Conditional access system enabling partial viewing

• US 6,920,222 B1
• Filed: 08/18/2000
• Issued: 07/19/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Inventors: Tsukahara, Daisuke, Murakami, Tokumichi, Matsuda, Yukinari, Oka, Susumu, Akita, Yasutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Moise, Emmanuel L.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Arani, Taghi T.
• Application Number:
  US09/641,512
• Time in Patent Office: 1,796 Days
• Field of Search: 380/210, 380/239, 380/241, 725/31
• US Class Current: 380/239
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26606 for generating or managing entitlement messages, e.g. Entitlement Control Message [ECM] or Entitlement Management Message [EMM] arrangements for conditional access to broadcast information or to broadcast-related services H04H60/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44055 by partially decrypting, e.g. decrypting a video stream that has been partially encrypted
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4623 Processing of entitlement messages, e.g. ECM [Entitlement Control Message] or EMM [Entitlement Management Message] arrangements for conditional access to broadcast information or to broadcast-related services H04H60/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/1675 Providing digital key or authorisation information for generation or regeneration of the scrambling sequence pseudo-random number generators in general G06F7/58

Abstract

A conditional access system includes an EMM (Entitlement Management Message) analyzer for retrieving partial viewing authorization information. When the partial viewing authorization information permits partial viewing, ECM (Entitlement Control Message) is decrypted using work keys, and scrambling keys are intermittently retrieved from the ECM. This can solve a problem of a conventional conditional access system in that an unauthorized user'"'"'s receiver cannot display pictures at all because the receiver cannot retrieve scrambling keys, and hence the user cannot enjoy a program even to such a degree as to perceive its feeling as in analog broadcasting systems, and thus the user cannot decide as to whether to make contract or not with viewing the program to some extent, which prevents the provider of the program from offering effective invitation to the user.

Claims

1. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving work keys and partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer;

an ECM decryption section for decrypting the ECM using the work keys and for intermittently retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM, based on receiving control information to alternately enable and disable decrypting, when the partial viewing authorization information retrieved by said EMM decryption section permits partial viewing;

a media data descrambling section for intermittently descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys intermittently retrieved by said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for decoding the coded media data intermittently descrambled by said media data descrambling section.

14. The conditional access system according to claim 1, wherein partial viewing authorization information includes a control parameter indicating a partially authorized viewable range.

15. The conditional access system according to claim 1, wherein the partial viewing authorization information consists of information authorizing viewing only for a specific time period.

16. The conditional access system according to claim 1, wherein a subscriber contract information that includes information authorizing partial viewing is used as the partial viewing authorization information.

17. The conditional access system according to claim 1, wherein the EMM is used for inserting the work keys which are used only for specific time periods.

18. The conditional access system according to claim 1, wherein said demultiplexer and said decoding section are based on the MPEG-2 standard.

19. The conditional access system according to claim 1, wherein when a plurality of programs are multiplexed into the packet stream transmitted from the transmitting site, authorization, partial authorization and inhibition of viewing the programs are determined for individual programs independently.

2. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving work keys and partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer;

an ECM decryption section for decrypting the ECM using the work keys and for retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM, when the partial viewing authorization information retrieved by said EMM decryption section permits partial viewing, wherein said ECM decryption section retrieves only part of the scrambling keys included in the ECM;

a media data descrambling section for intermittently descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys which are intermittently retrieved from said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for decoding the coded media data intermittently descrambled by said media data descrambling section.

3. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving work keys and partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer;

an ECM decryption section for decrypting the ECM using the work keys and for intermittently retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM, when the partial viewing authorization information retrieved by said EMM decryption section permits partial viewing;

a media data descrambling section for intermittently descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys intermittently retrieved by said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for decoding the coded media data intermittently descrambled by said media data descrambling section;

wherein said ECM decryption section retrieves all the scrambling keys included in the ECM and supplies said media data descrambling section with only part of the scrambling keys.

4. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving work keys and partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer;

an ECM decryption section for decrypting the ECM using the work keys retrieved by said EMM decryption section and for retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM;

a media data descrambling section for intermittently descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys, based on receiving control information to alternately enable and disable descrambling, when the partial viewing authorization information retrieved by said EMM decryption section permits partial viewing; and

a decoding section for decoding the coded media data intermittently descrambled by said media data descrambling section.

5. The conditional access system according to claim 4, wherein said media data descrambling section handles part of the coded media data which is not descrambled as unencrypted data.

6. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving work keys and partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer;

an ECM decryption section for decrypting the ECM using the work keys retrieved by said EMM decryption section and for retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM;

a media data descrambling section for descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys retrieved by said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for intermittently decoding the coded media data descrambled by said media data descrambling section, based on receiving control information to alternately enable and disable decoding, when the partial viewing authorization information retrieved by said EMM decryption section permits partial viewing.

7. The conditional access system according to claim 6, wherein said decoding section decodes only part of frames in a frame sequence constituting the coded media data.

8. The conditional access system according to claim 7, wherein said decoding section decodes only I frames.

9. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving work keys and partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer;

an ECM decryption section for decrypting the ECM using the work keys retrieved by said EMM decryption section and for retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM;

a media data descrambling section for descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys retrieved by said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for intermittently decoding the coded media data descrambled by said media data descrambling section when the partial viewing authorization information retrieved by said EMM decryption section permits partial viewing;

wherein said decoding section decodes all the coded media data descrambled by said media data descrambling section and supplies only part of the decoded coded media data to a television receiver.

10. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer, said EMM decryption section intermittently retrieving work keys from the EMM, based on receiving control information to alternately enable and disable decryption, when the partial viewing authorization information permits partial viewing;

an ECM decryption section for intermittently decrypting the ECM using the work keys intermittently retrieved by said EMM decryption section and for intermittently retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM;

a media data descrambling section for intermittently descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys intermittently retrieved by said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for decoding the coded media data intermittently descrambled by said media data descrambling section.

11. The conditional access system according to claim 10, wherein said EMM decryption section retrieves only part of the work keys included in the EMM.

12. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer, said EMM decryption section retrieving work keys from the EMM when the partial viewing authorization information permits partial viewing;

an ECM decryption section for intermittently decrypting the ECM using the work keys which are intermittently retrieved from said EMM decryption section and for intermittently retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM, wherein said EMM decryption section retrieves all the work keys included in the EMM and supplies only part of the work keys to said ECM decryption section;

a media data descrambling section for intermittently descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys intermittently retrieved by said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for decoding the coded media data intermittently descrambled by said media data descrambling section.

13. A conditional access system comprising:

a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a packet stream transmitted from a transmitting site into encrypted coded media data, an ECM (Entitlement Control Message) and an EMM (Entitlement Management Message);

an EMM decryption section for retrieving work keys and partial viewing authorization information from the EMM extracted by said demultiplexer;

an ECM decryption section for decrypting the ECM using the work keys and for intermittently retrieving scrambling keys from the ECM, when the partial viewing authorization information retrieved by said EMM decryption section permits partial viewing;

a media data descrambling section for intermittently descrambling the coded media data using the scrambling keys intermittently retrieved by said ECM decryption section; and

a decoding section for decoding the coded media data intermittently descrambled by said media data descrambling section;

wherein said ECM decryption section, instead of said EMM decryption section, retrieves the partial viewing authorization information from the ECM when the partial viewing authorization information is included in the ECM.