Behind closed doors, by invitation only meetings, Nagra is showing its ‘Project Ultra’ approach in content navigation and discovery, specifically designed for the 4K environment.
The new user interface, navigation and (social) recommendation software is designed to ‘minimize any interference with the content’, because Nagra believes ‘4K is all about immersive viewing’. However, isnt this something that should be obvious in all interface design.
Navigation and discovery takes place on both the television set and companion devices. Voice and gesture control are to make for optimised content navigation, rounded off with an anticipation engine that places the most relevant content on the first plane.
Project Ultra is based on OpenTV 5, the HTML 5 based version of the well-known Interactive Television environment, or middleware, which Nagra is showing on its booth. Subsidiary SMARDTV’s latest boxes shift and stream broadcast and operator delivered content around the home to tablets, secured by PRM, Nagra’s DRM, as well as to TVs equipped with a new CI+ 1.4 conditional access module and secured by Microsoft’s Playready to connected TVs.
On the other half of the stand SMARDTV shows several proof-of-concept applications enabled by its new CI+ 1.4 Conditional Access Module. Using an early implementation Philips TV by TP Vision, the module enables IPTV on top of regular digital broadcasts. This is the TV is connected directly a managed multicast enabled network.
The SmarDTV CI Plus CAM is responsible for network discovery and for launching the operator-designed EPG in an OIPF-specified browser. The content is received by the iDTV using multicast IP transmission and would be forwarded to the CAM for descrambling. Hook it up to an SAT>IP IP-LNB(f) for direct IP to the TV. A regular set-top box converting up to eight channels to IP-streams, according to the SAT>IP delivery protocol, with the CI+ 1.4 module providing security for the streams going to other devices.