Digital content delivery curbs signal theft, customizes entertainment

MANILA, Philippines - Signal thieves had their heyday in the analog world when it was easy to splice cable TV lines or unscramble signals for free illegal usage. As pay television moves to digital and even high-definition (HD) platform, the prevalence of content theft has been minimized.

SkyCable, the Lopez-owned cable company that pioneered digital cable TV service in the Philippines in 2006, is at the forefront of the digitization process as it continues to introduce innovations in digital content delivery.

“We are really aggressive about digitization because it is really the way forward as far as pay TV is concerned,” says Rodrigo Montinola, VP for marketing of SkyCable. “What digitization really does is provide more options and benefits for customers. But digitization is not the end. We want to eventually be able to encrypt.” 

Montinola explains that in an analog platform, what cable operators can offer is limited. In the case of SkyCable, only two packages are offered to customers prior to digitization, one package having more channels than the other.

“The reason for that is when you are on analog the only way you can differentiate the two packages is trap the channels that should not viewed by specific customers. So you can only imagine that it is not too difficult for ‘enterprising’ customers to get the signals that they are not allowed to get,” he explains.

With digitization, the traps were rendered obsolete as the television signal is now delivered via the digital set-top box that defines what channels customers are subscribed to.

As the only cable company with a full suite of digital offerings, SkyCable is pushing for the digitization of the industry in general.

“If everybody digitizes and everybody encrypts then there will be no more illegal connection. We are able to raise the standard, everybody will benefit and it would be much better for the industry,” he says.

From digital to HD

Just as THX and 3D technologies are becoming the new standards for movies, digital and HD standards are starting to be adopted for home TV viewing.

When SkyCable introduced the digital set-top box (digibox) four years ago, it has more than encryption and curbing illegal connections in mind. It wants a system for delivering content customized for individual customers.

Digitization itself, says Montinola, will not curb piracy or illegal tapping. It is a tool that can be used to encrypt and provide choices for subscribers.

When it introduced, for example, its first digital TV package with roughly 30 free channels and 20 local channels, it drastically brought down the price to P280 per month. Customers were given the choice to add more channels of their choice ranging from P20 to P100 per month for each addition.

Topping up the basic plan with preferred channels such as Star Movies for P100, Fox Crime for P20, Solar Sports P150, ESPN and Star Sports for P150 and NBA Premium TV for P150 also requires no lockout period for subscribers. After one month, one can opt out of the service or add new channels.

Montinola admits that SkyCable’s foray into the prepaid service is not that successful unlike the benefits reaped by the larger telecom industry when it introduced prepaid cellphone services as it turned digital.

“What we learned from the experience is cable subscribers want continuous television service with no service interruptions like electricity, water and other utilities,” he says.

Still another advantage of the digital platform is it provides clearer signals, more crisp images. This, however, will be already surpassed by yet another evolution in the technology space: the coming of high-definition television, which provides substantially higher resolution than standard definition (SD) broadcasting.

Montinola reveals that this early, as operators all over the world are still rolling out HD systems, it is already emerging as the killer application for sports broadcasting. With advantages such as motion picture clarity, panoramic widescreen format and cine-matic digital sound, the first content made available on HD were the sports channels NBA Premium TV and ESPN HD.

Movies followed suit with HBO HD, Star Movies HD, Fox Crime HD and other channels optimized for great viewing such as History Channel (HD), Discovery HD World and National Geographic Channel HD.

While SkyCable’s HD service was launched in 2009, the service has only been accelerated in the last quarter because of limitations in the availability of content in HD.

Montinola says they would make the HD channels available as soon as they become available.

The next step: Personalvideo recorder

If you can record television programs with no tapes or disks and can do it when you’re not at home or while watching other shows, then digitization would have been optimized.

“Another interesting feature of a personal video recorder (PVR) is time shifting. When you are watching a program and you need to answer a call, you can pause the show and continue watching when you return from where you left off,” Montinola explains.

In more advanced countries, especially in the US, PVRs have become mainstream devices. Though the full benefits of digitization are already available, operators have to build a business case for it. SkyCable’s own PVR will be launched in February and it has both digital and HD capabilities.

If the way forward is digitization, digital content delivery is the next big step in customized entertainment.