LOUISVILLE, Colo. – CableLabs announced today that it has approved a recording technology developed by EnCentrus Systems, Inc. of Montreal that enables consumers to enjoy home recordings of certain high-value cable programming.
The Content Protected Digital Output (CPDO) technology from EnCentrus allows cable content marked as “copy freely” or “copy once” to be securely stored on hard drives internal or external to Digital Cable-Ready (DCR) devices. In addition, CPDO enables secure “pause” and “trick play” functions for interactive digital cable ready devices that access “copy never” content.
“The CPDO technology protects next generation DCR devices with digital output ports, such as set-top boxes and DTVs, from the disk cloning attack,” said Martin Cocking, chief software architect of EnCentrus Systems Inc. “This protects the integrity of recorded high-value digital programming.”
The CableLabs approval extends to all DCR products built in compliance with standards and regulations applicable to unidirectional digital cable products, as well as two-way interactive digital cable products built to the OpenCable Host 2.0 specifications.
Draft license terms, including compliance and robustness rules for use of CPDO, are available; however, business terms and third party use of the CPDO technology remain under consideration by Encentrus.
Under the FCC Plug & Play Rules, CableLabs may approve the inclusion of new digital outputs and recording technologies for use in DCR products which are compatible with the cable industry’s CableCARD removable security modules. The CPDO technology is the first secure hard drive recording solution approved by CableLabs for use inside and outside such products.
Prior approvals of digital outputs include 1394/DTCP, DVI/HDCP, HDMI/HDCP, the “Video Content Protection System” for recording to DVD+R and DVD+RW optical digital media, and WMDRM for use with unidirectional OpenCable receivers combined with home media server PCs.
Based in Montreal, Canada, EnCentrus specializes in engineering and design services for home media entertainment products, such as “smart” set-top boxes, DTVs and mobile peripherals, based on industry standards.
