NDS, STMicroelectronics, and Thomson have announced the formation of the Secure Video Processor (SVP) Alliance. The aim is to make SVP a leading, open specification for secure content protection.

The SVP Alliance is open to media and technology industry parties wishing to achieve the broad adoption of SVP content protection technology in digital home networks and consumer electronic devices such as digital televisions, set-top boxes (STB), PVRs, and portable devices.

The objective of the SVP Alliance is to adopt, use and promote the SVP standard and develop interoperability with other content protection solutions. The companies issued a release claiming that SVP creates new opportunities to distribute and package digital content while ensuring that content owners’ rights are protected, and service operators maintain control of the content within and outside their respective networks.

For example, SVP network service operators such as DirectTV in the US plan to extend their reach by entitling consumers to receive, store and render secured content in home networks and portable consumer devices. SVP also meets the cost and implementation requirements of the consumer electronics industry and preserves the end users’ rights to enjoy digital entertainment in the most flexible and convenient way.

SVP is an end-to-end system that allows the content distributor to use existing conditional access or DRM solutions to manage a secure content protection mechanism available on video processor chips in STBs and consumer electronic devices.

NDS is developing an SVP Manager that will, by using SVP, extend the reach of its VideoGuard conditional access solution to home networks and portable devices. ST is producing the first video processing IC enabled with SVP technology. Thomson is intending to embed SVP-enabled chips in consumer electronic devices in 2005 and also to integrate SVP with its SmartRight solution.