The DVB Project is to take responsibility for the CI Plus common interface standard, following a recommendation from the organisation’s steering board. The vote removes one of the major concerns held by operators considering the adoption of the technology, who feared they did not have enough input on its future development.
Neotion, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, SmarDTV and Sony had taken on ownership of the next generation common interface technology as the CI Plus Forum in the summer of 2007 after failing to reach an agreement within the DVB over its future direction.
In November 2008 the Forum was disbanded in favour of a limited liability partnership (LLP) under UK law with the intention of becoming the CI Plus Trust Authority for the licensing, testing and certificate procurement regimes of the technology.
Discussions between CI Plus LLP and the DVB had been ongoing for several weeks. However, a final decision was waiting on the January release of Version 1.3 of the CI Plus specification that added high definition MHEG graphics, enhanced capabilities to support cable VOD and improvements to PVR support.
CI Plus was developed out of DVB-CI, which had been created to deliver conditional access systems as an add-on module through the standard interface to a digital television receiver, without the need for the conditional access to be embedded in the receiver itself.
CI Plus has already found favour with operators that include KabelKiosk, Sky Deutschland, Ziggo, UPC and Com Hem.
