Downloadable Conditional Access System
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The basic purpose of DCAS was to implement DRM protection in software, supported by future OCAP-compliant consumer devices such as digital televisions, DVRs, and set-top boxes (still required to support legacy non-OCAP-compliant devices). This would secure the information transmitted in the link between the cable company and the consumer device. Besides decryption, the DCAS software would control how the content is used—whether it must be deleted immediately after viewing, or after a set period of time, which devices it may be transferred to and if transfer or recording is permitted. The scheme could possibly be used more broadly and was being advanced by Rupert Murdoch's company NDS as a DRM method useful also for portable media players and other devices not attached to cable networks. An allegedly working DCAS prototype was created by Samsung and NDS for the cable industry and was demonstrated to the FCC in November 2005.cite-ref-6[6]
According to Brian Dietz of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA):
...we expect downloadable security to be supported nationwide by MSOs by July 2008.
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