NDS Open VideoGuard Integrated With Microsoft TV Advanced To Provide Secure Interactive Digital Television

Business Wire, May 8, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

NCTA - Cable 2K

Booth No. 1077

NEW ORLEANS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2000

NDS Group plc (NASDAQ:NNDS), a News Corporation Company (NYSE:NWS), and a leader in providing business solutions to content owners and TV channels through sophisticated interactive TV technology, and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), today announced at Cable 2K that they have integrated NDS Open VideoGuard(TM) with Microsoft TV Advanced. Now Open VideoGuard is supported across the whole Microsoft TV Platform. Open VideoGuard is a conditional access system securing TV revenues and t-commerce services that employs NDS smart cards and software in the set-top box and NDS software at the cable head-end. This will enable Network Operators to leverage the same head-end for both Microsoft TV Advanced and Microsoft TV Basic Digital set-top boxes.

The NDS and Microsoft stands at Cable 2K have the first public demonstrations of TV services running on the Microsoft TV Platform and secured by the NDS Open VideoGuard conditional access system.

"Open VideoGuard provides the security for more Pay-TV viewers than any other conditional access system, both for analog and digital TV services," says Jas Saini, VP consumer devices, NDS Group plc. "By integrating Open VideoGuard with Microsoft TV Advanced, NDS allows a simple transition to the Microsoft TV Platform for those cable operators using NDS conditional access."

"In a digital broadband environment, security is more important than ever," said Phil Goldman, vice president, TV Platforms Group at Microsoft Corp. "The integration of Open VideoGuard and Microsoft TV Advanced provides a secure system that protects revenues including interactive services and transactions. With Open VideoGuard and Microsoft TV Advanced, operators can gain access to the highest value content and provide secure e-commerce services through the new retail outlet in every home -- the digital TV."

About NDS

NDS Group plc (Nasdaq/Easdaq:NNDS) is a leading supplier of open conditional access software and interactive systems for the secure delivery of entertainment and information to digital TVs, set-top boxes, personal computers and mobile devices. The company also develops e-security solutions for broadband Internet multicasting applications.

NDS systems enable broadcasters, content providers and enterprises on the leading edge of the convergence of TV and the Internet to profit from digital TV and interactive services, including integrating and delivering Internet and TV content, data broadcasting and e-commerce transactions. A portfolio of services including consulting, systems design and integration, support and maintenance complements NDS' systems and technologies.

NDS customers provide services to over 50 percent of the world's digital satellite subscriber base, and 16.8 million viewers of pay television currently use NDS technologies. NDS, headquartered in the United Kingdom, has offices worldwide, employs over 1,000 people, and continues to make a major commitment to R&D with over 400 employees at research centers in Israel and the United Kingdom. More information can be found at http://www.nds.com. NDS' largest shareholder is News Corporation (NYSE:NWS, NSW.A), a global media and entertainment company.

About Microsoft TV Platform

The Microsoft TV Platform is a comprehensive software solution for the television industry that makes television more useful, fun and engaging for consumers and creates significant new economic opportunities for network operators and their suppliers of programming, hardware and software. The client software, Microsoft TV Basic Digital for current-generation set-top boxes and Microsoft TV Advanced for advanced set-top boxes, operate a range of TV-centric appliances from set-top boxes to integrated televisions. Microsoft TV Server and Microsoft TV Access Channel Server are a pair of server software products that offer network operators the tools to provision, manage, and operate a large-scale, commercial-grade enhanced TV service.

The Microsoft TV Platform supports worldwide digital TV broadcast standards, including DVB, ATSC and ARIB. It also supports commonly used Internet standards such as HTML, JavaScript and Dynamic HTML, as well as all interactive content authored according to the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum (ATVEF) specification.

Note to editors:

On March 7, 2000 NDS and Microsoft issued a joint press release "NDS and Microsoft Announce Strategic Alliance To Extend Availability of Enhanced TV" As part of this relationship, Microsoft announced a new component of the Microsoft TV Platform targeted at the current generation of digital set-top boxes, which enables Microsoft to offer the most comprehensive enhanced TV platform solution available. By licensing, integrating and jointly extending software from NDS to create a new member of the Microsoft TV product family, Microsoft will now offer a broad solution set for network operators delivering cable, satellite, terrestrial and multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS) solutions. NDS' middleware is a proven, cost-effective, digital video broadcasting (DVB)-enhanced television solution already operating in over 1.5 million digital set-top boxes manufactured by several major consumer-electronics manufacturers. Under this agreement, Microsoft and NDS will jointly market digital solutions for network operators and will have an ongoing engineering relationship to evolve the joint solution and develop enhanced TV applications and services.