[SatBroadcasting(tm)] Shaanxi Broadcast &TV Network Intermediary Company, Ltd. (Shaanxi BC&TV), a Shanghai-listed digital cable TV network operator, is starting trials of Irdeto’s Cloaked CA, a conditional access technology that is part of a strategy to transition more than two million subscribers from analog to digital services.

Irdeto’s Cloaked CA is a fully renewable, card-less conditional access solution that enables pay-TV operators on any network to offer premium HD content without the logistical costs of deploying and swapping physical smart cards. This innovative software-based approach has a demonstrated potential to save up to 50 percent on the total cost of ownership of a smart card-based CA system. The move by Shaanxi BC&TV to trial the Cloaked CA is a result of State Council directives and is in full cooperation with the Shaanxi Provincial Government’s transition from analog to digital TV services for three million county-level subscribers in 2010. This transition will be further expanded to 11 cities and regions for four million subscribers’ cable TV systems in 2014. Irdeto’s Cloaked CA is the first one-way broadcast CA client to gain wide familiarity and trust from Hollywood studios, and has been extensively audited by respected industry experts such as T-Systems Germany and Farncombe Technology Ltd.