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Which content protection system is better?
When selecting your content protection system pay extra attention to the list of supported customer premises devices. Review SmartMEDIA 5. Technical Description document to understand what fits your needs better.
Various CAS/DRM systems are used for IPTV and OTT solutions:
- “Classic” IPTV (providing the basic service) uses encryption systems suitable for operating in multicast networks. They are usually based on DVB compatible algorithms – Simulcrypt. SecureMedia, IrDeto, and many others are among the well-known and well-regarded systems.
- OTT services use delivery protocols different from IPTV and, accordingly, different encryption standards. Besides SecureMedia, IrDeto and other systems from the “IPTV world”, this market hosts giants like Google Widevine and Microsoft PlayReady.
If you want to use several CAS/DRM systems in your solution, you should take into account that in most cases each of these systems requires its own copy of the content and consequently each system you are using significantly increases your hardware costs. To solve the problem you can use Common Encryption standard (CENC) supported by Widevine and PlayReady systems for OTT and Simulcrypt-based solutions for IPTV (multicast)
Note: Widevine system is officially provided for free but in any case, you will need to spend some resources on implementing it, whether you are doing it yourself or with someones (for example, ours) help.
In SmartMEDIA system, we have implemented our own cryptoprotection of content for multicast delivery using CENC / Widevine encoding. That is why you can use a single inexpensive CAS/DRM system for both OTT and IPTV devices. SmartLabs encoding technology is supported on all SmartLabs set-top boxes but can also be implemented on other devices supporting Widevine DRM and/or PlayReady DRM since it is based on open standards.
