Pay per view – a multimedia multicast application with effective key management

  • Authors:

  • P.M. Joe Prathap;V. Vasudevan

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Information Technology, Arulmigu Kalasalingam College of Engineering, Krishnan Koil, 626 190, Tamil Nadu, India.;Department of Information Technology, Arulmigu Kalasalingam College of Engineering, Krishnan Koil, 626 190, Tamil Nadu, India

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Multicast communications seem particularly well adapted for large scale commercial distribution applications, such as pay per view systems. Successful implementation of pay per view systems is underway in many countries, and as a result, many cable companies have to replace their distribution networks. Conditional access system is the essential basis of a pay-TV system to charge the subscriber for the subscribing fee, and key management is the essential part of a CAS. The problem of controlling access to multimedia multicasts requires the distribution and maintenance of keying information. The conventional, approach employs the use of a media-independent channel. We propose an approach that involves the use of a media-dependent channel, and is achieved by using data embedding techniques. In this paper, four levels of key hierarchy for CAS are discussed which reduce the complexity of key distributions. Finally, we introduce multilayer applications where group members may subscribe or cancel membership to some layers while maintaining membership to other layers.