Austrian public broadcaster ORF plans a swapout of its Irdeto Cryptoworks smart cards, press reports say. About one million DTH homes will be affected with about 1.4 million cards in use. The new cards are part of a new long-term agreement with Irdeto to provide CA services for the broadcaster’s DTH platform.
During the first few months of 2008 ORF will also phase out its Betacrypt encryption with a final switch off planned for May 2008 at the latest. About 60,000 people will have to buy a new receiver, it is estimated.
UPDATE. Unitymedia’s DTH platform ArenaSat has decided to continue to make their service available to Austrian viewers in Cryptoworks encoding. This secure live coverage of the German Bundesliga football matches for the country’s DTH population.
