Latens enters U.S. video market via alliances

U.K.-based conditional access start-up Latens Systems announced that it has entered the U.S. IP video market by integrating its software into two different brands of set-top box and one video server.

Over the past two weeks, the company has announced integration with i3 and Amino set-top boxes as well as with Entone’s video server system. Like many in the emerging IP video market, Latens believes it will gain the most initial traction with independent telcos launching video services. As larger carriers deploy, however, the sales models are changing for the piece-part vendors, said Andy Mathieson, director of Latens.

"We designed the system to be sold direct or be integrated into other people’s systems," he said. "There’s every option you can think of it at the moment. For the IOCs, the sensible thing is to have a pre-integrated system."

Latens, which will compete most directly with Widevine and Irdeto Access in the U.S., has a philosophy of content protection that largely mirrors other security companies. One of those tenets is to make hacking into secure IP networks economically unviable for potential pirates.

"The approach to security is that first you make it as hard as possible to reverse engineer," Mathieson said. "Then you say it’s a dynamic and proactive system. We do things like not only change security keys, but also change protocols. We also make sure that each customer has a completely different system to minimize the market for hackers. If someone hacks a system in Ohio, they’re not going to be able to turn around and sell it in Washington."

The company has yet to announce any U.S. customers but has been chosen as the security elements for Lyse, a fiber-to-the-home operator in Norway.