On Friday, Kirch Gruppe came together with Bertelsmann AG, which plans to launch its own digital television station in October (CI No 2,964), to describe how they would provide a common interface to set-top boxes. The solution is simul-crypt, whereby both sides will share their encryption code and broadcast it directly to the decoder, so that viewers that subscribe to both packages will be able to receive programming without having two decoders or switching Smart Cards back and forth. Both will work to develop a uniform decoder but will market their own competing decoders until one has been found.
