Methode und Vorrichtung zur Kontrolle mehrerer Chipkarten

摘要

Currently a pay TV decoder is only working with one smart card and does therefore use only one card reader. If the user owns several smart cards each one dedicated to a specific broadcaster, each time he switches from one channel to another the user has to exchange the smart cards in order to be able to descramble the new channel. The invention enhances the ease of use of such conditional access systems. Several card readers (1, 2, 3) are connected and controlled by a single processor (5). A special power supply unit (4) which is controlled by the processor (5) supplies the card readers (1, 2, 3) with appropriate voltages.