Entavio

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Entavio , initially known under the project name Dolphin , was a digital distribution platform for satellite television from the satellite operator SES Astra , which went into operation on September 1, 2007 at the IFA . Entavio has been discontinued since September 30, 2009.

Entavio

Radio and television programs and additional services such as Blucom were bundled on the platform and encrypted at the provider's request . This encrypted content could only be decrypted with a digital receiver.

The prerequisites for this were a digitally compatible satellite reception system and an Entavio-compatible satellite receiver . Entavio Pay-TV content required a smart card that was available directly from Entavio (only required for using pay-TV offers) and payment of a monthly basic fee of EUR 1.99 and EUR 9.99 smart card service fee.

history

Initially, the RTL and Viacom groups and ProSiebenSat1 -Media AG had committed to the Entavio project. ARD and ZDF spoke out against an encrypted broadcast via satellite. In addition, RTL and ProSiebenSat1 reached an agreement with the leading German cable companies to feed their programs into the digital cable network . However, ProSiebenSat1 withdrew from the project in early December 2006 in the course of antitrust proceedings (see review ).

On February 19, 2007 SES Astra announced a move away from encryption for free TV channels because of ProSiebenSat1's withdrawal . For the time being, they wanted to concentrate on pay-TV offers for encryption.

On April 19, 2007, SES Astra and Premiere announced that the Entavio platform would start on September 1, 2007 with Premiere as the first pay-TV broadcaster and that all Premiere and Entavio-compatible satellite receivers could be used for reception.

In July 2007 it became known that the channels that are currently free to air are initially not transmitted in encrypted form.

Entavio was marketed by Entavio GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of SES ASTRA, based in Munich-Unterföhring. The Astra subsidiary APS was responsible for the uplink to the satellite .

Entavio started on September 1, 2007 and encrypted the program content from Premiere and Premiere Star via the platform .

On November 1, 2007, the subscription channel sportdigital .tv started broadcasting its program. Use was only possible with an Entavio receiver. The subscription channel alpenglüh.tv followed on December 1, 2007. All Premiere customers who had Entavio access could also use this program.

As of September 30, 2009, Entavio was discontinued. How many customers have ever used Entavio is kept secret by Astra.

criticism

The Federal Cartel Office opened in 2006 against the three parties to the Dolphin -project a procedure on suspicion of mutual agreement. At the beginning of December 2006, the ProSiebenSat1 broadcasting group announced that it was withdrawing from the project. As a result, the Cartel Office closed its proceedings on suspicion of coordination, but another one relating to possibly anti-competitive specifications of the Entavio coding standard is still in progress. In October 2006, the Federal Cartel Office rejected a complaint from Astra's competitor Eutelsat because of the initial suspicion of abuse of a dominant position. The complaint related to the takeover of the premiere playout company DPC (renamed APS after the takeover ) by Astra.

However, critics fear that SES Astra might want to exploit its position as the European market leader with the Entavio project. Above all, they complain that there is no real added value in the paid Entavio platform compared to the previous free and unencrypted reception. The leading digital receiver manufacturers also fear that the Entavio standard could make technical access to the receiving devices more difficult for other marketing platforms or free-to-air channels.

Astra replied that the platform was open to all broadcasters to implement their respective business models. Furthermore, Astra does not offer content itself and is therefore neutral. In addition, certain specifications are required for the set-top boxes in order not to exclude manufacturers from building the devices, but to be able to guarantee the smooth functioning of the platform through certain minimum standards.

In December 2012, the Federal Cartel Office fined the ProSiebenSat1 and RTL broadcasting groups a fine of EUR 55 million. In addition, RTL and ProSiebenSat1 undertook to broadcast their channels in SD quality only unencrypted via satellite, cable and IPTV.

Basic features of an Entavio certified receiver

  • Protection of minors
  • Multifeed
  • Mosaic
  • Interactivity (Interactive STB)
  • A smart card slot for Entavio smart cards
  • CI slot on all newly produced devices
  • Blucom
  • Software download via satellite
  • Logical Channel Numbering (LCN) (automatic channel assignment)
  • No time-consuming search for changes (new programs or transponder changes)

See also

swell

  1. ↑ www.digitalfernsehen.de: Who is at Entavio?
  2. ↑ Press release of the Bundeskartellamt: Bundeskartellamt imposes fines on Pro7Sat1 and RTL for agreeing on basic TV encryption