Viaccess is an encrypting system for digital television developed by France Télécom. There are four versions in use today, Viaccess PC2.3, Viaccess PC2.4, Viaccess PC2.5 and Viaccess PC2.6. Digital television (DTV) is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound by means of digital signals, in contrast to analogue signals in analogue (traditional) T.V. It uses digital modulation data, which is digitally compressed and requires decoding by a specially designed television set or a... France Télécom (Euronext: FTE, NYSE: FTE) (often spelled France Telecom, without the accents, in non-French text) is the main telecommunication company in France. ...

Viaccess was developed as the digital version of the EuroCrypt system used with the hybrid MAC system. Eurocrypt (or EUROCRYPT) is an important conference for cryptography research. ... Multiplexed Analogue Components (MAC) is a high-definition television transmission standard, originally proposed in 1995 for European HDTV. MAC transmits luminance and chrominance data separately in time rather than separately in frequency (as other analog television formats do, such as composite video). ...

The first version is sometimes referred to as Viaccess 1, and the latter three, although different, as Viaccess 2. PC2.3 and PC2.4 are known to be ineffective, and many set-top boxes can be 'patched' to decrypt Viaccess signals without payment, however PC2.5 and PC2.6 are secure, with PC2.5 remaining secure two years after its first commercial deployment. PC2.6 was introduced at the end of 2005. The term set-top box (STB) describes a device that connects to a television and some external source of signal, and turns the signal into content then displayed on the screen. ...

There are two modifications of Viaccess PC2.3 in use. The first, known as TPS Crypt, is used by TPS. Despite being compromised also, the TPS Crypt system has been further modified to utilise Advanced Encryption System (AES) keys. These AES keys were originally updated once daily, however after this inconvenienced unauthorised viewers little, a second TPS crypt system was introduced, by which keys are changed every 15-20 minutes, with keys being sent over TPS's internal Open TV system. This therefore meant that only TPS receivers could receive the new AES key, and not the insecure TPS subscription cards. Monitoring and analysing of the keys by hacking groups, however, has brought about key lists, where the AES keys have been successfully predicted. Implimentation of this procedure of automatically updating keys has proved difficult, if not impossible, to impliment on many satellite receivers, rendering the TPS Crypt AES system a general success. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

The second Viaccess modification, called ThalesCrypt, is used by Canal Satellite France to protect its contents on the transport network to the head-ends of the cable networks; it is an over-encryption mechanism of the original protocol encryption keys. CanalSat is a French digital satellite and DSL pay television service owned by Canal+ Group (66%) and Lagardere Active (34%), a subsidiary of Lagardère. ...

Viaccess is currently used by a large number of providers. These include;

• TPS
• ART
• NTV
• Televisa Networks
• Canal Satellite France
• ETTV
• TBLTV
• Home2US

Viaccess is the 3rd largest conditional access system provider in the world (in 2004). To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Arab Radio and Television Network (Acronym: ART) is an Arabic-language television network characterized by its multitude of channels. ... The Russian NTV channel (НТВ in Cyrillic) was a pioneer in the post-Soviet independent television media. ... CanalSat is a French digital satellite and DSL pay television service owned by Canal+ Group (66%) and Lagardere Active (34%), a subsidiary of Lagardère. ... It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern: Does not meet WP:CORP If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. ... Conditional access (CA) is the protection of content by requiring certain criteria to be met before granting access to the content. ...

Viaccess is also a subsidiary of France Télécom which offers pay TV and DRM enabled software. France Télécom (Euronext: FTE, NYSE: FTE) (often spelled France Telecom, without the accents, in non-French text) is the main telecommunication company in France. ... Pay television, or pay-TV, usually refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by both analogue and digital cable and satellite, but also increasingly by digital terrestrial methods. ... Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to any of several technologies used by publishers or copyright owners to control access to and usage of digital data or hardware, and to restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work or device. ...

External links

• Viaccess home page