Video Breakthroughs

It is possible to overstate the complexity of multi-screen video, but the absolute number and types of display devices are indeed increasing, which means that efforts to promote standards and greater simplicity address a live concern. A current initiative, playing out within the MPEG-DASH Industry Forum, among other places, to enable digital rights management (DRM) interoperability is a case in point.

Building his case for a common downloadable DRM framework that is independent of but compatible with CE devices of all shapes and sizes, Tranter (VP at NDS, now part of Cisco) names three standards that could play a foundational role, namely:

* Simulcrypt—the long-standing DVB protocol published by ETSI used to enable multiple key management systems;
* MPEG-DASH—Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), which became an ISO standard in late 2011; and
* UltraViolet—an authentication and cloud-based rights system deployed over the past few years by a consortium of studios, manufacturers and service providers.

Farncombe Technologies, a pay TV technology consultancy based in the UK, has just released a white paper called “The Future of Broadcast Cardless Security.” The white paper incorporates the results of a survey of pay TV operators, content owners, security vendors, and device makers on pay TV security concerns today and in the future.

Operators of pay TV (cable, satellite, and telco-TV) networks have put more money and effort into digital content security than any other type of media distributor, certainly more than any digital music or e-book sellers ever have. That’s because the economic incentives of pay TV operators are aligned with those of content owners such as movie studios and TV networks: operators don’t want their signals stolen, while content owners want to minimize unauthorized use of the content that travels over those signals.