Understanding Adobe’s Content Protection Offerings

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Florian Pestoni | Comments (0)

As we discussed in a previous post, content protection is a key tool that can be used to monetize premium video online.

Adobe offers a couple of ways to achieve this; which one you use will depend on your specific needs, content and infrastructure. In this post, I describe some of these options at a high level, hopefully addressing some of the misconceptions (or is it FUD?) that exist out there.

For those of you who use Flash Media Server to stream content to Flash Player, in addition to advanced features such as Dynamic Streaming, you have the option of using the built-in content protection features. These are in very broad use today by some of the leading streaming content providers around the world, including Hulu, Amazon and M6.

The first of these features is RTMPE, the encrypted version of Adobe’s Real Time Media Protocol. RTMPE provides session-based protection, which means that all data between client and server is encrypted using a different key, which is negotiated for each “session”. RTMPE will encrypt all data that goes in the “pipe”, whether it’s video content, data or headers. This is used to block tools that intercept the stream or try to impersonate a valid client in order to make unauthorized use of the content, such as making an unprotected recording (aka ripping).

In addition, FMS also supports SWF Verification, which is used to limit playback of the content to only the video player applications (SWF) that have been authorized. This works best when used in combination with RTMPE: once a secure tunnel has been established between client and server, the Flash runtime computes a hash of the video playback SWF that’s running and then sends that hash securely to the server, where it is compared against a list of approved SWFs; if there’s no match, the connection is rejected.

If this isn’t your first time on this blog, you’ve probably seen other posts regarding Flash Access. To recap, Adobe Flash Access is an advanced content protection solution that we are rolling out in the first half of this year and will work with Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0. (This product was initially launched under the name Flash Media Rights Management Server, but the 2.0 version will adopt the new name and a much improved architecture. FMRMS 1.5 is the current version, and is being used by the BBC for their iPlayer Desktop and by at least one major US studio.)

Unlike the features described above, content protection using Flash Access is not tied to FMS; while you can use both products together to get all the benefits of streaming plus advanced control over content consumption, you can also use each one independently. For instance, you can use Flash Access to protect progressive downloads or with the upcoming HTTP Dynamic Streaming (formerly “Project Zeri”).

With Flash Access, the operating principle is a bit different than with RTMPE. The content is persistently protected, ie it is encrypted once and remains protected wherever it goes. This makes it cache-friendly: whether the content is cached at the edge on the CDN or in the browser cache, it is encrypted and does not represent a security risk. Flash Access also allows you to define a number of usage rules, which are enforced by the client and can help support your business model, whether it’s video on demand, rental, subscription or download to own, to name a few of the more popular models out there.

This requires a few changes to the content workflow: encoded content must be run through a “packager” that encrypts the content. The packager is fileformat-aware: rather than blindly encrypt headers and metadata, it creates a valid file (e.g. F4V) with an encrypted payload. This means that the files can be streamed or downloaded like any other file over any protocol, whether it’s RTMPE, HTTP or something else.

However, once the content arrives in the player, you have the bits but not the rights to play the content. This triggers a request to a “license server”, hosted either by the content distributor or by a service provider on their behalf. The license server will only issue a content license, which contains the key necessary to play back the content, to clients “in good standing”, ie it will reject attempts from rogue clients.

SWF verification is also supported, but now the “whitelist” of approved SWFs can be included in the content license and is enforced by the client. All the the really sensitive operations, such as cryptographic operations or rules enforcement, happens in the native code in the runtime where it is difficult to hack. The application or ActionScript code acts as a sort of remote control, triggering operations such as license acquisition and registering to receive events that may be surfaced to the user.

I hope this provides a good overview and helps identify when each technology may be most appropriate. If you’d like to learn more about the content protection features in FMS, check out the article on Adobe Developer Connection. You can also find more details about Flash Access, including an in-depth whitepaper, on our Flash Access product page.

Florian Pestoni
Principal Product Manager
Adobe Systems
Twitter: @florianatadobe

The formula for online video monetization

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Florian Pestoni | Comments (0)

Most people will tell you that there is no standard formula for monetizing video online. I beg to differ, and here is what I think is an actionable formula:

M=R*(A+C)^E

I know, at first sight it reads like “miracle”, but I don’t think it takes a miracle to monetize video online. Here’s what the formula is trying to say:

Effective Monetization requires combining broad Reach with the right balance between Access and Control to offer a compelling user Experience.

The first variable, Reach, is an easy one to achieve: use Flash. It runs on over 98% of Internet-connected computers world-wide (PCs, Macs and Linux.) It is used for over 75% of video on the web. And the Flash Platform continues to evolve, with new versions being rolled out not just on desktops and laptops, but also tablets and smartphones (just not the ones you’re thinking of.)

Flash can also help you create a great user Experience, by enabling the development of rich, interactive applications and the use of dynamic streaming to adjust to changing bandwidth conditions.

That leaves the part about balancing Access and Control. All monetization strategies, whether it’s advertising, subscription (buzzword of the month: paywall), rental or electronic sell-through need some of both. Going too far in either direction is just not profit-maximizing.

And this is where content protection technologies such as Flash Access come in. By limiting unauthorized copying and redistribution and enforcing usage rules to support their business model, content providers can use Flash Access to help protect investments in content and technology. When used correctly, the vast majority of consumers won’t even notice that the content is protected in the first place.

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DECE Adopts Adobe Flash Access

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Florian Pestoni | Comments (0)

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) has selected the upcoming Adobe® Flash® Access software as one of the approved content protection solutions required for premium video.

Adobe is a DECE Founder, and there are over 45 companies from every industry involved in digital media participating in this effort. In case you haven’t heard of DECE before, it is a consortium of leading technology vendors, content providers, consumer electronics companies, and service providers working to enable improved consumer access to entertainment content.

I’ve been spending a lot of my time over the last year or so working in DECE with representatives of these various companies, so it was great to be able to announce a number of key milestones today. Adobe is pleased to contribute to the creation of a vibrant ecosystem that makes possible new ways to connect users with premium content. DECE’s adoption of Adobe Flash Access will vastly expand the reach for DECE content and generate new revenue streams for participants.

Flash Access software will allow retailers and content owners to utilize the Flash Platform to reach hundreds of millions of devices in a short period of time, enabling compelling end-user experiences. DECE’s approval also signals broad studio support for this technology.

If you follow this blog, you probably already know that the Adobe Flash Platform is a complete system of integrated tools, frameworks, clients and servers for the development of Web applications, content and video that runs consistently across operating systems and devices.

Adobe Flash Access 2.0, a key component of the Adobe Flash Platform, is a scalable, flexible content protection solution that enables the distribution and monetization of premium content. Flash Access 2.0 provides a way to combine the unprecedented reach and interactivity of the Adobe Flash Platform with robust security and flexible usage rules so that businesses can enforce necessary constraints, such as limiting viewing to a given rental period or set of devices.

As announced last year, content protected with Flash Access 2.0 will play on the upcoming version of Flash Player. Adobe Flash Player is on over 98 percent of connected computers and delivers approximately 75 percent of Web video worldwide. Major broadcasters and media companies including Hulu, Warner Brothers, MLB.com, and DirecTV use the Adobe Flash Platform, which also powers the popular social media sites YouTube and MySpace.

CES 2010 and beyond

Posted on December 28, 2009 by Florian Pestoni | Comments (0)

With 2009 winding down, Adobe is taking a breather this week. The Flash Media team is recharging batteries for what I expect will be an up year for the industry.

Several emerging trends and industry initiatives point to increased distribution and consumption of premium video online. The challenge for this year will be to find effective ways to monetize all this great content, be it via subscription, electronic sell-through or advertising.

The upcoming commercial release of Flash Access will help bring some of the highest value content to the Flash platform, including support in Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0, while also enabling new business models.

Stay tuned for additional details next week. I’ll be at CES, and judging from the number of meetings there seems to be great interest in the product and the overall platform. Then it’s back to Vegas the following week for DECE meetings.

On a more personal note, my New Year’s resolution is to become a better tweeter (you can follow me @florianadobe.) We’ll see if this one fares better than last year’s gym membership.

Florian

Flash Access at Streaming Media and FMS User Group

Posted on November 24, 2009 by Florian Pestoni | Comments (0)

We’ve been busy working on getting Flash Access ready for release in the first half of next year, while educating people about the product.

I presented last week at Streaming Media West, and got some really good questions from the audience, as well as a lot of interest in what we are doing around protected HTTP streaming.

If you are interested in a webinar/presentation, I will be talking with the FMS User Group on December 3, 2009 from 9:00 to 10:00 AM PST. I will cover the role of content protection in monetizing video content, as well as Adobe’s product roadmap in this space.

Anyone who can’t make the call should feel free to take a look at our whitepaper.

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Flash Media Live Encoder 3.1 for the MAC

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Desiree Motamedi | Comments (5)

Adobe is excited to announce the development of Flash Media Live Encoder 3.1 (FMLE 3) for Mac OS. This has been, by far, the most requested “feature” since the release of FMLE. The Mac version will have all of the features of the Windows version of FMLE 3, which include:

  • Ability to perform up to 3 simultaneous encodes
  • Saving to local file during encoding
  • Auto-adjust (helps manage the stream quality to stay live under poor network conditions)
  • Support for H.264 and VP6 codecs

FMLE 3.1 for Mac will work with the built-in MAC iSight as well as devices such as Firewire cameras and video capture cards to support a broad range of use cases and workflows. Like the Windows version, the Mac version of FMLE 3.1 will be free. We are not announcing a release date at this time, but customers who are interested in participating in a private beta can do so by signing up at our pre-release interest form (https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=prerelease_interest).

Flash Access at MAX

Posted on October 3, 2009 by Florian Pestoni | Comments (0)

If you’re a longtime Adobe/Macromedia follower, you’re probably familiar with MAX, our annual conference, which this year is in LA starting on Monday. Whether you’re a long-time attendee or just hearing about it for the first time, there will be a lot of very cool stuff being shown at the conference, and that of course will include Flash Access, the upcoming version of our content protection solution that we announced last month at IBC.

There are always exciting announcements at MAX, and this year will be no exception. If you’re not attending, stay tuned for media reports/blogs/tweets. If you happen to be there, you’ll get a chance to hear about it first hand. Moreover, I’m told that this year the Flash Media Camp is the biggest it’s ever been, so if that’s your area of interest you won’t be disappointed.

Although I’m relatively new to Adobe (just under a year), a lot has happened since I joined. We’ve made great progress in rounding out our content distribution offerings, making the Flash Platform the ruling leader for video on the web. With the enhancements we are making in content protection, we can help content owners and publishers of premium commercial content monetize video online, creating engaging user experience whether for streaming or download, using Flash Media Server or HTTP, and playing back content on Flash Player or Adobe AIR.

In fact, that’s the topic for my presentation on Tuesday at 4:30 PM — Monetizing Premium Video Content on the Flash Platform [shameless plug]. If you’re interested in content protection on the Flash platform, that’s the place to be, stop by and say hi after the session… and if you can’t be there, you may learn about it in real-time on tweeter (search #adobemax261).

See you in LA.

Florian

Adobe announces Flash Access, a new content protection solution for Flash

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Florian Pestoni | Comments (0)

Last week we announced the upcoming release of Adobe Flash Access, a new content protection solution for the Flash Platform that will be supported in Flash Player and Adobe AIR. As Product Manager for content protection at Adobe since the end of last year, I’ve been working with closely with several teams at Adobe and also with key stakeholders such as major film studios, TV networks and broadcaster. Although the software won’t be commercially available until the first half of next year, this announcement is a significant milestone … and allows me to blog about it.

Content protection (also known as digital rights management) is usually associated with anti-piracy, but it is much more than that: it is primarily a tool for monetizing content online. This enables content providers to enforce their business models, such as rental, subscription, or pay-per-view. Even for advertising-funded content, premium content generally requires adequate protection.

Adobe’s content protection solutions are widely deployed today and are used by leading content providers to distribute secure commercial content. Flash Access will raise the bar by providing a more robust and flexible solution that enables secure streaming and download of premium content. To learn more about our current content protection solutions (including RTMPE and SWF verification), check out this whitepaper that discusses how to protect streaming video using Flash Media Server and provides an introduction to Flash Media Rights Management Server, the precursor to Flash Access.

You may be asking yourself, what does all this have to do with me? How will I be able to leverage Flash Access? The answer of course depends on what you do. Here are a few examples:

- Content distributors such as broadcasters or online retailers can deploy rental, subscription, and download-to-own business models, as well as using advertising to monetize video assets.

- Content owners may use Flash Access as part of a direct-to-consumer offering, or may implement a B2B e-screening tool to distribute pre-release content to retailers, restricting access to authorized users.

- Service providers will be able to offer a hosted service to independent content producers and distributors who prefer to outsource their DRM infrastructure.

- Developers may use built-in support for Flash Access in Flash Player and AIR to develop rich, interactive experiences around premium commercial content.

- In the enterprise, Flash Access can be integrated into existing systems to enable secure distribute of audiovisual material, such as company meetings or high value training material.

Flash Access represents a big step forward in content protection and we are very excited about the opportunities that it creates for our customers and partners. You can learn more about Flash Access at http://www.adobe.com/go/flashaccess — I recommend downloading the whitepaper, which provides a comprehensive high-level overview and enough technical detail to whet your appetite.

Florian

Flash-based media player standards are here!

Posted on July 20, 2009 by Kevin Towes | Comments (0)

Today we made the announcement that Strobe is now called Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) and is now available! OSMF will help standardize media players that use the Adobe Flash Platform for media delivery.

I’m really excited about this collaborative, industry effort to help not only make video perform better in Flash, but will enable a larger ecosystem of media services to be easily incorporated into your player development… and, just because I didn’t blog about it earlier – Flash Player 10 is now at 86% adoption (7 months after release) and continues to be the number 1 platform of choice for video on the web.

osmf_com_snap.tiff

Media players on the web today do much more than your television screen in your living room.   Media players are responsible for rendering the video, managing playlists, integrating targeted advertising, content protection, tracking and error correction. I spoke about this last year at Streaming Media West (download here).

OSMF is a flexible architecture to help developers create custom playback experiences while leveraging a potentially huge range of services made available through a common plug-in architecture. This plug-in approach will allow multiple CDNs, Advertising, reporting and much more to be easily added to the media player. You can look at some of the inaugural partners committed to building plug-ins to help you get rolling.

osmf_diagram.gif

Put simply, OSMF lets you focus on the business of delivering video, not the player development – but will not prevent you from adding your own spin to keep your users engaged longer. As Adobe continues to innovate new features like Dynamic Streaming or DVR you can easily update your player with the new code so you can take full advantage of all the cool stuff we have up our sleeves as soon as we ship!

The website www.OpenSourceMediaFramework.com has been setup as the source code repository and home for all the pluggable components that people will make. The source code is available under Mozilla Public License.

Akamai who founded the Open Video Player initiative is also helping by contributing to OSMF through a strong collaborative relationship with Adobe. Tim Napolean, Chief Strategist at Akamai is quoted in the release:

“Open Source Media Framework complements and solidifies Akamai’s Open Video Player initiative,” said Tim Napoleon, chief strategist, of digital media at Akamai. “OSMF leverages code from Akamai’s Open Video Player and Adobe’s expertise and resources to assist media companies and publishers in redefining the benchmarks for online video experiences that are powered by standards based workflows.”

For details about the release

For the product page

The OSMF Wiki on Adobe.com

For more information about Open Video Player

RTMP Specification Now Available

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Desiree Motamedi | Comments (0)

Last month, we made the RTMP protocol specification available to everyone who wants to use it – for Free! We’re really excited about the opportunities to add new data sources, communications, and media to new and existing applications in Flash.

You can now download the Adobe RTMP Spec for free here.

RTMP was first introduced in Flash Player 6 enabled by Flash Communication Server 1.0 (now called the Flash Media Server). This was also the time when audio and video capture was introduced in the player opening a new role for Flash player as a communication client.

The RTMP specification describes a protocol designed for multiplexing and packetizing multimedia transport streams including audio, video and data over the TCP protocol. RTMP is used today with Flash Media Server for many real-time applications such as our own Adobe Acrobat Connect, and for media delivery from major online media publishers like Hulu, Amazon or the BBC. It’s also used inside Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES for real time data push applications.

The RTMP specification is part of the Adobe Flash Platform and will join other open initiatives including SWF and FLV/F4V formats as part of the Open Screen Project with the goal of delivering a consistent experience for both developers and users across all devices. The protocol specification will help companies integrate new sources of audio, video and data into their projects and reach over 98% of connected computers and more than 800 million devices worldwide. The Adobe Flash Platform is used today to deliver approximately 80% of web video and can be updated faster than any technology today, reaching 74% market penetration 5 months after release.

The RTMP spec does not include any information about Adobe’s secure streaming measures, such as RTMPe or SWF Verification – which continue to protect some of the internet’s most valuable media content using Flash Media Server used by the top media publishers for the widest possible audience.

The specification documents how the RTMP protocol works, this will enable you to send and receive data from Flash Player or AIR. You can learn how to use the RTMP handshake, understand how the RTMP Chunk stream is formed, how RTMP command messages are created and the message formats. This information will let you leverage the client side ActionScript classes, NetConnection, NetStream, SharedObject and other s that today move data back and forth between Flash Player and Flash Media Server.

This specification does not include any binary or source code implementation of the RTMP protocol. To learn more about licensing binary or source RTMP libraries you can contact FMSOEMinquiries@adobe.com.

So what happens for Flash Media Server? Adobe continues to innovate on top of RTMP with Flash Media Server software to help increase quality of service and real time interactivity with solutions like multi-bitrate (Dynamic Streaming), DVR technology, server side recording, network caching, data collaboration with a rich and easy to build platform that integrates and scales as big as you need it to. Flash Media Server will remain to be the right choice for customers who want to deploy scalable and secure streaming and collaboration services on the Adobe Flash Platform. The tight integration between Flash Player and Flash Media Server continues to make it the number 1 choice for facilitating secure interactive communication and highly scalable media delivery on the web.