#adobe access

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2014/09/08/silverlight-stopped-will-stop-working-chrome-browser-now/

Silverlight Won’t Work In Chrome. What Now?

Episodic television and film content delivered over IP would not be possible without Digital Rights Management (DRM). Implemented correctly, it is invisible to viewers and provides a seamless user experience.

Chrome and Silverlight The Silverlight browser plugin has been an enabler to give consumers secure access to content. Although Sliverlight’s low rates of penetration rates often required users to perform an additional installation or upgrade step, the reward of getting access to high quality content was often worth it.

Google is now taking steps to deprecate browser plugins in Chrome browser. This transition began with a blog post in September 2013, with the Google Chrome team announcing the deprecation of NPAPI, the interface used by plugins in the Chrome browser, including the Silverlight plugin. Because it has been embedded into the Chrome browser within a secure sandbox environment using the Pepper interface, and is auto-updated and protected by the Chrome browser, Flash Player has not been affected by the changes in Chrome.

NPAPI support will be completely removed from Chrome. We expect this to happen before the end of 2014. – (Google Chrome team)

This means by end of this year Silverlight will stop functioning in the Chrome browser, which represents roughly a 45% audience based on June 2014 browser statistics.

Meanwhile OSX is getting an upgrade to the 64-bit version of Chrome, which is now removing the support for 32-bit plugins.

The new version, though, drops support for 32-bit plug-ins — software like Microsoft’s Silverlight or Adobe Systems’ Flash Player that extend a browser’s abilities. Chrome has its own version of Adobe’s Flash Player built in, which means the most-used plug-in isn’t a problem, but others won’t work. (via CNET)

Although Silverlight has a 64-bit version for Windows, it does not have the equivalent for OSX, meaning 64-bit Chrome users on Mac won’t have access to Silverlight-protected content. Silverlight-enabled premium content will not work in certain Chrome browser configurations, even before the support of the Silverlight plugin in Chrome officially ends towards end of this year.

The migration path To avoid a suboptimal viewer experience given the expected changes, Silverlight-based players need to migrate to a new technology platform for content protection.

There are three paths to enable DRM protection for users in a post-Silverlight world:

Switch to an HTML5-based DRM solution for all browsers. This currently requires licensing different DRM solutions for each browser. For Mozilla Firefox the DRM HTML5 technology is Adobe Primetime DRM.

Switch to Adobe Primetime for DRM protection, and use a single DRM solution across all browsers, mobile platforms, gaming consoles, and OTT devices. Use Flash Player to cover DRM for desktop browsers.

Deploy a hybrid model with a mix of Flash/Silverlight for certain browsers, and HTML5 DRM for others. As example, Primetime DRM for HTML5 for Firefox, and Primetime DRM with Flash Player for all other browsers.

Given that multiple DRMs create more complexity for licensing and infrastructure, Adobe Primetime DRM is the only solution that provides a single DRM environment on the desktop. In addition, Adobe Primetime DRM can be used for mobile platforms, gaming consoles and OTT devices, providing a highly simplified content protection workflow.

Adobe Primetime DRM is part of the DECE, and was recently named the market leader for DRM technologies by ABIresearch.

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2014/06/21/difference-encrypted-hls-phls-hls-drm/

The Difference Between Encrypted HLS, PHLS and HLS with DRM

Streaming technologies tend to differ in formats, but also within a format have variations with different characteristics. Security with HLS is one of those cases – the default model is fairly public and standardized, while additional security layers can often create confusion about the terminology.

From an Adobe Primetime perspective, here are the different security deployment models for HLS streaming content, ranked in reverse order of security.

HLS without content protection.

AES 128 encrypted HLS with clear key encryption and keyserver

PHLS without a DRM server or keyserver

HLS with Primetime DRM / Adobe Access DRM Server

The technical differences between the options are as follows.

  HLS without content protection

Standard HLS based on the IEFT specs without any form of content protection. This means content that reaches the client is unencrypted, and can be easily played locally and redistributed. This is often used for lower value content that is not meant to be protected, or sometimes for live content, only valuable in the moment of the event, with later redistribution/copying inherently less valuable. It does not require any sort of key server.

Target platforms: Unprotected HLS is supported on all platforms that have HLS support, though implementation quality can vary greatly.

  AES 128 encrypted HLS with clear key encryption and keyserver

The content is encrypted with AES 128, and the manifest contains a link to a key that allows the decryption of the HLS content.

#EXT-X-KEY:METHOD=AES-128,URI="http://www.myserver.com/mykey.key"

This alone is not providing security, since once the key is obtained, the content can be easily decrypted and redistributed. There are few mechanisms in place that allow to protect the key, such as serving it over HTTPs, or different token authentication models. It secures the content against most standard users trying to get the content, but is not considered DRM level content protection.

Target platforms: Encrypted HLS is supported on most platforms that have HLS support, though implementation quality can vary greatly.

  PHLS

PHLS, or protected HLS, is an Adobe Primetime content protection scheme that embeds the key in the the HLS manifest, and secures it robustly in a PHLS enabled client, such as Adobe Primetime Player SDK. It is the HLS equivalent to PHDS, which applies the same security mechanism to HDS, but available across mobile and digital home platforms as well. The security level of PHLS is equivalent to PHDS.

The PHLS enabled client can enforce DRM features, such as the ability to enforce output protection, policies, SWF or application whitelisting, and jailbreak detection, but PHLS cannot be considered a DRM solution due to the lack of a DRM server. Its design philosophy is to provide the ease of deployment of RTMPe in combination with increased security over AES 128 encrypted HLS with clear key protection.

Adobe Media Server and Adobe Primetime Streaming Server can package and encrypt PHLS content, both just-in-time or in advance.

Target platforms: Platforms that have Primetime Player support, which include Desktop (Flash), Android, iOS, Roku, Xbox 360, and more to come.

  HLS with Primetime DRM / Adobe Access DRM Server

HLS with Primetime DRM is closely related to PHLS, but uses a Primetime / Adobe Access DRM server, which is a requirement to be a full DRM. Adobe offers this as on-premise deployment as well as cloud hosted solution.

Features that makes it an industry wide accepted DRM include.

Application whitelisting to ensure that protected content only plays within approved applications from trusted packagers

Domain management to bind content to a domain of devices all sharing a license under your business rules

Device filtering so you can exclude certain devices from specific content based on screen type, OS, or hardware capabilities

Key and license rotation you can set to a certain number of seconds or to end-of-program, as you prefer

License chaining that supports a root license encrypted and bound to a certain device, with automatic updating of all related leaf licenses

Selectable output controls to guard against consumer recording

More information in the Adobe Primetime DRM datasheet.

Adobe Media Server and Adobe Primetime Streaming Server can package and encrypt HLS with Primetime DRM content, both just-in-time or in advance.

Target platforms: Platforms that have Primetime Player support, which include Desktop (Flash / HTML5), Android, iOS, Roku, Xbox 360, and more to come.

  What is the right level of content protection for me?

If you don’t know if you require a DRM solution, you likely won’t. DRM is used for licensed content that requires legally DRM protection to be able to distribute it.

If you are looking for protected content that can be played on a variety of devices, AES 128 encrypted HLS with clear key encryption and key server provides the most cross platform compatibility.

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2013/12/03/technology-demo-adobe-primetime-1-2-native-hls-support-flash-player/

Technology Demo: Adobe Primetime 1.2 With Native HLS Support in Flash Player

I am very excited to showcase a brand new Adobe Primetime feature, native HLS support in Flash Player.

What does native HLS support mean? HLS playback in Adobe Flash Player provides best-in-class performance, with robust, Hollywood studio-mandated DRM support (Adobe Primetime DRM + PHLS), and AES-128 clear key protection for content protection compatibility. The HLS playback functionality is now included in the core of Flash Player, with all relevant features processed with high performant native code.

The Adobe Primetime Player SDK with HLS support for Adobe Flash Player now supports VOD, live and linear simulcast use cases, with the following features:

Adobe Primetime DRM / Adobe Access, PHLS, AES-128 clear key

Decryption performed natively in Flash Player

Full hardware decoding and compositing

608/708 and WebVTT Closed Captioning

Adjustable adaptive streaming

100% dynamic ad insertion (no dual player)

Integration with Adobe Primetime ad decisioning or any VAST/VMAP-compatible third-party ad server

Support for Adobe Primetime Quality-of-Experience (QoE) monitoring

Besides getting a best-in-class video experience, it offers the ability to use the same DRM-protected and monetized content on every Adobe Primetime-enabled device, including iOS, Android, Roku, Xbox and more. A single workflow leads to lower storage costs, better caching efficiencies, and a more economical infrastructure.

Here is a demonstration of an adaptive 10 Mbps HLS stream with Adobe Primetime ad insertion, ad decisioning, DRM protection, and accessibility enabled with WebVTT-based closed captioning.

For more information about Adobe Primetime, visit the official website, and read my additional articles.

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2013/11/11/new-whitepaper-optimizing-start-playback-performance-adobe-access-content/

New Whitepaper: Optimizing “Start to Playback” Performance with Adobe Access Content

Viewer experience is crucial for everyone providing a video offering, but DRM is often considered to be a user experience burden. Adobe’s Eric Ha describes in his new white paper that this doesn’t have to be the case, outlines the steps that happen before DRM playback starts, and the optimization steps that can get applied.

A small change to a DRM application, but a noticeable improvement to user experience.

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2013/10/11/beginner-guide-online-video/

A Beginner's Guide to Online Video

I worked for many years with the online video community, with an increasing focus on specific problems high-end users might have. But sometimes it’s also important to go back to the basics and focus on the fundamentals. This is my personal guide for everyone who wants to get started with online video, or is looking for a quick reference.

  1) Platforms

What are the platforms you need to target? The answer to this question will impact the scope and costs of an online video roll-out. Must have platforms are desktops, iOS and Android based on the average traffic volume. Additional target platforms are highly depending on your business model. As example, gaming console are very attractive, but the ability to launch a featured application is limited to major brands.

HTML5 video is an easy option to get to the mobile web quickly for an instant in-browser presence. But it comes with some limitations, true scale is only possible if you limit your player experience to most basic video playback features – no DRM, no adaptive streaming, no live.

If you require advanced premium video features, it becomes exponentially more complicated to scale, and in most cases it’s required to fall back to applications.

  2) Video codecs

With pretty much every target platform supporting H.264 hardware decoding – a must have feature for battery efficient playback – the choice of a common video codec is pretty straightforward these days.

Alternative codecs are WebM, Ogg Vorbis or the H.264 successor HEVC/H.265. WebM and Ogg Vorbis are primarily used for certain HTML5 browsers. HEVC/H.265 will eventually replace H.264, but doesn’t have a lot of traction across devices yet.

Meanwhile ON2 VP6 (aka Sorenson Spark, .flv) was the first higher quality codec introduced in Flash. It is sometimes still used to avoid the MPEG-LA H.264 license, but it is lacking the sophistication of H.264 in terms of configurability and quality.

This leads to an important point when using H.264 – commercial content requires a specific MPEG-LA license. This didn’t limit, as originally predicted, the widespread use of H.264, but rather is the reason for alternatives like WebM, which goal is to offer a “free” alternative for the open web.

Due to the complex set of encoding options for H.264, finding the right encoding profiles is quite complicated and requires experience. This is why encoding solutions often limit the user configurable options to a minimum. Lisa Larson-Kelley provides interesting insight in encoding best practices.

In addition Maxim Levkov’s encoding cookbook is an excellent resource.

  3) Video Containers

Video containers are different from video codecs. A video codec defines the algorithm how a video is encoded and decoded to reduce file size, while a video container contains the encoded video, but also includes additional information.

A container or wrapper format is a metafile format whose specification describes how different data elements and metadata coexist in a computer file. [via Wikipedia]

As example, a HLS video stream is encoded with H.264/AAC, which is the video/audio codec, the container format is MPEG-2 transport stream (.ts), and the m3u8 files are the playlists. A mp4 file used for progressive download is a video container, containing H.264 encoded video.

  4) Adaptive Streaming Formats

Adaptive or dynamic streaming is the concept of adapting the quality and bit rates of a stream based on changing network conditions. This is important because standard TCP based content delivery only has limited throughput, and the bandwidth capacity between video servers and clients is unpredictable. With HD video quality delivered over the Internet, adaptive streaming becomes increasingly important.

In contract to simply offering different bit rates to the end user to choose from, adaptive streaming formats allow the automatic change of bit rates based on players analyzing the available bandwidth, and in some cases the available performance, of the playback computer/device.

The main formats are the following:

  HLS – HTTP Live Streaming (Apple)

HLS was introduced by Apple to enable adaptive streaming to iOS mobile devices. The spec then was submitted to the IETF, known as the “Pantos” HLS specs. To be able to use a common format, the openness lead to widespread adoption on other mobile devices. On desktop, HLS is less dominant since Flash Player had no native support until recently. Even though the HLS specs are publicly available, the direction of HLS is still controlled by Apple, which lead to emerging, independently controlled, standards like MPEG-Dash.

Due to the IETF submission, it’s also occasionally referenced as HTML5 video, which is not correct due to its “IETF informational” state.  HLS is only available via the HTML5 video tag on Apple’s safari browser on iOS and desktop, to a limited degree in the Android Chrome browser, and not available on other browsers.

HLS is widely adopted due its simplicity, but has some disadvantages compared to more modern fragmented mp4 formats (fMP4).

  HDS – HTTP Dynamic Streaming (Adobe)

HDS was developed and optimized by Adobe as the HTTP streaming format to the Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR. Due to the continuing popularity of Flash Video, HDS is a widely used format for desktop video delivery. It has almost no relevance for mobile delivery, with the only exception being Adobe AIR for Android, Blackberry or Digital Home, where HDS video delivery is possible. It is based on fMP4.

  Smooth Streaming (Microsoft) 

Smooth Streaming is Microsoft’s fMP4 based video format primarily targeting Microsoft platforms such as Silverlight and Xbox.

  MPEG-Dash (MPEG)

MPEG-Dash is an initiative to standardize HTTP streaming to reduce the format fragmentation. It is available in some HTML5 browsers, and the most likely candidate to become a cross browser streaming standard. In a related effort, DRM is introduced via HTML5 Premium Video extensions. Similar to the HTML5 codec support situation, DRM faces fragmentation challenges with different browsers pursuing their own proprietary strategies, while Apple remains committed to HLS.

  RTMP Dynamic Streaming (Adobe)

RTMP Dynamic Streaming is the adaptive streaming version of RTMP, a non HTTP-based streaming standard targeting the Adobe Flash/AIR platforms. Even though slowly getting replaced by HDS, it is still widely popular due to its ease of deployment and low live latency.

  With all these format options, it is important to deploy a strategy that reduces the overall amount of streaming formats.

  4) Additional Services

Besides enabling high quality playback, additional services layered around the video playback experience are relevant, such as QoS monitoring, analytics, social media integration, advertisement, closed captioning, searchable video metadata, and much more. This is beyond the scope of this overview, but is very relevant to promote, measure and increase the end user experience.

  Summary

Creating your own online video workflow remains complex in 2013, with constantly increasing device fragmentation, and competing philosophies. Thankfully there are many tools available to reduce the fragmentation and address some of the challenges.

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2013/08/26/deploy-adobe-access-drm-ios-android/

How to Deploy Adobe Access DRM on iOS and Android

In my previous DRM blog post, I explained the different levels of DRM content protection, and how to determine what is the best fit for your content.

But once you decided you want to use Adobe Access DRM, how do you deploy it across devices?

There are three main components required for a deployment:

Adobe Access DRM server

HDS/HLS DRM packaging

Player with Adobe Access DRM capabilities

Here is how to get access and license the required components.

  Adobe Access DRM server

The Adobe Access DRM server is available as a trial. After a successful application through the trial request form, Adobe will issue trial certificates that allow testing for a limited time period. The server is available with an implementation for protected streaming, and a low level SDK for full customization. It comes with a DRM packager to protect media files for progressive download delivery, but it doesn’t include a packaging components for HDS and HDS fragmented content. For pricing inquiries, Adobe provides a contact email address.

  HDS/HLS DRM packaging

Adobe Access DRM packaging is available in 2 different products:

Adobe Media Server 5

Adobe Primetime Packagers

Both packaging options provide support for VOD and Live, HDS and HLS, and redundant setups. The main differences are the Adobe Primetime Packagers provide additional features for advertisement workflows, as well as newer DRM packaging functionality. As example, while HDS packaging with Adobe Media Server 5 requires a HTTP Apache Module for HDS streaming, HDS (and of course HLS) packaged with the Adobe Primetime Packagers doesn’t require this component anymore. The Adobe Primetime Packagers come as part of an Adobe Primetime license. For live packaging, both packaging separately from the encoder, as well packaging on the encoder are options (when supported by the encoder).

  Player with Adobe Access DRM capabilities

As a final component, players with Adobe Access DRM capabilities are required. Here are the options:

  Desktop

Flash Player with OSMF (HDS)

Flash Player with Adobe Primetime Player (HDS+HLS)

The main difference is that Adobe Primetime Player on the desktop provides additional features such as seamless advertisement, closed captioning and native DRM-enabled HLS playback in Flash Player (not an Actionscript implementation). For a full technical overview, watch David Hassoun’s Adobe MAX session

OSMF is available as open source, while Adobe Primetime Player comes as part of an Adobe Primetime license.

  Mobile 

On both iOS and Android, Adobe Access DRM support is available as part of the native Adobe Primetime Player.

iOS: Adobe Primetime Player

HLS DRM support using the native HLS video stack (important for App Store approval)

Only available as part of Adobe Primetime Player, no separate DRM library

Android: Adobe Primetime Player + Adobe AIR

Native Adobe Primetime Player with HLS DRM support using a built-in HLS video stack to provide playback to 99% of addressable Android devices. It is not dependent on the Android native HLS stack.

Adobe AIR with HDS DRM support. Android application must be Flash-authored.

  Summary

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2013/08/01/what-is-drm-and-where-it-matters/

What Is DRM and Where It Matters

This blog goes often into very technical depth, but it’s sometime important to talk about some of the basics like the fundamentals of DRM.

If you are working in the broadcast industry with premium content, you properly have a clear understanding of what DRM is. If not, this will help you to understand where DRM is applicable.

  1. What is DRM?

DRM has different forms today, everywhere from distribution of online video, games, software, and everything that is digitally valuable. There is often a certain negativity associated with it, specifically if it starts limiting the user experience – one example are games that require to be always online to check-in with a DRM system.

In this post, I am only going to focus on DRM for online video, which covers a lot of content you are consuming today without knowing that it is DRM protected.

DRM covers the following areas:

- Protect content with encryption

- Robut mechanisms to protect the decryption key

- Follow certain rules defined in policies when issuing the key

- Ensure the media pipeline is secure, and prevent ways to get access to the content (e.g. by using output protection)

  2. What levels of protection exist?

  Level 1 – Protected Streaming

RTMPe

RTMPe was the first enhancement to protect RTMP streaming delivered to Flash Player and AIR. It protects the connection between Flash Player/AIR and Adobe Media Server, and prevents any hijacking between the client and the server. That said, it has been around for a while, and is not considered DRM level content protection.

Encrypted HLS

The HLS specs provide a way to secure HLS content by integrating a key URL into the m3u8 manifest file. It’s up to the publisher to develop the corresponding key server. Security can be enhanced by adding information to HTTP request headers, and delivery of the actual video files over HTTPs, but it provides a lot of room for attacks, and it’s not considered DRM level security.

Both RTMPe and encrypted HLS are wildly used to protect online content, but it’s doesn’t offer DRM level characteristics.

  Level 2 – Protected Streaming using DRM features – without a key server

This is a specific intermediate content protection level Adobe developed to provide DRM like content protection without requiring a key server. The inspiration for this was the tremendous popularity of RTMPe, which was caused mostly due to it’s ease of use (switch the URL to encrypted RTMPe, and block unencrypted RTMP access on the server).

The protocols are pRTMP, pHLS, and pHLS. You can find more detailed information here. It uses the built-in DRM capabilities of Flash Player/AIR, with Primetime Player providing the corresponding DRM components on the mobile side. It uses an embedded key, and can use all DRM capabilities of the clients (e.g. output protection). But since it’s not using a license server, it doesn’t fulfill the requirements of a maximum protection DRM solution.

  Level 3 – DRM

This category requires DRM capabilities enabled on the client, and a key server with robust and secure key-exchange, third-party audited for robustness.

Adobe Access / Primetime DRM falls into this category. Other DRM solutions include Playready and Widevine.

While most mobile platforms support different DRM systems via applications, on desktop it requires the appropriate client within the browsers.

These clients are:

Adobe Access: Flash Player

PlayReady: Silverlight

Widevine: An additional plugin install running alongside of Flash

Note: Flash Player only supports Adobe Access as DRM.

  In addition to the mentioned plugins above, the HTML5 specs provide encrypted media extensions to enable DRM level protection natively in browsers with all the major DRM vendors involved. The penetration is still relatively low though, with different DRM systems for each browser (and some with no support yet).

It’s not close to a penetration point where realistically a publisher could solely rely on a HTML5 DRM solution, and not use the plugins mentioned above – with Flash leading the desktop with 99% penetration.

  3. Do I need DRM? 

If you don’t know, you properly don’t, and are okay with Level 1 or Level 2 protection. There are certain categories of content that notoriously don’t require DRM, such as live events, which value is primarily during the actual event. It needs to be secure enough that someone can’t easily republish the live stream, but DRM is not important. This can be different for linear simulcast, but it’s case by case.

DRM comes into play where highly valuable content is published, such as premium movies or TV shows. In a lot of cases, the content is licensed from a movie studio which demands as condition for distribution a DRM secured playback environment. This includes a long list of security features, that need to be fulfilled by the solution and be robustly implemented. Adobe Access provides this functionality.

Of course you can use DRM for your own content as well, but in a lot of cases you are externally forced to use DRM.

  Conclusion

If you never heard of DRM before, you likely conclude from this article that you don’t need it. But it comes into play with the majority of content consumed today, without you realizing it. And this is where DRM becomes beneficial to the end user. Because of DRM, there is better high quality content on the web. And if it uses Flash Player on desktop, there is no need for an additional plugin install.

New Post has been published on http://www.overdigital.com/2013/04/05/france-televisions-content-suppliers-gave-us-nods-of-approval-when-we-chose-adobe-access-for-drm/

France Télévisions: Content Suppliers Gave Us Nods of Approval When We Chose Adobe Access for DRM

A great success story using Adobe Access DRM, Flash Player, Adobe AIR, OSMF and HDS.

Looking for a flexible, efficient, and reliable solution, the company evaluated multiple options, and chose Adobe Access. Adobe Access enabled France Télévisions to use a single DRM platform to publish and protect video streams carrying studio-grade content to desktops, connected TVs, tablets, and smartphones, allowing the company to accomplish its goal of reaching all screens.