defunct American media company

Gemstar–TV Guide International, Inc. was a media company that licensed interactive program guide technology to multichannel video programming distributors such as cable and satellite television providers, and consumer electronics manufacturers; video recorder scheduling codes under brands such as VCR Plus; as well as serving as publishers of TV Guide magazine as well as operators of tvguide.com, owners of TV Guide Network and TVG Network, and provided various related services. On May 2, 2008, Gemstar–TV Guide International, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Macrovision Solutions Corporation, which later changed its name to Rovi Corporation on July 16, 2009.

Abe Peled is an American and Israeli businessman.

EchoStar Corporation is an American company providing satellite communication and Internet services. Its Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar Satellite Services business are operated from its headquarters in Arapahoe County, Colorado.

OpenBet is a provider of sportsbook technology, content and services, which is owned by Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc as of 2021.

In mid-2011, out of a series of investigations following up the News of the World royal phone hacking scandal of 2005–2007, a series of related scandals developed surrounding other News Corporation properties—where initially the scandal appeared contained to a single journalist at the News of the World, investigations eventually revealed a much wider pattern of wrongdoing. This led to the closure of the News of the World on 10 July 2011, an apology by Rupert Murdoch in an advertisement in most British national newspapers, and the withdrawing of News Corporation's bid to take over the majority of BSkyB shares it did not own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">21st Century Fox</span> American multinational mass media corporation (2013–2019)

Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., which did business as 21st Century Fox (21CF), also known simply as Fox, was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was one of the two companies formed on June 28, 2013, following a spin-off of the publishing assets of the old News Corporation as News Corp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News Corp</span> American multinational mass media company

News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is a mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was formed on June 28, 2013, following a spin-off of the media outlets of the original News Corporation as 21st Century Fox (21CF). Operating across digital real estate information, news media, book publishing, and cable television, News Corp's notable assets include Dow Jones & Company, News UK, News Corp Australia, REA Group, Realtor.com, and book publisher HarperCollins.

Synamedia Ltd. is a video technology provider headquartered in Staines-upon-Thames, UK. Its products cover content distribution and delivery, video processing, advanced advertising, broadband offerings, and video security.

References

  1. 1 2 3 From Underdogs to Tigers: The Rise and Growth of the Software Industry in Brazil, China, India, Ireland, and Israel. Ashish Arora, Alfonso Gambardella, Oxford University Press, 2006 . p. 84
  2. Cisco NDS Acquisition 2012
  3. Fox, Barry (11 September 1993). "Technology: Murdoch's cryptic vision for global TV". New Scientist .
  4. UK - Permira and News Corp. complete NDS acquisition
  5. News Corp. to de-list NDS. Globes.
  6. "NDS Acquires Orbis Technology". Business Wire. London. December 1, 2000. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  7. Orbis Acquires Leading UK Online Interactive Games Developer, Electracade Ltd BusinessWire, Dec, 2008
  8. OpenBet in £208m management buy out
  9. NDS Acquires Certain Assets of Interactive TV Technology Company IDP in France.
  10. NDS Acquires CANAL+ TECHNOLOGIES MEDIAHIGHWAY Middleware Business from THOMSON S.A. BusinessWire Sep 2003
  11. NDS acquires Danish game design company ITE Pressbox, 02.10.2006
  12. NDS Acquires Jungo Light Reading; December 4, 2006
  13. NDS buys CastUp, as fiscal year profit and revenue rise Globes, August 7, 2007
  14. "Permira to Buy Cisco's Video Unit for $1 Billion - CTech". Calcalistech.com. 2020-01-14. Retrieved 2020-01-18.
  15. "Info". www.eiu.com. Retrieved 2020-01-18.
  16. Cassy, John; Paul Murphy (2002-03-13). "How codebreakers cracked the secrets of the smart card". The Guardian. New York. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
  17. "Vivendi settles row with NDS". The Guardian. London. 2003-05-02. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
  18. Tryhorn, Chris (2002-04-30). "Murdoch lines up Sky Italia". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
  19. "EchoStar Wins Battle, Loses War In News Corp. Piracy Case". Multichannel News. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
  20. Leigh, David (2012-03-26). "Questions for News Corp over rival's collapse". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2012-03-26.
  21. "Murdoch's TV Pirates". BBC. Retrieved 2012-03-26.
  22. Milmo, Cahal (2012-03-28). "Ofcom expected to investigate 'hacking' of News Corp's pay-TV rival". The Independent. London.
  23. News Corporation’s NDS Denies ITV Digital Hacking Claims. ITProPortal.com. Retrieved on 2013-12-09.
  24. "Pay TV piracy hits News". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
  25. "Where the emails came from". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
  26. Pearlman, Jonathan (2012-03-28). "Australian minister demands police investigate News Corp 'sabotage unit'". London: Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-03-27.