Two years ago we published the blog post “Get ready for a multi-codec world”. With the official launch of H.266 (VVC) and the progression of future codecs like AV1 and VP9, it’s a good time to revisit the state of the multi-codec world, and why it’s important to your streaming workflows.
In the last decade, the tech industry has rallied around one codec for streaming video files over the internet: MPEG’s AVC/H.264. Now the market is moving toward a new generation of video codecs that offer 30% to 40% better compression than H.264. Is your organization ready to experience the world of multi-codec implementations?

Adopting the new generation compression technology is important because compressing video files means you can send higher-quality video over the same network infrastructure, for a richer, more compelling viewer experience and reduce delivery costs for popular content.
According to Sandvine’s Global Internet Report 2019, video streaming accounts for over 60% (3% increase from 2018) of all global traffic. However, Sandvine posits that this number is expected to rise significantly by the end of 2020 with an increase of 4K and 8K quality content. Some researchers say that it can even jump up to a staggering 70%.
Based on a similar report from Statista, broken out at the country level – most regions are seeing well over 60% of internet consumption attributed to digital video consumption – with the US clocking in an average of 85%.

In addition, according to Cisco research, as of March 2020, 493 million global consumers own a connected 4K quality TV, by 2023, this number is projected to exceed 831 million – a staggering 66% of all connected TVs. That powerful market dynamic is driving the adoption of new technologies to encode and decode video so it can travel more efficiently over the web. But so far, there is no clear winner in the high-efficiency codec space.

More Devices = More Codecs

With over 431 million global consumers owning 4K connected TV by 2023 and up to 70% of all global internet traffic shifting to video content, it’s more important than ever to implement a multi-codec approach to hit as much of your target audience as possible. According to our 2019 Video Developer Report, there is a huge growth in all modern codecs (see graph below). The bar is an indicator of survey respondents who already use a certain codec and the red line indicates how many additional respondents planned to implement the codecs in the coming year.

Let us know which codecs you use and plan to use in the coming year in our 4th Annual Video Developer Survey here

At first look, the logical approach for companies that support streaming video with H.264 today is to stay the course and to add the next-generation MPEG video codec, HEVC/H.265 to their compression delivery suite. It’s important to note that in mid-2020, another next-gen codec had been finalized to support 4K and 8K streaming devices, Versatile Video Coding (VVC)/H.266.
In terms of compression, H.265 is a significant improvement over H.264 — roughly 50% more efficient. That puts it on par with Google’s VP9 codec, which does not charge licensing fees, but also does not offer full device reach (yet). Then there’s a third player, AV1, which is an open-source codec from AOMedia. Continuing the initial work on VP10, AV1 boasts 70% better compression than H.264. That’s caught a lot of people’s attention, even though there are still some questions around AV1 for many monetization workflows The VVC/H.266 codec promises to reduce bitrate costs by a full 50% over its predecessor, HEVC. (For more info download our AV1 Datasheet)

Managing the codec choices

Today, browser and device makers are fragmented in their support for these new codecs. Apple’s Safari browser supports HEVC/H.265, but not VP9. Google and Firefox are behind VP9 and AV1, and steering clear of HEVC/H.265. So how can savvy businesses get the benefits of more efficient compression and still reach users on all platforms?

Most companies will need to take a more nuanced and pragmatic approach to adopt and support new media codecs. Right now, we have as many as four different high-efficiency video codecs to choose from (including LCEVC/MPEG-5), with more ready for compressing ultra-high-definition video and virtual reality media.

Hybrid and Multi-Codec Approach

The way forward is a hybrid multi-codec approach. Companies will need to continue supporting H.264 to ensure interoperability with every device. At the same time, there’s an opportunity to build out support for HEVC, VP9, AV1, and VVC that deliver higher quality video, for a differentiated service offering.
Implementing this approach requires a clear set of criteria for business goals. For instance:

• Who is the target audience?
• What kind of content are you optimizing for? Is it scheduled, like a sports event? Or is it unexpected, like breaking news?
• How high is expected demand?
• What platforms are watchers most likely to connect on?
• How important is it that this content is high-quality?
• Do you need to support HDR/Dolby Vision content?
• Do you need to support UHD/4K content? 
• How important are download times? What are the acceptable bandwidth costs?
• How many platforms do you need to support? Do they include newer web-enabled devices like set-top boxes and web TVs?

These questions are important when it comes to carefully evaluating how a new codec can enhance your business opportunities — and when it’s not worth the overhead. In the case of  HDR and UHD/4K content, next-gen codecs are required, as h.264 will be impractical and incompatible.

When to invest in better compression

Encoding video content in more than one codec is costly. You’re investing CPU cycles in the encoding work itself, including the costs of power, cooling, and rack space. You’re also paying to store two or more versions of the same file in your data center.
On the plus side, once you encode in a high-efficiency format, you’ve got a smaller file to store, that can stream more quickly to a lot of people and incur lower bandwidth costs. So if demand for that particular asset is high enough, it’s possible to recoup your encoding costs — and deliver a higher quality product than the competition. If a video goes viral, and you can reach the right platforms or user groups with higher quality video, this investment can pay off handsomely.
Building a smart encoding model can help businesses find an optimal solution for each use case. Now – adopting both the VP9 and HEVC would enable you to deliver advanced compression to roughly 98% of the browser users in the US.

Here are some sample use cases.

• An online newspaper has a breaking story that it expects to have broad appeal. The publisher encodes its exclusive footage in HEVC/H.265 and VP9 in addition to H.264, to offset the double hit on encoding costs with lower bandwidth fees, and delivering crisp, clear visuals to mobile phones and laptops.
• A video-on-demand company is the first to get the rights to stream a blockbuster movie in high definition (HD). It anticipates heavy demand in its target market, Asia, where most viewers have web-enabled HD TVs. It encodes the file in H.264, HEVC/H.265, and VP9, to deliver crisp, clear visuals on the big screens.
• A large social media platform has some fast-trending videos and the rest of the footage that only gets played a few dozen times. The video engineers encode the top 20% of the files into HEVC/H.265 and VP9, to improve quality and speed download times for millions of trending content views, and the rest in the good-enough catch-all H.264.

Have a look at this blog post for a more technical explanation of multi-codec streaming.

Components of a smart encoding model

To successfully implement a smart encoding model, companies need tools and information to help them make key decisions, often on the fly. These include:

• An analytics platform that can show user attributes, such as type of device and connection
• Fast encoding tool to stay ahead of user demands
• Video player that supports a range of codecs

These components can help guide your company through the steps of new decision-making processes.

Gather information

Analytics can help companies determine which video assets to re-encode in a high-efficiency codec — especially helpful for mobile devices, web TVs, and set-top boxes. Once you have a clear picture of your audiences, platforms, and demographics, it’s possible to optimize those experiences while containing costs.

Capture opportunities 

Getting higher quality videos to the right audience and platforms at the right time is a new market imperative. Popular content travels quickly; make sure your encoding tool can keep up. Decades ago, it took hours to encode a 30-minute video. Now, the fastest encoding tools work at speeds of 100:1, meaning, a 100-minute video can be encoded in one minute. Faster-than-real-time speeds means that your business can respond quickly to viewers’ interests in a certain media asset — and stay flexible if you want to re-encode for additional platforms on the fly.

Reach every user

Having your content supported all along the streaming pipeline, from encoding media files to play out in a browser. You can simplify this process by standardizing on a video player that supports the full range of codec options available today and is able to identify the user’s device and browser to serve the appropriate content.
Today’s technologies are getting more complex — and more powerful. If you’re considering what high-quality video experiences can bring to your user base, it’s a good time to explore the options. As current demand shows, video has a particularly bright future on the web. What’s next? Equally steep growth curves for emerging technologies like virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, which promises to bring even more compelling educational and entertainment experiences to the web, for distribution across platforms, cultures, and continents.
At Bitmovin, we solve complex video problems, so your team can focus on building your business. As a leading provider of video infrastructure for online media companies around the world, the Bitmovin API offers the support to scale quickly and know it will work.
Have you moved into the multi-codec world yet?

The post Living in a Multi-Codec World – Future Codecs revisited appeared first on Bitmovin.

In the last decade, the tech industry has rallied around one codec for streaming video files over the internet: MPEG’s AVC/H.264. Now the market is moving toward a new generation of video codecs that offer 30% to 70% better compression than H.264. Is your team ready to transition?

Adopting the new generation compression is important today because shrinking video files means you can send higher-quality video over the same network infrastructure, for a richer, more compelling user experience and reduce delivery costs for popular content.
Video makes up roughly 70% of all internet traffic today. That number is expected to rise to 82% in 2021, according to Cisco research. That powerful market dynamic is driving adoption of new technologies to encode and decode video so it can travel more efficiently over the web. But so far, there is no clear winner in the high-efficiency codec space.

To switch or not to switch

Here are some of the factors at play.
At first look, the logical approach for companies that support streaming video with H.264 today is to stay the course and make the move to the next-generation MPEG video codec, HEVC/H.265. But HEVC/H.265 licensing terms are still not fully transparent and the next generation codec has a shrinking device support. For many businesses, that is a roadblock to adoption.
In terms of compression, H.265 is a significant improvement over H.264 — roughly 50% more efficient. That puts it on par with Google’s VP9 codec, which does not charge licensing fees, but also does not offer full device reach. Then there’s a third player, AV1, which is an open source codec from AOMedia. Continuing the initial work on VP10, AV1 boasts 70% better compression than H.264. That’s caught a lot of people’s attention, even though AV1 is still a work in progress. (For more info download our AV1 Datasheet or watch our webinar)

Managing the codec choices

Today, browser and device makers are fragmented in their support for these new codecs. Apple’s Safari browser supports HEVC/H.265, but not VP9. Google and Firefox are behind VP9 and AV1, and steering clear of HEVC/H.265. So how can savvy businesses get the benefits of more efficient compression and still reach users on all platforms?

Most companies will need to take a more nuanced and pragmatic approach to adopting and supporting new media codecs. Right now we have three high efficiency video codecs to choose from, with more on the way for compressing ultra high-definition video and virtual reality media.

The way forward is a hybrid multi-codec approach. Companies will need to continue supporting H.264 to ensure interoperability with every device. At the same time, there’s an opportunity to build out support for HEVC, VP9 and AV1 that deliver higher quality video, for a differentiated service offering.

Implementing this approach requires a clear set of criteria around business goals. For instance:

• Who is the target audience?
• What kind of content are you optimizing for? Is it scheduled, like a sports event? Or is it unexpected, like breaking news?
• How high is expected demand?
• What platforms are watchers most likely to connect on?
• How important is it that this content is high-quality?
• How important are download times? What are the acceptable bandwidth costs?
• How many platforms do you need to support? Do they include newer web-enabled devices like set-top boxes and web TVs?

These questions are important, when it comes to carefully evaluating how a new codec can enhance your business opportunities — and when it’s not worth the overhead.

When to invest in better compression

Encoding video content in more than one codec is costly. You’re investing CPU cycles in the encoding work itself, including the costs of power, cooling, and rack space. You’re also paying to store two or more versions of the same file in your data center.
On the plus side, once you encode in a high-efficiency format, you’ve got a smaller file to store, that can stream more quickly to a lot of people and incur lower bandwidth costs. So if demand for that particular asset is high enough, it’s possible to recoup your encoding costs — and deliver a higher quality product than the competition. If a video goes viral, and you can reach the right platforms or user groups with higher quality video, this investment can pay off handsomely.
Building a smart encoding model can help business find an optimal solution for each use case. For instance, adopting VP9 and HEVC would enable you to deliver advanced compression to roughly 83% of the browser users in the US. The remaining 17% would fall back to H.264 and you would still have complete coverage of every browser.

Source: netmarketshare.com
* Only available in Safari for iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra.
** Only available in Edge 14.14291.
Here are some sample use cases.

• An online newspaper has a breaking story that it expects to have broad appeal. The publisher encodes its exclusive footage in HEVC/H.265 and VP9 in addition to H.264, to offsetting the double hit on encoding costs with lower bandwidth fees, and delivering crisp, clear visuals to mobile phones and laptops.
• A video-on-demand company is the first to get the rights to stream a blockbuster movie in high definition (HD). It anticipates heavy demand in its target market, Asia, where most viewers have web-enabled HD TVs. It encodes the file in H.264, HEVC/H.265 and VP9, deliver crisp, clear visuals on the big screens.
• A large social media platform has some fast-trending videos and the rest of the footage that only gets played a few dozen times. The video engineers encode the top 20% of the files into HEVC/H.265 and VP9, to improve quality and speed download times for millions of trending content views, and the rest in the good-enough catch-all H.264.

HAve a look at this blog post for a more technical explanation of multi-codec streaming.

Components of a smart encoding model

To successfully implement a smart encoding model, companies need tools and information to help them make key decisions, often on the fly. These include:

• An analytics platform that can show user attributes, such as type of device and connection
• Fast encoding tool to stay ahead of user demands
• Video player that supports a range of codecs

These components can help guide your company through the steps of new decision-making processes.
Gather information. Analytics can help companies determine which video assets to re-encode in a high-efficiency codec — especially helpful for mobile devices, web TVs, and set-top boxes. Once you have a clear picture of your audiences, platforms, and demographics, it’s possible to optimize those experiences while containing costs.
Capture opportunities. Getting higher quality video to the right audience and platforms at the right time is a new market imperative. Popular content travels quickly; make sure your encoding tool can keep up. Decades ago, it took hours to encode a 30-minute video. Now, the fastest encoding tools work at speeds of 100:1, meaning, a 100-minute video can be encoded in one minute. Faster-than-real-time speeds means your business can respond quickly to viewers interests in a certain media asset — and stay flexible if you want to re-encode for additional platforms on the fly.
Reach every user. Having your content supported all along the streaming pipeline, from encoding media files to play out in a browser. You can simplify this process by standardizing on a video player that supports the full range of codec options available today and is able to identify the user’s device and browser to serve the appropriate content.
Today’s technologies are getting more complex — and more powerful. If you’re considering what high-quality video experiences can bring to your user base, it’s a good time to explore the options. As current demand shows, video has a particularly bright future on the web. What’s next? Equally steep growth curves for emerging technologies like virtual, augmented and mixed reality, which promise to bring even more compelling educational and entertainment experiences to the web, for distribution across platforms, cultures and continents.
At Bitmovin, we solve complex video problems, so your team can focus on building your business. As a leading provider of video infrastructure for online media companies around the world, the Bitmovin API offers the support to scale quickly and know it will work.
Are you ready for a multi-codec world?

The post Get Ready for a Multi-Codec World appeared first on Bitmovin.

This guide discusses considerations for creating premium content protection strategy for premium content providers and includes an in-depth overview of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems.

Bitmovin’s CEO, Stefan Lederer, and myself, Solutions Architect Paul MacDougall, together with David Eisenbacher of our partners EZDRM, were pleased to present an in-depth look at the state of Digital Rights Management, or DRM, and the common use cases, considerations, and workflows for this year’s Streaming Media East at the Midtown New York City Hilton.
The session covered the range of options for premium content protection, an in-depth discussion of the latest changes in the DRM landscape, and how the industry’s broad adoption of AES-128 CBC could lead to a simplified and streamlined architecture under the CMAF standard.
For those who were not able to attend the session, I have summarized the topics that were covered below. Feel free to reach out to our team to answer any questions you may have, or set up a free trial account and implement these solutions yourself.

Choosing a Content Protection System

Content protection is key to a successful content monetization strategy for premium digital video publishers. When considering content protection, however, there is a delicate balance between strength of protection and the barriers it presents in reaching the viewers.
In addition to impacting user experience, there are direct and indirect technology costs, like additional development and maintenance of more complex workflows. On the flip side, more sophisticated systems can enable richer feature sets, such as offline viewing and TVE. All of these factors should be carefully considered before you commit to implementing a particular technology and workflow.
Besides DRM, there are several other options to mitigate the illicit distribution of your content. In this guide we will discuss three common approaches, including tokenization, encrypted streaming and DRM.

Tokenization

Tokenization offers a basic level of protection that can prevent most users from unauthorized viewing and sharing of content. This system works by creating a URL with a key or token that grants access, but has a short expiration period, preventing the use of that URL by other users once it has expired.
This system is simple and cheap to implement, doesn’t require any advanced software on users’ devices, and is supported almost universally. This is frequently used to implement content restrictions such as availability based on time, GeoBlocking, and IP restrictions.
Tokenization is limited in that it only protects access to the content. Once a motivated and technically proficient user gains access to the content, they are often able to capture that content using widely available tools.
Tokenization is typically implemented in conjunction with your CDN, and you should contact your CDN provider to get instructions on how to deploy this technology.

MPEG-CENC ClearKey and HLS AES Encryption

When content requires a higher degree of security, MPEG-CENC ClearKey and HLS AES Encryption, may be a good option. MPEG-CENC ClearKey is implemented as part of the Media Source Extensions (MSE) and Encrypted Media Extension (EME), which enable playback of protected content in web browsers. These content protection technologies protect the actual content themselves, scrambling the video with the AES-128 algorithm in either the CTR mode for DASH or the CBC mode for HLS (CTR and CBC modes are explained in more depth in the section on CMAF below). These systems offer several advantages over tokenization to protect your content. The first notable advantage is that encrypted content is unviewable without access to the decryption keys. Implementing an encryption does not carry any additional costs beyond its implementation, and in the case of HLS, can be implemented as sample-HLS, where only some parts of the video are encrypted, such as certain segments, rendering the video difficult or impossible to watch, but using fewer resources. These systems, however, lack the more secure key handling of DRM and do not offer some of the advanced license management or output controls that DRM systems enable.
See our tutorials for instructions on how to implement MPEG-CENC ClearKey and HLS AES Encryption.

Digital Rights Management

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, offer the highest degree of control over the viewability of your content. The most common DRM systems in the market today are: Google’s Widevine Modular (with some legacy implementations of Widevine Classic), Microsoft’s PlayReady, Apple’s FairPlay, and Adobe Primetime (a successor to Adobe Access, their flash-based DRM). Multi-DRM solution providers, like EZDRM, significantly simplify the complexities of implementing a Multi-DRM workflow to allow you to reach the broadest range of end-user devices.

DRM technologies differ from other content protection methods in a number of ways, including price, complexity, user experience, compatibility, and feature set. In addition to the cost of implementation, DRM systems also have a cost of use associated with them, usually on CPM-bases. Adding to the challenge is the fact that until recently, there was not a cross-platform protection standards, requiring a different DRM technology for each platform, as well, as creating and storing separate files to support each of the environments you may be trying to deliver to (See Appendix at the end of the post for an overview of DRM Support by Platform). Some technologies also offer richer features out-of-the-box, such as offline viewing, pre-provisioning licenses, or granular control over the outputs.
One of the main benefits of using DRM over other content protection technologies is the Selectable Output Control, which enables content providers to restrict playback to unauthorized devices. This is achieved with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), a copy protection scheme that in theory eliminates the possibility of intercepting digital data midstream between the source and the display. However, it is a nuanced technology with many different versions for different implementations, adding one more layer of complexity to consider when selecting content protection technology.

Overview of DRM Technology Providers

Microsoft PlayReady

Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM is one of the most widely implemented DRM technologies, supporting MPEG-DASH with AES-128 in CTR mode (and recently CBC mode as discussed in the section below on CMAF) and Microsoft Smooth Streaming to web environments and many Smart TVs and web-enabled connected devices. PlayReady also offers sophisticated rights management, enabling the pre-distribution of licenses, rental windows that expire licenses after a certain timeframe after they are first accessed, and offline viewing capabilities, which can be particularly appealing to users who want to watch content on planes or other situations where they don’t have reliable access to broadband internet.

Google Widevine

Google’s Widevine system comes in two versions: Widevine Classic, and Widevine Modular. Widevine Classic has been End-of-Lifed by Google, meaning it will no longer receive new functionality. It requires a proprietary packaging format, and is rarely used outside of older Android devices (pre-4.4/Kitkat). It has little usage in the US, and is primarily seen in legacy devices in Asia.

Widevine Modular

Widevine Modular is Google’s successor to Widevine Classic. The Widevine Modular system is broadly supported today in Chrome web browsers and Android devices. Widevine Modular can be deployed on the web with MPEG-DASH with CENC, using the same renditions, encrypted with the same AES-128 in CTR mode, or CBC mode, and packaged in the same fragmented MP4 containers as Microsoft PlayReady, making them broadly compatible. The only difference in embedding process is the exchange of the keys made by a request to a different license server URL. There are no additional files that need to be stored on your origin to support this. Widevine also supports hardware security, which allows accelerated decryption, reducing CPU usage and enabling playback of Ultra High Definition content on devices that would otherwise be unable to do so.

Apple FairPlay

Apple’s choice of DRM technology is FairPlay. FairPlay provides many of the same advantages of other DRM offerings, and some additional degree of flexibility, but at the cost of a more complex implementation. FairPlay is only supported in Apple products, requires a direct relationship with Apple as a registered developer, and can only be used for streaming HLS video. FairPlay uses the AES-128 encryption algorithm in CBC mode, either in MPEG2 Transport Stream, or more recently, fragmented MP4 containers. This use of CBC mode has previously required either JIT encryption or a separate set of files on your storage to enable as they are incompatible with files encrypted with CTR mode. FairPlay also does not provide any of the advanced rights management that other technologies do out-of-the-box, such as licensing windows and offline capabilities, and functions for this must be built by your development team.

Legacy Systems

DRM has been around for some time, and as a result, there are legacy systems in the market that initially enabled these workflows, but have become deprecated and will soon disappear from the limited places that still use them. The most notable of these technologies are Microsoft’s Silverlight, which combined PlayReady and Smooth Streaming in a browser plugin to enable web playback, and was previously made popular by Netflix as their web DRM of choice. Adobe Access, implemented in Flash was another common legacy DRM system that has nearly disappeared from the market.

Open Systems

Open system, primarily in the form of HTML5 Media Source Extensions (MSE) and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), are winning. Users, wary of malware, mandatory updates, bugs and security holes, are unwilling to install proprietary software and browser extension to support the playback of secured content. The adoption of fragmented MP4 and MPEG-DASH for playback by both Microsoft and Google means that these workflows can be significantly simplified, and users can access your content on their device of choice, without requiring replication of efforts to support them. The further support of CMAF conventions, Apple’s plan to support fragmented MP4, continues to reduce the need for replication in these workflows.

Implementing a DRM Workflow

DRM encryption may be implemented during two points in the workflow – during the encoding and packaging process or dynamically, just-in-time (JIT). JIT DRM advantages include added security with key rotation (e.g. rotating keys weekly or daily) and bandwidth savings, since you only need to keep one set of renditions on your storage. However, this approach adds complexity to the system, presenting another opportunity for failure, and leaves unencrypted files vulnerable to unauthorized access during transfer and storage. In addition, JIT encryption has ongoing costs associated with it, as the content must be encrypted again each time it is pulled. The advantages of JIT encryption will likely become irrelevant in the near future, as standardization reduces the need for the replication of files.
Bitmovin’s preferred method for implementing DRM is on the encode side.

On the playback side, the DRM workflow is initiated with the user requesting playback of a particular item of content. This causes the player to make a request to the DRM License Server, which is typically a proxy server that then checks with your servers to validate the entitlements for a given user. Once that request is validated, the License Server will return a key, enabling playback within the parameters that the user has been authorized for.
Note about Testing DRM Workflows: 

• When testing your implementation, a few things are handy to keep in mind: it is perilous to attempt to test DRM in a Virtual Machine. Though VMs make it easy to develop for multiple environments, they have mixed support for DRM, as DRM requires hardware-level validation. Some VMs support this, some do not, and ensuring that this is properly configured is very challenging.
• Another common mistake in testing a DRM workflow can also occur in the HDCP signal chain – many computers use monitors hooked up by DVI, which has less support for HDCP than HDMI, and may not be something you think of checking while testing.

Common Media Application Format (CMAF)

The last topic covered during the session was the Common Media Application Format, or CMAF, a new collection of standards that has the potential to reduce the resources and simplify the deployment of multimedia and DRM protected content.
The CMAF standard, which was initially brought about as a collaboration between Apple and Microsoft, specifies several technologies required to deliver content to users. The most notable of these for this discussion is the use of ISO fragmented MP4, or fMP4 container, which has separate boxes for each of the video and audio fragments, which can then be called from the manifest using byte-ranges or stored as separate segments. Apple announced support for fMP4 at WWDC 2016. Though they still require the use of HLS .m3u8 manifests to address these segments, a separate manifest has a much smaller storage footprint than a separate set of video files.
Another good news for distributors of DRM protected content has to do with the mode of encryption. Apple’s FairPlay DRM technology leverages AES-128 with the Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode of encryption, where the Initialization Vector, a variable used in the computation of the encrypted output, is generated from the previously encrypted data. Google’s and Microsoft’s implementations of AES-128 in their DRM systems, use Counter (CTR) mode, in which a non-repeating variable is used for this purpose. Recently though, Google has added support for CBC in Widevine, and Microsoft announced in April 2017 that they are adding support for CBC mode to PlayReady encrypted content. While the end result of this has yet to be seen in practice, we may very well be able to implement DRM with a single set of media files (though still two manifests) in the near future!

Conclusion

Content protection, especially DRM, is a highly complicated subject, with many aspects to consider from business and technical perspective, including cost, complexity, user experience, and of course, protection of the content. Recent developments in file format and encryption standards give something to be hopeful for: a prospect of a simplified and cost effective workflow to deliver protected content! Bitmovin maintains integrations with all major multi-DRM solution providers for easy and reliable implementation of premium content protection for publishers.
Test it out with a free trial account!
You might be also interested in:

• HTML5 Guide for Broadcasters: DRM and Advertising in a Flash-Less World
• DRM Whitepaper: Everything you need to know about DRM
• Webinar: DRM Basics with Irdeto and Bitmovin

Appendix

DRM Support by Platform

Web Browsers

Mobile Platforms

OTT Streaming Devices

Connected TVs and Gaming Consoles

The post Guide to Selecting and Implementing DRM & Content Protection appeared first on Bitmovin.