Nagravision (or Nagra Kudelski or simply Nagra) is a company of the

Kudelski Group Kudelski SA () is a Swiss company that sells digital television access and management systems, cybersecurity solutions, Internet of Things products, and public infrastructure. The company is headquartered in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne. Kudelski's f ...

that develops

conditional access Conditional access (CA) is a term commonly used in relation to software and to digital television systems. Conditional access is that ‘just-in-time’ evaluation to ensure the person who is seeking access to content is authorized to access the c ...

systems for digital cable and

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna com ...

. The name is also used for their main products, the Nagravision encryption systems.

Analog system

An analog Nagravision system (''Syster'') for scrambling analog satellite television programs was used in the 1990s. In this line-shuffling system, bottom 32 lines of the PAL TV signal are shifted in time by one video field, and read out in permuted order under the control of a

pseudorandom number generator A pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), also known as a deterministic random bit generator (DRBG), is an algorithm for generating a sequence of numbers whose properties approximate the properties of sequences of random numbers. The PRNG-generate ...

. A

smartcard A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

security

microcontroller A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs ( processor cores) along with memory and programmabl ...

(in a key-shaped package) decrypts data that is transmitted during the blanking intervals of the TV signal mixed with

teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

and extracts the

random seed A random seed (or seed state, or just seed) is a number (or vector) used to initialize a pseudorandom number generator. For a seed to be used in a pseudorandom number generator, it does not need to be random. Because of the nature of number gene ...

value which contains present line combination needed for reverting the picture back. The system also permitted the audio signal to be modulated at 12.8 kHz using a

frequency mixer In electronics, a mixer, or frequency mixer, is an electrical circuit that creates new frequencies from two signals applied to it. In its most common application, two signals are applied to a mixer, and it produces new signals at the sum and di ...

Digital systems

4 currently used versions of Nagravision are in common use for digital satellite television, known as Nagravision, Nagravision Cardmagedon, Nagravision Aladin and Nagravision Merlin. Nagravision Cardmagedon and Aladin are often confused with each other and used under the term "Nagravision 2" which technically does not exist. Nagravision Cardmagedon is, however, a complicated combination of Nagravision Aladin and Mediaguard SECA 2 encryption. Nagravision Merlin is also known as Nagravision 3. The decryption unit is either integrated into a receiver, available as a

conditional-access module A conditional access module (CAM) is an electronic device, usually incorporating a slot for a smart card, which equips an integrated digital television or set-top box with the appropriate hardware facility to view conditional access content ...

(CAM), or as one of many encryption schemes supported on a CAM

emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...

. Nagravision has been adopted all over the world as a conditional access system, with providers: *

Bell Satellite TV Bell Satellite TV (french: Bell Télé; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television ser ...

(Canada) (Nagravision 3) * BIG TV (India) *

Cabovisão NOWO (“novo”) is a Portuguese telecommunications company. It is one of the four triple play operators in Portugal. Apax France and Fortino Capital have been NOWO's shareholders since September 2015. In Portugal, these groups also own the ...

(Portugal) (Being adopted gradually across the network - Nagravision 3 and SECA Mediaguard) * Canal+ and CanalSat (France) (Nagravision Media Access *NEW TYPE* asically Updated Nagra 3 "Merlin" *

Claro TV Claro TV+ is a Latin American operator of Pay television. The service is supplied by Embratel and Claro companies and operates in Star One C4 satellite. Its transmission system is DTH (Direct to Home) in Ku Band, and the channels are encrypted ...

(Central America, Dominican Republic) (Nagravision 1 (outdated) with

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related t ...

encoding support custom added) *

(Brazil) (Nagravision 3) *

Cyfrowy Polsat Cyfrowy Polsat S.A. (; English: ''Digital Polsat''), trading as Polsat Box is a Polish DTH satellite TV platform. It is the fifth-largest digital platform in Europe and the largest in Central and Eastern Europe. Polsat Box has 3.47 million subscr ...

(Poland) (Nagravision 3) * Digi TV (RCS & RDS) (Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) (Nagravision 3) *

Movistar+ Movistar () is a major telecommunications provider owned by Telefónica, operating in Spain and Hispanic American countries. It is the largest provider of landline, broadband, mobile services, and pay television ( Movistar+) in Spain. Movistar ...

(Previously Digital+) (Spain, Nagravision 3) *

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling ...

(USA) (Transition to Nagravision 3 was completed on 6/18/09) * Dream Satellite TV (Philippines) (Nagravision 3) * First Media (Indonesia) (Nagravision 3) * HD+ (Germany) (Nagravision 3) * Look Communications (Canada) * M7 Group S.A. (Several European countries) *

Movistar Movistar () is a major telecommunications provider owned by Telefónica, operating in Spain and Hispanic American countries. It is the largest provider of landline, broadband, mobile services, and pay television ( Movistar+) in Spain. Movistar ...

(Before Telefonica) (Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Perú, Bolivia, Ecuador) (Nagravision 3) *

Vivo TV Vivo TV is a Brazilian pay television provider, owned by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, through its subsidiary in the country, Vivo. It provides digital cable, satellite and IPTV services. Grupo Abril's TVA was founded in 19 ...

DTH (Before Telefonica) (Brazil, Nagravision 3) *

Numericable Numericable was a major French cable operator and telecommunications services company. Numericable was originally created in 2007 from the merger between former competitors Noos and NC Numericable networks. Numericable Group SA was founded in Aug ...

(Belgium, France, Luxembourg) (Nagravision 3 "Merlin") * Sky Deutschland (Germany) (Nagravision 3) *

StarHub TV StarHub TV is a pay television service provided by StarHub in Singapore. It has been a subsidiary of StarHub Limited since StarHub acquired Singapore Cable Vision (SCV) in 2001, and was the sole pay-TV operator in the country until 2007 when m ...

(Singapore) (Nagravision 3) * Star Digital (Turkey) (Nagravision 3) *

Telenet (Belgium) Telenet Group N.V. is the largest provider of cable broadband services in Belgium. Its business comprises the provision of analog and digital cable television, fixed and mobile telephone services, primarily to residential customers in Flanders a ...

(Belgium) (Nagravision 2) * Tivù Sat,

Mediaset Premium Mediaset Premium was an Italian pay TV provider owned by Mediaset. Until closure in 2019, it provided subscription TV channels and pay-per-view events (only for football matches) via the Italian digital terrestrial television network through the ...

(Italy) (Nagravision 3 "Tiger" and "Merlin" (4K)) * NOS Comunicacoes (Portugal) (Nagravision 3) * UPC, now

Vodafone Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. , Vod ...

(on satellite) (Nagravision 3) *

Virgin Media Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint ventu ...

(United Kingdom) (Nagravision 3 "Merlin", swapped from Nagravision 1 during 2009/10) *

Top Up TV Top Up TV was a pay TV service in the United Kingdom which launched in March 2004, operating on the digital terrestrial television platform. The aim of the service was to "top up" Freeview customers by providing additional content and services ...

(United Kingdom) (Nagravision 3 "Merlin" swapped from SECA2 in 2008) Nagrasyster encoded frame

External links

*Markus Kuhn
Analysis of the Nagravision video scrambling method
1998 – explains an attack against the old Nagravision system for analog television {{broadcast encryption Digital television Conditional-access television broadcasting

Analog system

Digital systems

See also

External links