Digisoft.tv and INSIDE Secure announce joint DRM implementation for STBs

Monday, September 8th, 2014
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INSIDE Secure and Digisoft.tv Make Set-Top Box Digital Rights Management Easy, with the Launch of a PlayReady Encrypted Media Extension Implementation

  • Service providers can now develop applications with HTML5 and JavaScript to target multiple devices, without a single change in the underlying platform

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France & CORK, Ireland — Digisoft.tv, the specialist middle applications company, and INSIDE Secure, providers of comprehensive embedded security solutions, announce today that they have launched a reference Encrypted Media Extension (EME) implementation on Digisoft.tv’s Iris HTML5 OS middleware application.

In recent years, powerful platforms for mobile devices and Smart TVs have allowed broadcasters, operators and service providers to develop rich multiscreen media applications using readily available skills and broadly adopted technologies. Similar developments have not been fully possible in set-top box application development. This is due to the closed nature of video playback APIs, particularly for the DRM integration methods. EME is part of a change that ushers in a new open standard.

“The Digisoft Iris platform for STB is built from scratch with full HTML5 support. Right from the start, Digisoft has always supported the use of HTML5 video for playing and controlling media from any OTT broadcast source,” said Fearghal Kelly, Digisoft.tv’s CEO. “The recent addition of Media Source Extensions (MSE) to HTML5 enhances its capability to give the application developer full control over the delivery of video content to the browser. MSE allows operators to optimize video delivery from a content delivery network (CDN) to implement adaptive bit rate support using JavaScript. It also removes the need for native plug-ins to support these capabilities.”

“Our EME implementation closes the gap in open technology support for media in the browser,” said Martin Bergenwall, head of the Mobile Security division at INSIDE Secure. “We are driving ahead in the DRM technology game.”

INSIDE Secure is an established market leader in DRM. The company is the first DRM vendor to provide Microsoft’s PlayReady solution based on EME for the Linux platform. The EME standard provides JavaScript APIs for key retrieval and management in the browser for applications accessing protected content. Existing INSIDE Secure DRM solutions are available on Android, iOS, Blackberry and Linux.

When combined with MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) for adaptive bitrate video streaming, these technologies provide a standards-based development platform for multiple devices, including STB. For the first time, service providers have the capability to develop applications with HTML5 and JavaScript, targeting multiple devices, including STBs running Digisoft’s Iris platform, without a single change in the underlying platform. The reduction in both capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expense (OPEX), together with a much increased development cycle leading to faster time to market, brings the set-top box into the realm of smartphones and tablets, where control over service evolution is back in the hands of the operator.