[07 April 2015]
Common Encryption means content owners need one inventory for all browsers, slashing operational and storage costs
Vualto, global specialists in innovative content delivery and management, is using TV Connect (ExCel, London, 28 – 30 April 2015) to demonstrate its work with Unified Streaming on practical implementations of the emerging CENC standard.
CENC – common encryption – aims to eliminate many of the problems associated with multiple digital rights management systems. It will allow content owners to supply protected video to any browser from a single URL, irrespective of the DRM technology implemented in the browser.
A number of DRM systems have been developed to protect valuable intellectual property, including Microsoft PlayReady, Adobe PrimeTime, Google Widevine, Marlin and Fairplay. Historically these have run as browser plugins and mobile devices needed a dedicated app. With the move to HTML-5 there is a trend to use EME (encrypted media extensions), which run as part of the browser. Google Chrome has gone further in announcing it will no longer support Silverlight and therefore PlayReady, so a solution is urgently required.
Traditionally, each DRM scheme needed its own encrypted video file, which is hugely inefficient in preparation resources and storage space. CENC aims to minimise these issues by specifying standard encryption and key mapping methods, leaving the individual DRM scheme to enable the decryption. The result is that a single MPEG-DASH file with CENC can be read by any browser, while still being compliant with a number of DRM systems for decryption.
“The partnership between Vualto and Unified Streaming is a real game-changer for online video,” said James Burt, CTO and co-founder of Vualto. “It positions us to be able to meet three key challenges: to solve the Chrome/Silverlight issue; to ensure consumers benefit from the HTML-5 experience, and to slash the operational costs for content owners, but eliminating the need for a new workflow for each DRM. One piece of content, one URL, and it will play on multiple platforms.”
CENC is available as part of Unified Streaming’s content delivery technology. Vualto builds this into a complete platform, including managing and hosting licence servers. The solution includes dynamic content wrapping, so live as well as VoD content can be delivered to multiple devices from the same source file.
Vualto will be staging comprehensive demonstrations of its innovative product range, including CENC support, at TV Connect on booth 168D.
