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The DVB to IP with Pay-TV support market is finally coming alive with first the Tecsys 8300 media converter, and now Novel Sat announcing itsDVB to IP demodulator at IBC, followed by VideoPropulsion Announcing a High Density CAM/Smartcard Array for Headend Digital Television Appliances, or larger multi-room networks. VideoPropulsion has expanded its line of digital television (DTV) headend components by adding interfacing for 28 “hidden” CAMs & smart cards in a single PCIe slot. The "CAMbrick" enables one to seven CAM modules to be deployed in a single, standard, 3.5", hot-swap canister.
VideoPropulsion's CAMbrick
The new CAMbrick consists of one to seven modules, each with four Common Interface (CI) slots, which can all be cabled to a single, short, low-profile PCIe interface. The modules are cleverly designed to fit in a standard, 3.5”, hot-swap hard disk drive (HDD) canister for convenient mounting in a server. Each SI slot allows for the insertion of CAM and smart card for decryption of PayTV services. With 8 decrypts per CAM/Smartcard, a total of 208 channels can be simultaneously descrambled using seven available HDD canisters “hidden” in the drive bay and a single x1 PCIe slot. A single port PCIe interface is also available for operating one CAMbrick. PCIe interfaces with more than seven ports are also planned.
“The CAMbrick is a great, high density tool for decrypting PayTV channels prior to transcoding and re-encrypting them in a head-end,” says Carl Pick, VideoPropulsion Chairman and CEO. “There are only so many slots and so much empty space to mount this sort of thing in even the largest commercial servers. Our new, innovative CAMbrick solves both the fan-out and mounting challenges for large CAM and smartcard requirements. The product name, in fact,” adds Pick, “ is a play on words of the term cambric, which refers to a a lightweight, closely woven linen fabric, and brick, which is what it looks like.”
Now in its 42nd year of continuous operation, VideoPropulsion offers various appliance models with integrated satellite receivers, CAM arrays, transcoders, encrypters, and QAMs. For example, the company’s flagship FloodGate® FG-5000 can now receive multiple MPEG programs via DVB-S2 satellite, decrypt the programs using the embedded CAMbrick, transcode the content from H.265 to MPEG2, re-encrypt the programs using various AES-128 encryptions, multiplex, then modulate output on QAM. The QAM output supports DVB-C standards for Annex A, B, or C. Outputs can also support IP multicast streams for delivery on IPTV networks.
“For the past decade, we have been very successful in the North American DTV equipment markets with our FloodGate® turnaround appliances”, said Tom Varghese, VP of Engineering at VideoPropulsion. "With integrated CAM/Smartcards in our products, we are now better positioned to capture additional market share for International DTV equipment”.
The CAMbrick will be shown on VideoPropulsion’s booth #5.C11 at the IBC show in Amsterdam, September 8-13. FloodGate® appliances with integrated high density CAM, DVB-S/S2, transcode, and QAM technology are available directly from VideoPropulsion.
VideoPropulsion's CAMbrick
The new CAMbrick consists of one to seven modules, each with four Common Interface (CI) slots, which can all be cabled to a single, short, low-profile PCIe interface. The modules are cleverly designed to fit in a standard, 3.5”, hot-swap hard disk drive (HDD) canister for convenient mounting in a server. Each SI slot allows for the insertion of CAM and smart card for decryption of PayTV services. With 8 decrypts per CAM/Smartcard, a total of 208 channels can be simultaneously descrambled using seven available HDD canisters “hidden” in the drive bay and a single x1 PCIe slot. A single port PCIe interface is also available for operating one CAMbrick. PCIe interfaces with more than seven ports are also planned.
“The CAMbrick is a great, high density tool for decrypting PayTV channels prior to transcoding and re-encrypting them in a head-end,” says Carl Pick, VideoPropulsion Chairman and CEO. “There are only so many slots and so much empty space to mount this sort of thing in even the largest commercial servers. Our new, innovative CAMbrick solves both the fan-out and mounting challenges for large CAM and smartcard requirements. The product name, in fact,” adds Pick, “ is a play on words of the term cambric, which refers to a a lightweight, closely woven linen fabric, and brick, which is what it looks like.”
Now in its 42nd year of continuous operation, VideoPropulsion offers various appliance models with integrated satellite receivers, CAM arrays, transcoders, encrypters, and QAMs. For example, the company’s flagship FloodGate® FG-5000 can now receive multiple MPEG programs via DVB-S2 satellite, decrypt the programs using the embedded CAMbrick, transcode the content from H.265 to MPEG2, re-encrypt the programs using various AES-128 encryptions, multiplex, then modulate output on QAM. The QAM output supports DVB-C standards for Annex A, B, or C. Outputs can also support IP multicast streams for delivery on IPTV networks.
“For the past decade, we have been very successful in the North American DTV equipment markets with our FloodGate® turnaround appliances”, said Tom Varghese, VP of Engineering at VideoPropulsion. "With integrated CAM/Smartcards in our products, we are now better positioned to capture additional market share for International DTV equipment”.
The CAMbrick will be shown on VideoPropulsion’s booth #5.C11 at the IBC show in Amsterdam, September 8-13. FloodGate® appliances with integrated high density CAM, DVB-S/S2, transcode, and QAM technology are available directly from VideoPropulsion.