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Cisco Videoscape
Cisco Videoscape (formerly NDS Group and currently known as Synamedia) was a majority owned subsidiary of News Corp, which develops software for the pay TV industry (including cable, satellite and others). NDS Group was established in 1988 as an Israeli start up company. It was acquired by Cisco in 2012 before being sold back to the private equity company Permira in 2018 for US$1 billion. The company is currently headquartered in Staines, United Kingdom.
Filling The Executive Chairman and CEO roles at NDS is Abe Peled with former CEO Dave Habiger having left in 2012. The company's major product is the VideoGuard conditional access system, which is used by more than 85 leading pay TV operators around the world. NDS technology includes end to end connections for satellite, broadband IPTV, Hybrid, OTT, and EPGs. It has launched VideoGuard Connect, the DRM for Pay-TV, designed to help TV operators to seamlessly extend their pay-TV services to connected media devices, enabling secure ingestion, delivery and consumption of premium content over both managed and OTT networks while maintaining subscription privileges across devices. NDS also provides advanced advertising, professional services and system integration services. New ways to secure content on PCs, tablets, and other devices are displayed at IBC and CES.
Cisco Systems announced the acquisition of the company in March, 2012. It was later acquired successfully and in 2014 its name was changed into Videoscape, becoming a part of Cisco. In 2018 it was announced that Cisco would sell this part of the business, with Permira successfully acquiring it and it being branded as Synamedia.
The development of the technology on the basis which the company was founded on, began in 1983, at the Weizmann Institute by Professor Adi Shamir (who had previously developed the RSA encryption algorithm), together with his research students Amos Fiat and Yossi Tulpen. The first application they developed was a digital rights management solution aimed at protecting software from being copied illegally. They then developed a smart card to prevent counterfeits, which were first intended to protect credit card transactions. The patent of the card is registered in the name of Yeda Research & Development Co., the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In those years, media mogul Rupert Murdoch began to develop his television business, which included satellite TV broadcasts for a fee, and a pay-per-view service for movies and sporting events. In order to charge a fee based on viewing, and to maintain his agreements with the film companies and the owners of the sports broadcasting rights, he looked for a way to encrypt the broadcasts. An Australian entrepreneur named Bruce Hundertmark contacted Shamir and the Weizmann Institute and between them and Murdoch's News Corp. corporation. News Corp. was impressed with their "smart card" technology and decided to invest in its development.
The company was established in 1988 as News Datacom (NDC) by Dr. Dov Rubin, Jonathan (Yoni) Hashkes, Michael Dick, and Yishai Sered - and soon joined by Mickey Cohen and Gershon Baron - in partnership with News Corporation and the Weizmann Institute, a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. The company was renamed News Datacom Research, and additional investors joined. The company signed a contract with BSkyB, in which News Corp. had a 35% stake, for the development of an encryption system.
In 1992, one year after finalizing its product, the company was acquired by its primary customer, News Corp, for $15 million, and renamed News Digital Systems (NDS). In 1996 NDS merged with Digi-Media Vision (DMV) a video compression company that News had acquired in 1995 which had been the Advanced Products Division [APD] of National Transcommunications Limited [NTL] in the UK. In 1999 the video compression division of NDS was sold to Tandberg Television (now MediaKind) and, separately, the company began trading as a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. In 2009, Permira and News Corporation announced a $3.6 billion arrangement for buying the public holding in NDS, turning it into a privately held company.
In 1996, NDS was investigated by Israeli authorities for allegations of tax irregularities. None was proven but NDS later paid a $3m settlement to close the case.
In 2002, Groupe Canal+ accused NDS of extracting the UserROM code from the MediaGuard cards and leaking it onto the internet. According to The Guardian, the NDS laboratory in Haifa, Israel had been working on breaking the SECA-produced MediaGuard smartcards used by Canal+, ITV Digital and other non-Murdoch-owned TV companies throughout Europe. Canal+ brought a $3 billion lawsuit against NDS but later dropped the action. News Corporation agreed to buy Canal Plus's struggling Italian operation Telepiù.
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Cisco Videoscape
Cisco Videoscape (formerly NDS Group and currently known as Synamedia) was a majority owned subsidiary of News Corp, which develops software for the pay TV industry (including cable, satellite and others). NDS Group was established in 1988 as an Israeli start up company. It was acquired by Cisco in 2012 before being sold back to the private equity company Permira in 2018 for US$1 billion. The company is currently headquartered in Staines, United Kingdom.
Filling The Executive Chairman and CEO roles at NDS is Abe Peled with former CEO Dave Habiger having left in 2012. The company's major product is the VideoGuard conditional access system, which is used by more than 85 leading pay TV operators around the world. NDS technology includes end to end connections for satellite, broadband IPTV, Hybrid, OTT, and EPGs. It has launched VideoGuard Connect, the DRM for Pay-TV, designed to help TV operators to seamlessly extend their pay-TV services to connected media devices, enabling secure ingestion, delivery and consumption of premium content over both managed and OTT networks while maintaining subscription privileges across devices. NDS also provides advanced advertising, professional services and system integration services. New ways to secure content on PCs, tablets, and other devices are displayed at IBC and CES.
Cisco Systems announced the acquisition of the company in March, 2012. It was later acquired successfully and in 2014 its name was changed into Videoscape, becoming a part of Cisco. In 2018 it was announced that Cisco would sell this part of the business, with Permira successfully acquiring it and it being branded as Synamedia.
The development of the technology on the basis which the company was founded on, began in 1983, at the Weizmann Institute by Professor Adi Shamir (who had previously developed the RSA encryption algorithm), together with his research students Amos Fiat and Yossi Tulpen. The first application they developed was a digital rights management solution aimed at protecting software from being copied illegally. They then developed a smart card to prevent counterfeits, which were first intended to protect credit card transactions. The patent of the card is registered in the name of Yeda Research & Development Co., the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In those years, media mogul Rupert Murdoch began to develop his television business, which included satellite TV broadcasts for a fee, and a pay-per-view service for movies and sporting events. In order to charge a fee based on viewing, and to maintain his agreements with the film companies and the owners of the sports broadcasting rights, he looked for a way to encrypt the broadcasts. An Australian entrepreneur named Bruce Hundertmark contacted Shamir and the Weizmann Institute and between them and Murdoch's News Corp. corporation. News Corp. was impressed with their "smart card" technology and decided to invest in its development.
The company was established in 1988 as News Datacom (NDC) by Dr. Dov Rubin, Jonathan (Yoni) Hashkes, Michael Dick, and Yishai Sered - and soon joined by Mickey Cohen and Gershon Baron - in partnership with News Corporation and the Weizmann Institute, a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. The company was renamed News Datacom Research, and additional investors joined. The company signed a contract with BSkyB, in which News Corp. had a 35% stake, for the development of an encryption system.
In 1992, one year after finalizing its product, the company was acquired by its primary customer, News Corp, for $15 million, and renamed News Digital Systems (NDS). In 1996 NDS merged with Digi-Media Vision (DMV) a video compression company that News had acquired in 1995 which had been the Advanced Products Division [APD] of National Transcommunications Limited [NTL] in the UK. In 1999 the video compression division of NDS was sold to Tandberg Television (now MediaKind) and, separately, the company began trading as a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. In 2009, Permira and News Corporation announced a $3.6 billion arrangement for buying the public holding in NDS, turning it into a privately held company.
In 1996, NDS was investigated by Israeli authorities for allegations of tax irregularities. None was proven but NDS later paid a $3m settlement to close the case.
In 2002, Groupe Canal+ accused NDS of extracting the UserROM code from the MediaGuard cards and leaking it onto the internet. According to The Guardian, the NDS laboratory in Haifa, Israel had been working on breaking the SECA-produced MediaGuard smartcards used by Canal+, ITV Digital and other non-Murdoch-owned TV companies throughout Europe. Canal+ brought a $3 billion lawsuit against NDS but later dropped the action. News Corporation agreed to buy Canal Plus's struggling Italian operation Telepiù.