Elion Picks Widevine

CAMBRIDGE, U.K. -- Widevine Technologies, the world’s leading provider of downloadable content protection, digital forensics and digital copy protection solutions, today announced that Elion—the largest telecommunications provider in Estonia—has chosen Widevine to protect premium broadcast channels for its DigiTV service and enable its acquisition of video-on-demand content.

Elion’s DigiTV service includes premium broadcaster and studio content from: ESPN, Disney, Discovery Channel, MTV and HustlerTV along with local broadcast and sports packages from Discovery Communications, Turner Networks, ViaSat, BBC and more. Subscribers can acquire basic service with 40 broadcast channels with the option to upgrade to 30 additional premium channels. Elion expects to reach half of Estonian homes with DigiTV by the year 2010.

Elion’s choice of Widevine Cypher®, a downloadable conditional access and digital rights management suite, was driven by the industry wide acknowledgement that Widevine would enable the acquisition and licensing of the premium content needed to differentiate and generate new revenue opportunities for DigiTV. More important was the requirement to work with a content security vendor that performed seamlessly so they could meet deployment expectations set with customers and financial community.

“Elion evaluated Widevine with other content protection vendors including Latens, Verimatrix, SecureMedia and Conax,” said Jaan Inno, Head of IP and Datacom Development at Elion. “After further due diligence, we deployed trials of Widevine, Latens and Verimatrix. Only Widevine was able to prove its system was operable in the video ecosystem we deployed. That critical factor, along with Widevine’s proven legacy of delivering downloadable conditional access, digital rights management and digital copy protection to market, made Widevine the natural selection for the first national deployment of IP video services in Estonia.”

“With broadband penetration rates over 13 percent, the highest in Eastern Europe, Estonia represents an excellent environment for the rapid IPTV growth. Widevine is delighted to enable Elion and other Baltic operators to get their deployments operational and be competitive with incumbent cable and satellite video operators,” said Brian Baker, President and CEO of Widevine. “We look forward to growing with Elion as they grow their broadcast subscribers and expand their services to include premium VOD services later in the year.”

Widevine Technologies Inc.