Brief Overview of Video on Demand (VOD)

Video On Demand (VOD) is reshaping how consumers access and view content. It provides a convenient platform for audiences to select and watch video content whenever they want, removing the traditional broadcasting schedules’ constraints.

VOD refers to digital systems that allow users to select and view video content on their devices at their convenience. Unlike live broadcast or scheduled television programming, VOD users can pause, rewind, fast forward, and stop the content as they please.

The concept of VOD dates back to the early 1990s. The boom of the internet and advancements in streaming technology in the 21st century have skyrocketed its popularity. Initially, VOD streaming services were offered through cable television providers. Subscribers could pick movies or shows from a limited catalog. The shift began with the rise of broadband internet, enabling services like Netflix and Hulu to emerge.

The global VOD service market was valued nearly $56 billion in 2019. It is projected to reach approximately $120 billion by 2025 with a CAGR growth of around 15%. Factors like increasing internet penetration, advancements in digital infrastructure, and the growing adoption of smart devices play a crucial role in this upswing.

Categories of VOD

1. Transactional VOD (TVOD) – Users pay for each piece of content. Examples include rental services or purchasing a digital copy of a movie.
2. Subscription VOD (SVOD) – Users pay a regular subscription fee to access a library of content. Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ are classic examples.
3. Ad-supported VOD (AVOD) – Users can watch content for free but are served with advertisements. Platforms like YouTube and Tubi operate on this model.
4. Premium VOD (PVOD) – Typically, newly released content that’s made available for rental at a premium price before it’s available elsewhere.

Understanding the Rise of PVOD on demand

In the past, we waited months for movies to move from theaters to our TVs. Then came the digital age, making everything faster and more accessible. PVOD, or Premium Video On Demand, is a product of this change.

Premium Video On Demand (PVOD) is a video service that lets you watch the newest movies shortly after they’re released in theaters. It’s similar to having early access to the latest films without going to the cinema. For many, PVOD means comfort, as they can enjoy these movies from their living rooms.

“According to an August 2023 survey, most U.S. adults are willing to spend less than $10 on premium video-on-demand (PVOD) content, with just 4% prepared to pay $25 or more for early access to movie releases.” – statista

Now, with PVOD, movies are available to rent or buy at home shortly after theater release. The comfort of home and the allure of latest releases made PVOD popular. The COVID-19 pandemic further boosted its demand, with many choosing or forced to stay indoors. Studios saw this as a chance to maintain revenue without relying only on cinemas.

The growth of high-speed internet and smart devices also played a big part. People could easily stream high-quality videos without glitches.

To sum it up, the convenience of watching new movies at home, combined with technological advancements, has driven the rise of PVOD in the digital age.

What is PVOD Streaming & benefits

Immediate access to the latest movies

Before PVOD, audiences had to wait for weeks, if not months, after a film’s theatrical release to rent or buy it for home viewing. With PVOD, this window has dramatically shrunk. This means that we don’t need to mark calendars or wait for movies to arrive on traditional video-on-demand platforms. Instead, we can simply access some of the latest movies right after their theatrical release or sometimes even concurrently.

Comfort and convenience of home viewing

The age-old appeal of the silver screen is undeniable, but home viewing offers advantages that a cinema can’t provide. Firstly, there’s the sheer comfort of watching a movie in your pajamas, on your couch, under a cozy blanket. There’s no need to find parking, sit next to a stranger, or be confined to a specific showtime. With the evolution of home entertainment systems, most households now have high-definition TVs and sound systems. This, combined with the ability to pause, rewind, or take breaks, grants viewers unparalleled control over their viewing experience.

Potential cost savings compared to going to the cinema

There are other associated costs that can make the outing quite pricey. Transportation, whether it’s fuel for your car or public transit fares, adds to the bill. And then there’s the cinema experience of popcorn, drinks, which can sometimes cost as much as the ticket itself, if not more. For families or groups, these costs multiply. By contrast, renting a movie on PVOD, even if priced at a premium, can offer significant savings. When you factor in the added value of convenience and comfort, the economic benefits of PVOD become even more apparent.

The Technology Behind Premium VoD

The tech behind PVOD is all about streaming. With fast internet connections and advanced servers, movies are sent to your device in real-time. Encryption is a key part of PVOD. This means movies are coded for security to prevent piracy. When you rent or buy a PVOD film, decryption happens, letting you watch the movie without hiccups. This blend of streaming and security ensures studios can release new films early, knowing they’re safe from illegal sharing.

“In July 2022, 24 percent of U.S. millennials reported spending at least $19.99 on a premium video-on-demand (PVOD) transaction to watch a new movie at home, while only five percent of baby boomers did the same.”

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how PVOD works, along with the technology behind it:

Content Creation

Studios produce movies or content. This is the phase where directors, producers, actors, and crew come together to create a film.

Digital Conversion and Compression: Once the movie is produced, it’s converted into a digital format suitable for online streaming. Modern video compression technologies, like the H.264 or H.265 codecs, reduce the file size while retaining quality.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

To prevent unauthorized sharing and copying, PVOD content is encrypted using DRM. Popular DRM solutions include Widevine (by Google), FairPlay (by Apple), and PlayReady (by Microsoft). VdoCipher, a secure video hosting and streaming service provides easy integration of Apple FairPlay DRM and Google Widevine DRM. Videos streamed via VdoCipher cannot be illegally downloaded or pirated. Apart from Multi-DRM video encryption, VdoCipher offers Dynamic watermarking, custom video player, AWS powered hosting, video analytics, secure offline downloads and much more. The pricing is competitive without any hidden charges.

Content Hosting

The encrypted content is then hosted on Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) which are specialized, distributed servers that help in delivering content efficiently to users around the world.

Platform Interface

Platforms like Amazon Prime, Apple iTunes, or dedicated PVOD platforms provide users with a user-friendly interface to browse, rent, or purchase movies. These platforms also facilitate payment processing.

Content Streaming or Download

Once a user decides to rent or purchase a film,

• Streaming – The film is streamed over the internet, requiring a stable internet connection. Adaptive bitrate streaming (ABS) technologies are often employed to dynamically adjust the quality of the video stream in real-time according to the viewer’s network conditions.
• Download – Some platforms may offer an option to download the content. This is useful for offline viewing and can provide consistent high quality regardless of internet speed.

Payment and Licensing

Users pay for the content, often with a set window to watch the film (e.g., 48 hours). The payment also determines the type of access (rent vs. purchase) and sometimes the quality (SD vs. HD vs. 4K). The licensing agreements with studios often determine the pricing and availability windows.

Viewing Restrictions

Due to DRM and platform limitations, there can be restrictions such as:

• Limited time to start watching after renting.
• Limited time to finish watching once started.
• Restrictions on the number of devices or the type of devices where content can be viewed.

Analytics and Feedback Loop

Platforms often collect data on user viewing habits, purchase patterns, and feedback. This data can be used to improve user experience, refine content recommendations, or for studios to adjust their release strategies.

End of Viewing Window

After the viewing period expires (for rentals), the content becomes inaccessible until it’s rented or purchased again. For purchased content, viewers can access it indefinitely, though sometimes there might be restrictions on device transfers or downloads.

Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) vs VOD

Release Windows – Traditional VOD waits for the typical movie release cycle: cinema, then maybe Blu-ray/DVD, and finally, streaming. PVOD disrupts this by offering movies shortly after their cinema debut.

Pricing Structure – PVOD often comes at a premium price. Since you’re accessing a new release, you’re likely to pay more than you would for a regular VOD title. Regular VOD, especially older titles, can be cheaper or even included in subscription packages.

User Experience – PVOD is all about freshness and immediacy. The excitement is similar to watching a new release in a theater but from the comfort of home. Traditional VOD is more like browsing a vast library of content, some old, some new, but not as fresh as PVOD.

Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) vs SVOD

Content Availability – PVOD primarily focuses on fresh releases, allowing viewers to watch the latest movies shortly after their theatrical debut. On the other hand, Subscription-Based Streaming offers a broad library of content, ranging from old classics to recent hits, but might not have the very latest releases that PVOD offers.

Pricing Models – PVOD operates on a pay-per-view model. You pay for each movie you want to watch. In the SVOD model, charges are a monthly (or sometimes yearly) fee, giving subscribers unlimited access to their content library.

User Engagement and Retention Strategies – PVOD depends on the allure of new content. The promise of watching the latest releases can be a significant draw. The SVOD model engages users by constantly updating their library, offering original content, and using recommendation algorithms to suggest content tailored to individual user preferences.

PVOD movies, the future of the film industry?

In recent years, film studios have moved away from the traditional model of theatrical releases followed by a 90-day wait for digital sales. Now, a new model incorporating a premium video-on-demand (PVOD) tier is more common. Films are available on PVOD for premium rental or purchase prices shortly after their theatrical debut, preceding their availability on regular video-on-demand (VOD) and subscription services like Netflix and Disney+.

Just 19 days following its U.S. cinema release, Universal’s “The Fall Guy” was released on Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) and quickly topped many charts. Directed by David Leitch, the film’s rapid transition to PVOD while still screening in cinemas has reignited debates about the impact of shorter cinematic release windows on the struggling theater industry. There are questions about whether the $125 million action-comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, projected to gross about $165 million globally, suffered at the box office due to early availability at home, or if the declining theater attendance reflects a deeper disinterest in the cinematic experience, despite what audiences claim.

Additionally, it’s important to note that PVOD, requiring a $20 payment for 48-hour access, differs from free streaming services. Since late 2020, Comcast has consistently released its cinematic titles on PVOD 19-21 days post-theatrical debut, except for a few pre-planned exceptions like Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and M. Night Shyamalan’s “Old.” Those films with initial earnings over $50 million received extended 31-day windows. The recent PVOD release of “The Fall Guy” follows this established pattern and was not a reactionary measure to unexpected box office performance.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” 2023’s top-grossing film so far, exemplifies the success of this strategy. Released theatrically in April 2023, it moved to PVOD 41 days later and continued to perform strongly in both arenas.

While other studios have hesitated, preferring longer theatrical runs followed by simultaneous releases on SVOD and VOD, Universal’s strategy has allowed it to capture the largest domestic box-office market share last year. This indicates that PVOD can coexist with traditional revenue streams, enhancing rather than cannibalizing overall earnings.

When factoring in PVOD (premium video-on-demand) revenues, Universal’s total earnings increase to $4.5 billion. Notably, PVOD revenue, which includes contributions from the U.K. where digital release windows are extended, adds around $1 billion to their earnings, accounting for a significant 30% increase in overall revenue.

PVOD has been a strategic boon for Universal, providing a 44% enhancement over its estimated $1.8 billion in theatrical film rentals, with PVOD alone contributing about $800 million. Universal’s assertive PVOD strategy, which includes 53 releases since January 2022, has not only led in box office gains but has also fostered a productive cycle, allowing for the production of more films.

Despite initial resistance from major cinema chains like AMC and Regal, Universal managed to negotiate agreements that have gradually eased the industry’s acceptance of PVOD. This acceptance is bolstered by the observation that PVOD releases can sustain box office revenues, as home marketing efforts often complement theatrical showings. This synergy suggests that the PVOD audience typically does not frequent theaters, providing a complementary rather than competitive revenue stream.

This approach is particularly beneficial for Focus Features, where lower production and marketing costs mean that PVOD revenues are highly impactful. For example, $5 million in PVOD earnings can translate to a net return similar to $8 million in theatrical gross, significantly enhancing the viability of green-lighting these films.

Overall, Universal’s use of PVOD illustrates a strategic shift in film distribution, emphasizing its growing importance in the financial ecosystem of film production and distribution. This shift might not only elevate the status of PVOD in media discussions but also reshape the sequencing of film releases to maximize revenue across multiple platforms.

Challenges faced by Premium Video on Demand Sector

Cinema Owners’ Concerns About Increased Losses

The revenue of Cinema or movie theater owners heavily depend on the number of people visiting. With Premium Video On Demand (PVOD), viewers get the convenience of watching the latest movie releases at home. This poses a concern for theater owners, but why?

• Immediate Availability – If a movie is available at home on its release day, many might skip the theater experience altogether.
• Economic Consideration – Watching at home can be cheaper, especially for families. Instead of buying multiple tickets and spending on concessions, they might just pay once for PVOD.
• Comfort Factor – Home environments can be more comfortable. No need to drive, find parking, or sit in a crowded hall.
• Health and Safety – In a world mindful of health and safety (like post-pandemic scenarios), avoiding crowded places can be a priority for many.

This decline in footfalls impacts theaters’ profit margins and may even lead to closures of some establishments.

Potential Impact on Movie Piracy

Piracy has always been a problem of the media industry . With PVOD in the picture, the dynamics change but not necessarily for the better.

• Easier Access to Content – Once a movie is out on PVOD, pirates can more easily access high-quality versions of the film, leading to faster proliferation of pirated copies.
• Quicker Piracy Turnaround – Instead of waiting for theatrical releases to end or for DVDs to launch, pirates can now get content almost immediately.
• Potential Loss in Revenue – The easier availability of pirated versions might deter individuals from purchasing the PVOD version or visiting theaters.
• Higher Stakes for Filmmakers – With PVOD, filmmakers have a tighter window to recoup investments before pirated versions flood the market.

Impact of PVOD’s on Movie’s Box Office Performance

Recently, the Kerala Film Chamber of Commerce made a decision regarding the duration of OTT and theatrical release. The OTT movies can only be released 42 days after the their theatre release.

The introduction of PVOD has stirred debates on how it impacts a movie’s box office performance.

• Shortened Theatrical Windows – Traditionally, movies would stay in theaters for a set period before moving to home video or streaming. PVOD might shorten or overlap this window, leading to debates on revenue cannibalization.
• Dual Revenue Streams – Some argue that PVOD can act as an additional revenue stream without necessarily harming theater collections. It targets a different audience—those who prefer or need to stay at home.
• Changing Metrics of Success – The yardstick of a movie’s success may shift from just box office collections to a combination of theatrical and PVOD revenues. This shift can change how movies are marketed and perceived.

The rise of PVOD presents both opportunities and challenges for the film industry. Balancing the interests of theaters, content creators, and audiences will be crucial as the industry navigates this new terrain.

FAQs

What is Premium Video On Demand (PVOD)?

PVOD refers to newly released movies made available for rental or purchase on digital platforms prior to their typical home entertainment window.

How is PVOD different from regular VOD or streaming?

PVOD releases come out much sooner after a movie’s theatrical debut, often within weeks, while regular VOD or streaming might wait several months. PVOD titles are also priced higher than standard rentals due to their newness.

Why are studios releasing movies on PVOD?

The rise of streaming platforms, changing viewer habits, and external events like global pandemics have disrupted traditional cinema attendance. Studios are exploring PVOD as a way to recoup losses and meet demand.

Will PVOD replace traditional cinemas?

While PVOD offers flexibility, many believe that the cinematic experience can’t be replaced entirely. It’s more likely that the two will coexist, with some movies getting exclusive theatrical runs and others opting for simultaneous or early PVOD release.

Can I watch a PVOD release on any streaming platform?

It depends on the studio’s distribution strategy. Some movies may be exclusive to a particular platform, while others might be available across multiple services.

Are PVOD releases available worldwide?

Availability can vary. Some titles might be available in certain countries before others, depending on distribution agreements and regional release strategies.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

The post PVOD streaming/Premium Video on Demand platforms explained appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit created by Google. It’s used for developing cross-platform applications from a single codebase, meaning you can create apps for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and the web from the same source code. Flutter enables developers to deliver high-performance, natively compiled applications with a rich set of pre-designed widgets and tools that make it easier to build visually attractive and smoothly interactive user interfaces.

Key aspects of Flutter include:

• Dart programming language: Flutter uses Dart, which is optimized for fast apps on any platform.
• Widgets: Everything in Flutter is a widget, from a simple text to complex layouts. Widgets describe what their view should look like given their current configuration and state.
• Hot Reload: This feature allows developers to see the effects of their changes almost instantly, without losing the current application state. It significantly speeds up the development process.
• Rich animation libraries: These make it easy to add smooth and complex animations to your app, enhancing the user experience.

Why is Flutter getting popularity?

Flutter is gaining popularity and being used by developers worldwide for several reasons:

• Cross-platform development: Flutter allows for code reusability across multiple platforms, which saves significant development time and resources.
• Performance: Applications built with Flutter are compiled to native code, which helps achieve performance that is comparable to native applications.
• Productivity: With features like Hot Reload, developers can make changes to the codebase and see the results instantly, which greatly improves the development workflow.
• UI Flexibility and Customization: Flutter’s widget-based architecture enables the creation of complex and custom UI designs, making it easier to bring creative ideas to life without being limited by the framework.
• Growing community and support: Being an open-source project, Flutter has a rapidly growing community and a wealth of resources, including documentation, tutorials, and third-party packages, which provide additional functionality and make development easier.
• Google’s backing: Flutter benefits from strong support from Google, ensuring continuous updates, improvements, and the addition of new features.

Steps required for Live Streaming in Flutter

From video capture to broadcasting, Live streaming in a Flutter application involves a series of steps. If you are looking to integrate Live streaming directly into your Flutter app via embedding, a third-party provider like VdoCipher is the way to go. Otherwise, here’s a simplified breakdown of the process.

• Capture – The live video and audio are captured using a streaming device’s camera and microphone. Flutter has a ‘camera’ package for this purpose. It has tools to get the list of available cameras, display a preview from a specific camera, and record. Doc – https://docs.flutter.dev/cookbook/plugins/picture-using-camera
• Encode – The captured raw video and audio data is encoded into a format suitable for transmission over the internet. It compresses the media size to reduce bandwidth requirements and facilitate easy transmission. Packages like flutter_ffmpeg can be used for encoding media into various formats.
• Transmit – The encoded video and audio are sent to a streaming server or service. This server is responsible for receiving the live feed from your app. You might use packages like ‘flutter_rtmp_publisher’ to send the stream to an RTMP server or flutter_webrtc if you are using WebRTC for real-time streaming.
• Transcoding – Once the stream reaches the server, it undergoes transcoding. This process involves decoding the incoming stream to a raw format and converting the stream into multiple formats, resolutions, and bitrates. This is essential for adaptive bitrate streaming, which allows the stream quality to dynamically adjust based on each viewer’s internet speed and device capabilities.
• Distributing the stream – The transcoded streams are then packaged into different formats (like HLS or DASH) and distributed to viewers via content delivery networks (CDNs). The step is mostly handled by the streaming server or platform and doesn’t require direct handling within the Flutter app.
• Playback – Stream viewers will see the live video and hear the audio on their devices. You can use the ‘video_player’ plugin to play videos stored on the file system, as an asset, or from the internet. Doc link – https://docs.flutter.dev/cookbook/plugins/play-video

Live Streaming Protocols in Flutter

For live streaming in Flutter apps, the choice of streaming protocols depends on the application requirements like compatibility, latency, and scalability. The commonly used protocols are:

• HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) – HLS streaming in Flutter is via plugins and packages such as ‘video_player or ‘flutter_hls_parser’
• DASH – DASH can be implemented in Flutter through various media player libraries supporting DASH streaming, ensuring compatibility with a range of devices, and providing adaptive streaming capabilities.
• RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) – While native support for RTMP might not be extensively available in Flutter, third-party plugins like flutter_rtmp_publisher can be used to send streams to RTMP servers. For playback, packages that interface with native video players that support RTMP can be utilized.
• WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) – Flutter strongly supports WebRTC via plugins like ‘flutter_webrtc’, to implement real-time, peer-to-peer streaming.

How to Stream Videos in Flutter Player?

Playing videos in a Flutter application involves using the video_player plugin, which provides a widget to display video content. The plugin supports both network and asset videos, giving you flexibility in how you incorporate video playback into your app.

Step 1: Add the video_player dependency

First, you need to add the video_player plugin to your pubspec.yaml file:

dependencies:

  flutter:

    sdk: flutter

  video_player: ^latest_version

Replace ^latest_version with the latest version of the video_player plugin available on pub.dev.

Step 2: Import the package

Import the video_player package into your Dart file where you want to play the video:

import 'package:video_player/video_player.dart';

Step 3: Initialize the VideoPlayerController

Create a VideoPlayerController and initialize it with a video source. This can be a network URL or a local asset. For this example, we’ll use a network video:

late VideoPlayerController _controller;

@override

void initState() {

  super.initState();

  _controller = VideoPlayerController.network(

    'https://www.example.com/video.mp4', // Replace with your video URL or asset path

  )..initialize().then((_) {

    setState(() {}); // Ensure the first frame is shown after the video is initialized

  });

}

Step 4: Display the video

Use the VideoPlayer widget to display the video controlled by your VideoPlayerController. You can also add controls with the VideoProgressIndicator widget:

@override

Widget build(BuildContext context) {

  return Scaffold(

    body: Center(

      child: _controller.value.isInitialized

          ? AspectRatio(

              aspectRatio: _controller.value.aspectRatio,

              child: VideoPlayer(_controller),

            )

          : CircularProgressIndicator(), // Show loading spinner until the video is initialized

    ),

    floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(

      onPressed: () {

        setState(() {

          if (_controller.value.isPlaying) {

            _controller.pause();

          } else {

            _controller.play();

          }

        });

      },

      child: Icon(

        _controller.value.isPlaying ? Icons.pause : Icons.play_arrow,

      ),

    ),

  );

}

Step 5: Dispose the controller

It’s important to dispose of the VideoPlayerController when it’s no longer needed to free up resources:

@override

void dispose() {

  super.dispose();

  _controller.dispose();

}

This basic setup allows you to play videos in your Flutter application. You can customize the UI and controls further based on your app’s requirements. Remember to check the documentation for the video_player plugin on pub.dev for more advanced features and updates.

Considerations for Smooth and Resource Efficient Video Streaming in Flutter

For video streaming in Flutter, especially when dealing with a large user base or large video files, there are additional considerations to ensure smooth playback and efficient resource usage. Streaming video efficiently requires careful handling of video data, possibly adapting to different network conditions, and ensuring that your app can handle video data streams without causing performance issues. Here are steps and considerations for setting up video streaming in Flutter:

• Choosing the Right Video Streaming Format – HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) and DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) are the most common formats for video streaming. These formats allow for adaptive bitrate streaming, which adjusts the video quality in real-time based on the user’s internet speed, ensuring smoother playback under varying network conditions.
• Use a Video Player that Supports Streaming – Ensure that the video player package you choose supports the streaming format you plan to use. The video_player plugin can handle network videos, but for advanced streaming features like adaptive bitrate streaming (HLS or DASH), you might need a more specialized plugin. For Flutter, plugins like chewie (which is a wrapper around video_player) or flutter_video_player (not to be confused with video_player) might offer additional functionality or ease of use for streaming scenarios.
• Implementing Adaptive Bitrate Streaming – If your video content is available in multiple qualities, implement adaptive bitrate streaming to dynamically adjust the video quality based on the current network speed.
• Pre-buffering and Caching Strategies – Implement pre-buffering to start loading the video a few seconds before playback begins. This can help avoid initial buffering delays. Consider caching parts of the video as they are streamed. Caching can reduce data usage for videos that are watched multiple times and improve playback start times. Be mindful of device storage limitations.
• Handling Network Fluctuations – Monitor network state changes and adjust the video quality accordingly. You may also need to implement custom logic to pause, buffer, or alert the user depending on the network conditions.
• Testing Across Devices and Network Conditions – Test your streaming implementation across a range of devices with different capabilities and screen sizes. Simulate various network conditions (e.g., 3G, 4G, WiFi, and low signal areas) to ensure your app provides a consistent and smooth video playback experience.
• Legal and DRM Considerations – If you’re streaming copyrighted content, ensure you have the rights to do so. Additionally, consider implementing Digital Rights Management (DRM) to protect the content. Flutter plugins like flutter_video_encrypt can help with video encryption, but DRM often requires more complex solutions like VdoCipher.
• Using a Video Streaming Service – For complex streaming needs, consider using a third-party video streaming service like VdoCipher. These services can handle video encoding, DRM, dynamic watermarking, adaptive streaming, and provide a content delivery network (CDN) to ensure fast and reliable video delivery worldwide.

Top Video Streaming Flutter Players

In the Flutter ecosystem, there are several video plugins, each offering unique features like,

• Vdocipher_flutter: The vdocipher_flutter plugin supports video streaming in Flutter applications, providing a way to serve content with Hollywood-grade DRM security to prevent video piracy. It enables video playback functionality by leveraging native libraries based on the platform, supporting Android, iOS, and web.
• video_player: The official Flutter plugin for video playback, supporting both network and asset videos but without DRM protection.
• chewie: Provides a wrapper around video_player for a customizable video player experience, including fullscreen and playback controls, without built-in DRM.
• flutter_video_info: Extracts video metadata but does not handle playback. Useful for managing video files within an app.
• better_player: An advanced video player based on video_player, offering extended functionalities like HLS, DASH, and more customization options, though DRM support is limited compared to VdoCipher.

Each plugin caters to different requirements, from simple playback to complex video management needs, with VdoCipher standing out for its DRM and security features.

How to Stream Videos in Flutter using VdoCipher

To stream video with the VdoCipher Flutter plugin, you’ll integrate it into your Flutter project, ensuring secure and DRM-protected video delivery. The plugin offers features like offline playback, player customization, and encrypted streaming. The key benefit over basic video plugins is its focus on security, making it ideal for content creators needing to protect their videos from piracy. For implementation, you’ll use the VdoPlayer widget, initializing it with your video’s OTP and playback info. By choosing VdoCipher over more basic video plugins, you benefit from enhanced security measures, support for DRM, and a tailored solution for protected content distribution.

Usage

To use VdoCipher in Flutter, first add the dependency to pubspec.yaml. Initialize VdoPlayerController with a video ID, OTP, and playback info obtained from the VdoCipher API. Then, use VdoPlayer widget for display. This plugin offers DRM protection, ensuring content security beyond what basic video plugins provide. It’s ideal for applications requiring stringent content protection, offering features like offline playback and player customization.

class PlayerView extends StatefulWidget {

PlayerView({super.key});

@override

State<PlayerView> createState() => _PlayerViewState();

}




class _PlayerViewState extends State<PlayerView> {

VdoPlayerController? _controller;

@override

Widget build(BuildContext context) {

EmbedInfo embedInfo = EmbedInfo.streaming(otp: "YOUR_OTP", playbackInfo: "YOUR_PLAYBACK_INFO");

return VdoPlayer(

embedInfo: embedInfo,

aspectRatio: 16 / 9,

onError: (error) {},

onFullscreenChange: (isFullscreen) {},

onPlayerCreated: _onPlayerCreated,

);

}




_onPlayerCreated(VdoPlayerController? controller) {

setState(() {

_controller = controller;

});

_controller?.addListener(() {});

}

}

For detailed implementation, refer to the plugin's official guidelines.

FAQs

What is Flutter video streaming?

Flutter video streaming involves using Flutter plugins to play video content directly from the internet without downloading the entire file first.

Can I use DRM with Flutter for video streaming?

Yes, using plugins like VdoCipher, you can implement DRM (Digital Rights Management) to protect your video content in Flutter applications.

Is it possible to customize video players in Flutter?

Absolutely. Many Flutter video plugins offer customizable video players, allowing you to adjust controls, appearances, and behaviors to fit your app’s design.

How do I handle video streaming in poor network conditions?

Consider plugins that support adaptive bitrate streaming, which adjusts video quality based on the user’s current network speed to ensure smooth playback.

References

• Flutter Video Plugin – link
• VdoCipher Flutter Plugin – pub.dev
• Flutter Wikipedia – link
• Flutter Chewie Plugin – link

Vishal Sharma

My expertise focuses on DRM encryption, CDN technologies, and streamlining marketing campaigns to drive engagement and growth. At VdoCipher, I’ve significantly enhanced digital experiences and contributed to in-depth technical discussions in the eLearning, Media, and Security sectors, showcasing a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital landscape.

The post Flutter Video Streaming with Adaptive and Secure Playback appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

As per a US Chamber of Commerce report, online piracy costs the US economy nearly $30 billion per year. This is where DRM technology comes into play to control and manage access to copyright materials. DRM technology combines a set of applications and technologies to protect digital media against copyright infringements. DRM aims to protect the original copyright holder rights and restrict the unauthorized copying, editing, or redistribution of digital files and proprietary software. Today DRM is playing a leading role in data security.

Importance of DRM Technology?

Stealing and copying someone else’s work and ideas has been long here. However, with technological advancements, digital piracy is sharply rising. Sensitive company documents, video footage, and multimedia content is every second getting remixed, reused, and republished. Anyone having an internet connection can access these files. Consequently, these digital assets need proper protection. With DRM, access to these resources gets restricted, and no one can do whatever they want to the intellectual properties and media files.

In our rapidly evolving digital world, DRM technology’s relevance is ever-growing. Picture this: you’ve borrowed a hardcover book from the library, and you yearn for your own copy. While copyright law may frown upon replicating it, no tangible barrier stops you. However, you’re deterred by the labor, expense, and subpar outcome of duplicating a physical book.

Now, envision possessing that same book, but digitally. Copying is a breeze—practically instantaneous, free of charge, and yielding an impeccable replica. Moreover, digital files make generating several copies and disseminating them a cinch. Although copyright laws shield both physical and digital books, the simplicity of duplicating digital content demands sturdier protection.

Enter DRM technology. Since copyright laws can’t fully thwart unauthorized copying and distribution, a tech-based approach, like DRM, becomes indispensable in safeguarding digital assets. This potent protective measure empowers creators and copyright owners to retain control over their digital creations amidst an evermore interconnected world.

What is DRM Technology & what does Digital Rights Management protected Video mean?

DRM Protected refers to a file that has applied DRM controls to restrict copying, editing or unauthorized content distribution. This includes encryption to prevent unauthorized access and license control for authorizing permissions and access. Here is an example for better understanding. The Apple iTunes Music Store uses DRM solution to restrict the number of devices on which songs are played. The downloaded music files contain the data about purchase and usage activity. Unauthorized devices cannot play the songs. Before installing Microsoft Windows or office software, users must agree to the user license and input the key. A wide range of businesses and professionals are using DRM technology to protect their documents, files, contracts to even employee data.

What DRM does?

DRM enables content owners and publishers to have control over not only who receives the content but also what they can do with it. Such controls include:

• Only authorized users can access your content.
• Authorized users get access to the content without any 3rd party apps or plug-ins.
• Prevents editing, printing, saving, forwarding, sharing, screen grabbing and more.
• Secure storage and distribution of content between collaborators during production.
• Content limited to devices, IP addresses and country locations.
• Watermarking to establish identity.
• Access gets activated or revoked anytime

Meaning of DRM protected Video?

When you upload a video on a website for users, the main concern is whether the content is safe or not. There are probable chances of someone downloading or misusing the content if not secured. DRM technology in respect of video ensures encrypted transmission so that only authorized devices and users can watch it. For better device compatibility Multi DRM is used to encrypt and package the video content. When a user attempts to play a video, the online video player requests a key from the licensed server. Before issuing a decryption key, the DRM license server authorizes the user and the device. The player decrypts and the content is played back for the user after receiving the decryption key.

DRM Software

DRM Systems can get implemented as a hardware solution (hardware DRM) or software. Hardware DRM appliances include video game consoles, tablets, personal computers implementing secure boot. Digital Rights Management (DRM) software is an application tool combined with a set of policies and procedures for copyright protection and unauthorized content access. DRM software encodes the file with access control settings defined by the owner or copyright holder.

Encryption vs DRM Technology

Though encryption is key in shielding digital files, it’s not foolproof. It doesn’t block file copying but rather restricts content access. DRM technology, however, shares encryption’s focus on controlling access and use, not copy prevention. Grasping these nuances helps reveal how encryption fits within DRM systems to protect digital content.

Picture this: selling an encrypted ebook to Jane. If the seller gives Jane the ebook and decryption key, the cat’s out of the bag. Jane can share both with anyone. In this scenario, encryption flops, as the key holder has no incentive to protect the file.

A safer approach: give Jane’s computer the key, not Jane. She downloads the encrypted ebook and a separate, encrypted key file (a “voucher”). Jane’s ebook software decrypts the voucher, and presto, ebook access—Jane never lays eyes on the key. Yet, even this method isn’t foolproof, as Jane could send both files to a friend, who could then access the content.

To amp up security, DRM can tether the key to Jane’s hardware. When Jane buys the ebook, her computer’s unique hardware ID goes to the seller. The voucher has this ID, and the software checks for a match before opening the file. No match, and no access to different machines.

Linking digital files to specific hardware is common in DRM, but it’s not without issues, given the hardware’s brief average lifespan. A cutting-edge solution would connect files to people, not devices, allowing smooth file transfers between machines. Enter “trusted systems,” potentially DRM’s next evolutionary step.

While encryption is a powerful tool for protecting your video content. However, DRM has its limitations. Learn more about why is DRM not enough to protect video piracy and what you can do to secure your content effectively.

Key Players in Digital Distribution via DRM

In the realm of Digital Rights Management (DRM), we’re primarily concerned with two essential content aspects. To illustrate:

• Rights Management: Legal rights holders must identify, gather metadata, assert rights, and develop business models for their content distribution. They should also provide client access via surveys.
• Rights Enforcement: Enforcing usage rules and rights for content is critical, posing a significant challenge in DRM solutions.

DRM technology systems involve four key players in digital media distribution (multimedia, documents, music, etc.):

1. Creators: Those who create and legally own the content (documents, videos, music, etc.).
2. Producers: They transform the content into a digital product, wrap and safeguard it.
3. Distributors: They promote and sell digital products to consumers.
4. Consumers: The paying clientele who enjoy digital content.

In certain scenarios, these roles may merge, such as the first two entities often referred to as the content provider. Introducing these entities necessitates a new subsystem in digital content delivery: the licensing subsystem. This subsystem comprises a licensing service (LS), responsible for issuing consumer rights, and client components that enforce those rights.

DRM Licence: The Root, Leaves, and Chains

A license, a crucial data file, holds an asset’s decryption key (either another license or content). Coupled with DRM rights and restrictions, it defines content usage parameters. Licenses come in three distinct flavors:

• Simple License: A DRM License, sourced from a DRM Server-built application, containing rights, restrictions, and a key for the corresponding content.
• Root License: Governing one or multiple leaf licenses, it controls playback for various content pieces. For instance, in a subscription model, the root license may expire, while the leaf licenses don’t. When the root license expires, the leaf licenses become unusable until a new root license is obtained.
• Leaf License: A simple, root license-dependent license.

Imagine a user with a subscription who has downloaded several videos for offline viewing. Each video possesses a leaf license, outlining its permissible usage. Let’s assume the leaf license permits video playback anytime. However, DRM technology mandates a valid root license for playback. If the root license expires (possibly due to an expired subscription), the leaf license disallows playback. In this manner, the root license governs the entire subscription (including all leaf licenses on the user’s device).

DRM Scheme and Transactions Basics

In the DRM scheme, various entities like content providers (CP), distribution services (DS), license servers (LS), certification authorities (CA), and clients (C) work in tandem, adhering to DRM protocols and design patterns detailed earlier. The CP generates content, which is then securely transmitted to DS. This occurs in a protected environment employing SSL, HTTPS, SRTP, FTPS, and the like, so security concerns between CP-to-LS or CP-to-DS are negligible.

DRM transactions can be broken down into distinct phases:

• Crafting content, rights, metadata, and containers
• Key generation
• Content requests
• Client authorization
• Distribution of licensing info and rights-objects
• License acquisition, interpretation, and utilization
• Content consumption

During the final stage, content consumption, crucial security measures must be in place within the client subsystem as content is decrypted and rendered. In this ecosystem, any security breaches in the client component jeopardize the entire content protection strategy. Bearing these risks in mind, DRM-enabled content delivery systems should incorporate mechanisms to address potential client component corruption.

A PKI-based framework where the public key is shared and used to validate the identity of the person transmitting the data and to decrypt the data itself is suggested. This is for DRM architecture tailored to business-specific environments, offering cryptographic support for entity authentication and usage rights protection via asymmetric encryption of license objects. Shielding these objects, uniquely issued for each user request with a license issuer’s private key, also ensures service non-repudiation.

Users should avoid sharing their private keys and certificates, as unauthorized parties could exploit them to purchase content at the original user’s expense. The DRM component interactions contribute significantly to the overall DRM system, with the “middleware” playing a vital role in guiding interaction policies. This middleware entity is responsible for signaling delivery and licensing services to confirm that only legitimate users access the system.

Positioning the middleware component as a cloud-based service makes it accessible to users across various devices. Additionally, a user’s personal computer can serve as a distribution service provider for their domain of devices, reducing internet connectivity reliance. The protocol outlined earlier in this section ensures heightened security for users and content management by handling each user and content request autonomously.

DRM Technology vs Copyright Laws

A common question arises: “Do I retain fair use rights?” Absolutely, copyright law still upholds your fair use rights. However, DRM may hinder the exercising of those rights. It’s not a copyright law implementation but a digital work protection system. As the fair use and first sale rights debate for digital materials continue, most DRM system creators steer clear of copyright law references in their products. Instead, DRM enforces licenses via software controls, reflecting grants expressible in a computer environment rather than traditional copyright law rights.

Imagine a license allowing up to five book pages to be copied. If you need six pages and believe fair use permits it, the software still restricts you to five. Unlike copyright law’s flexible nature, DRM systems are quantitative.

A notable contrast between DRM and copyright law, causing concern, is that copyright law outlines a few copying and performance rules, granting exclusive copyrights to rights holders and listing some exceptions. It doesn’t attempt to foresee every copyrighted work usage. DRM, on the other hand, operates oppositely. While copyright law implies “everything not forbidden is permitted,” DRM adopts the “everything not permitted is forbidden” stance. With DRM, actions like printing must be explicitly granted; otherwise, the system disallows it. DRM developers see this as a necessary security measure, but it carries significant implications for future protected work usage.

Picture a decade from now, when computers project displays onto any surface instead of using screens. If the DRM technology system doesn’t recognize this as an allowed action for a specific digital resource, it won’t permit viewing on future computers. Consequently, it might become impossible to view the resource at all, as the DRM controls won’t acknowledge the technological shift. This potential DRM and innovation interaction could suppress both innovation and access to intellectual resources.

DRM Architecture and How Does it Work?

DRM architecture lacks a standard, with multiple frameworks provided by various vendors. However, the DRM framework can be divided into three areas:

1. IP Asset Creation and Capture: This pertains to content management and creation for streamlined trading. It encompasses asserting rights when content is initially created or reused by content creators/providers. This module offers:
   • Rights Validation: Ensures existing content rights when creating new content.
   • Rights Creation: Assigns rights to new content, including identifying rights owners and usage permissions.
   • Rights Workflow: Processes content through workflow steps for rights and content review or approval.
2. IP Asset Management: Involves managing and enabling content trade. This includes receiving content from creators and incorporating it into an asset management system, which manages descriptive metadata and rights metadata (parties, usages, payments, etc.). This module includes:
   • Repository Functions: Accesses and retrieves content and metadata from possibly distributed databases.
   • Trading Functions: Issues licenses to parties after rights agreement for content.
3. IP Asset Usage: Refers to content usage after trading. This encompasses supporting traded content constraints within specific desktop systems or software. The IP Asset Usage module features:
   • Permissions Management: Enforces rights associated with content in the usage environment (e.g., disabling printing if the user can only view the document).
   • Tracking Management: Monitors content usage when tracking is part of the agreed-upon license conditions (e.g., limiting video plays to ten times).

Types of DRM, its free & open-source providers

There are many DRM solutions to protect video content. The most popular DRM solutions/services supporting common web browsers, devices, and set-top boxes are:

Widevine DRM: Google’s Widevine DRM is compatible with Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browsers, Android, and Chromecast devices. Widevine DRM supports HLS, MPEG-DASH, and MSS streaming with CENC and CMAF. There are two versions of Widevine, Classic, and Modular.

FairPlay DRM: DRM solution from Apple, FairPlay DRM securely delivers streaming media using HLS (HTTP live streaming) protocol. It has native support on iOS, tvOS, iPadOS, watchOS 7, macOS AND Safari browsers.

Open Source: There are GitHub repositories on open-source DRM solution, but most of them don’t get updated frequently. Also, there is a fundamental problem with open-source DRM solutions. Even though all of the algorithms & source code can be publicly available without harming the core security principles, client devices need to be trusted & verified by the rights issuer to do anything forbidden or restricted. This is incompatible with FOSS licensing guidelines, which elaborates that the user of a device should always have complete control over what the device does.

OMA DRM: OMA DRM, a digital rights management (DRM) system, was developed by the Open Mobile Alliance. Its members include mobile phone manufacturers (such as Nokia, LG, and Samsung), system manufacturers (like Ericsson and Siemens), network operators (Vodafone, O2, and Orange), and IT companies (Microsoft, IBM, and Sun). This DRM system allows content creators to enforce limits on usage and duplication by customers. Many modern phones feature OMA DRM, which has two versions: 1.0 and 2.0. To guarantee compatibility among all OMA DRM implementations, the Open Mobile Alliance supplies specifications and testing tools.

How does DRM encryption work?

DRM Content Encryption

In an IP-based DRM system, the content is encrypted using DRM OEM specifications. The license key contains the licensee or owner’s digital rights as rights objects. Most solutions are using technologies designed around 128-bit AES encryption using CTR or CBC modes. Both of these modes are part of Common Encryption (CENC) and encrypt streams to deliver securely. The video player decrypts the encrypted streams using DRM licensing.

The simplest method of packaging content is through the command line interface packager. CLI tools lack complexity, support hooks, error messaging, and more. Next are the server-side tools to provide content encryption. These tools will provide the necessary chinking, and fragmentation to prepare packaging of formats like MP4 into adaptive bitrate streaming files. Server-side encryption offers greater scalability, security, advanced API calls, parallel packaging, and more.

To encrypt content, the packager requests an encryption key from the DRM server. The DRM server provides an encryption key and links that key to the content ID. Using the encryption key, the packager encrypts and re-packages the content.

DRM Playback & two ways of DRM Encryption

There are two ways to encrypt the content using streaming servers. One is Pre-Encryption and the other is Just-in-Time.

Pre-Encryption: In this model, the server encrypts the content at the time when it is ingested or uploaded. The content gets stored and streamed when requested. The server cues and encrypts the content when the server’s systems are optimized i.e; during low-demand periods. Servers implementing pre-encryption can handle more streaming connections and are more secure.

Just-in-time: In this model, the server stores the content raw. When a user makes a request, the server instantly starts to encrypt it and feed out the streaming interface to the CDN and user. Such servers are susceptible to performance issues under significant load. In addition, the server storage is full of encrypted master files and requires a robust security system in place.

Playback: To enable DRM playback on the player side without plugins, decrypted playback uses HTML5 encrypted media extensions (EME). For MPEG-CENC Multi-DRM encrypted content, the player can auto-choose the natively supported DRM.

The need for Multi DRM encryption?

Not all viewers watch content on the same platform and browser. Each platform and browser support a single DRM encryption. To ensure complete coverage across all screens, multiple DRM encryptions are required. MPEG Common Encryption (MPEG-CENC) standard makes DRM implementation effective. MPEG-CENC allows multiple DRM encryptions on a single video. It’s up to the video player to decide which encryption must be activated based on the platform/browser. In fact, Apple browsers and devices are exceptions to the MPEG-CENC standard, which instead require HLS packaging.

How Industries are benefiting from DRM Software?

eLearning Organizations: They have a great need to apply Video DRM solutions as they are the most vulnerable. Making an educational video is itself a tedious task and protecting it from piracy is again a technical mechanism. This technical mechanism is hard to implement and most of the eLearning platforms use services from DRM enabled secure video hosting providers like VdoCipher.

Standard Organizations: National standard organizations or industry associations have the most pertinent information that professionals need. Companies and professionals pay subscriptions or membership fees to access these documents. Such organizations need to have their documents, audio, video files encrypted so that only authorized members access them. A DRM solution can be useful to secure these contents down for a certain audience.

Media & Publishing: For media and publishing houses, content is everything. Protecting the content is their bottom line. Unfortunately, the content gets shared with subscribers, and there arises leaks, piracy, unauthorized access and more. This holds the same for self-book publishers.

Financial Services: Financial institutions like insurance companies, equity firms, asset management companies need to protect the data of their clients and shareholders. Solutions like ‘Dropbox’ secure the portals where clients access the files but don’t protect individual files once downloaded. A DRM solution protects the downloaded files, irrespective of where they get saved or stored.

Signs of DRM issues while using Netflix, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Mac, etc

• No sound, but the title plays
• Background sound but no dialogue
• Disc stucks on the title page or loading screen
• The movie stops in the middle of playback, or scenes play out of order
• The video freezes or skips
• Pixelated or distorted picture
• Troubleshooting DRM issues on Hotstar, DR-1100 Playback Error
• This error generally occurs due to a downgraded Hotstar app or an unsupported device. To watch DRM protected videos, one needs to have a DRM supported device and a valid Disney+ Hotstar subscription.

Fix DR-1100 error on Android Phone & TV

• Update or download the latest Disney+ Hotstar app
• Install the DRM Info app from the Google play store and check the security level. DRM content will only play if the security level is L1, not L2 OR L3.
• Try to replay the video title again in the Hotstar app and if it shows an error, then try using a different browser. Also, verify that the device isn’t rooted.
• On clearing Data/Cache followed by TV OS update and restart, the error is fixed on Android TV.

Netflix Error N8156 6013

Sometimes while playing videos on Netflix via a web browser, an error is thrown. “Whoops, something went wrong… Digital Rights Management (DRM) Error. We’re sorry, but there is a problem playing protected (DRM) content. The date on your computer is 12/17/2012, which may be incorrect. Please correct the date on your computer and try again.”

This error is related to the Silverlight plugin used by the browser to play Netflix. It requires using a browser supporting HTML5. (Edge, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera)

Fix error on Mac computers

• Quit all browser instances
• Go to Library/Application Support/Microsoft/ folder
• Under it, delete the PlayReady folder
• Verify that you have the administrative rights on your OSX profile
• Try to replay the video title again and if it shows an error then try using a different browser.

Fix error on Windows computer

• Quit all browser instances
• Search C drive for mspr.hds
• Under search results, delete all the mspr.hds files
• Verify that you have the administrative rights on your Windows user account
• Try to replay the video title again and if it shows an error then try using a different browser.
  Amazon Prime Video Error 7235 on Chrome
• Make sure the Chrome web browser is up to date. Navigate to Settings > About Chrome for the available browser updates.
• Type chrome://components in the chrome web browser and hit enter. Under Widevine Content Decryption Module, click ‘Check for Update’. Install any available update.

FAQs:

What is TPM DRM?

Trusted Platform Module TPM (ISO/IEC 11889) is a dedicated microcontroller to provide security capabilities at the hardware level using integrated cryptographic keys. Generally speaking, the term refers to a chip conforming to the standard.DRM tools use TPM functionalities like device authentication. Windows Defender, software license enforcement, Windows Domain Logon and many more use TPM chips.

How to check if a video is DRM Protected in Windows 10?

• Select the desired multi-media file
• Right-click on the file and select ‘Properties’
• Select the ‘Details’ tab and scroll down to the ‘Protected’ selection.
• The ‘Protected’ field will show ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. ‘Yes’ indicates DRM protected file.

Why CENC standard allows two encryption modes, AES-CTR and AES-CBC?

We use both the standards for encrypting video content and are not compatible with one another. It is due to the encryption cipher supported by each DRM system. However, Apple FPS supports only AES-CBC, while Google Widevine supports both modes. Service providers deliver content to various devices using HLS or MPEG DASH streaming format, which vary in support of DRM systems. To cater to this fragmentation, CENC allows both modes.

DRM Vendors

Basically, DRM vendors are media tech companies like VdoCipher. They offer complete integrations including your video hosting and distribution over CDN with all advanced video security features. The complete package lets you safeguard your video on all devices supported by inbuilt Google Widevine or Apple Fairplay. These packages also include Adaptive bitrate streaming for various bandwidths and multi-device support.

Vishal Sharma

My expertise focuses on DRM encryption, CDN technologies, and streamlining marketing campaigns to drive engagement and growth. At VdoCipher, I’ve significantly enhanced digital experiences and contributed to in-depth technical discussions in the eLearning, Media, and Security sectors, showcasing a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital landscape.

The post What is DRM Protection Technology, its Working & Types for Media appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

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Vishal Sharma

My expertise focuses on DRM encryption, CDN technologies, and streamlining marketing campaigns to drive engagement and growth. At VdoCipher, I’ve significantly enhanced digital experiences and contributed to in-depth technical discussions in the eLearning, Media, and Security sectors, showcasing a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital landscape.

The post Video DRM Explained in Simple Language, 32 Key DRM Terminologies Defined appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

Many even think subtitles and closed captions are the same things, but there is a difference. Captions are designed to provide access to persons who are hard of hearing or deaf, while subtitles translate foreign language dialogues. The blog presents a deeper understanding of closed captions, their types, subtitles, and the difference between them.

What are Captions?

Captions are the textual representation of the audio content of a video, television broadcast, live event, or production about everything, whether it is eCommerce in Australia or else. The dialogue and all associated sound effects are displayed on the screen along with the video in real time. Captioning helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing get the complete essence of what is happening in the video. In the 1970s, captions were introduced for television and were later made mandatory under the law.

Types of Captions

Commonly, captions are of two types, Open Captions, and Closed Captions.

Open captions were used in the initial years of captioning. The open captions were ‘burned-in’ or hard-coded or embedded directly into the video and cannot be turned off. These captions are mostly used when it’s an absolute necessity, limiting the viewer’s choice. A movie theatre is an example where open captioning might be used; otherwise, those having hearing problems can miss out on the dialogue. In the 1970s, open captioning in broadcasts began with PBS’s The French Chef. Commonly used in social media videos or offline videos.

The most popular type of captioning is closed captioning. Here, the captions can be turned on and off as per viewer’s discretion. The captions are not visible until the user turns them on. Some remote controls have a caption button for better control.

The symbol for the closed caption is two C’s – [CC] which you find in the lower bottom of the video screen.

How Do Closed Captions Work?

The closed captions are embedded in the video signal and in line 21 of the vertical blanking interval. It is the section of the television signal that tells the electron gun to shoot back up to the upper screen’s left corner to start painting the next frame. Line 21 in the blanking interval region is assigned to captioning and also V-chip and time information. The closed captions are visible to the viewer when decoded by a decoder, built into the television, or using separate decoder.

During live events like the broadcast of live news on television, closed captioning becomes somewhat more challenging. After the words have been spoken, closed captioning is delivered within seconds delay. This is done by excellent stenographers who listen to the live broadcast and put down the words which are captioned to the television screen.

What are Subtitles?

Simply put, subtitles are transcription or translation of the video dialogue when sound is available but not understood by the viewer. An example is a video played in a foreign language. Although subtitles look similar to closed captions, the former provides a text form of the video dialogue with the assumption that the viewer can hear. They are categorized as intralingual subtitles (same language) and interlingual subtitles (different language).

Nowadays, many platforms combine closed captions and subtitles under the category ‘Subtitles for the deaf or hard-of-hearing (SDH).’

• SDH subtitles are intended for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers, unlike subtitles. SDH includes additional information, such as speaker tags, sound effects, and other elements outside of the speech. They usually appear centered in the lower bottom third of the screen.
• For example, SDH subtitles will indicate audio elements such as music, sneezing or laughter. Similar to subtitles, SDH also runs simultaneously with the audio or video file.
• SDH subtitles support encoding through HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) as they are encoded as a series of pixels. Closed Captions do not support HDMI encoding as encoded in text and commands.

Difference Between Closed Captions and Subtitles

Usually, people consider closed captions and subtitles as the same, but there is a distinction.

Both closed captions and subtitles are the text versions of the audio spoken in the video. Closed captions are created for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Hence, closed captions include all the audio sounds, including background sound, sound effects, speaker changes, and all relevant sounds.

Subtitles, unlike closed captions, are created to translate the video audio into an alternate language the viewer understands. For example, a viewer who does not understand Spanish can easily watch the video with English subtitles. You may have seen movies shot in French and screened in a Hindi-speaking country with subtitles.

Closed captions more accurately convey what is going on on-screen, while subtitles are a meaningful way to translate the dialogue into another language. In both of them, the text on the screen is synchronized with the words spoken in the video.

How Closed Captions vs Subtitles Terminology varies with Countries

The meaning of subtitles and captions changes with countries. In the regions of Canada and the United States, both terms have different meanings. Subtitles are for those who can hear but cannot understand the language or when the audio is not clearly audible. Closed captions, on the other hand, are for those who are deaf and hard of hearing and include spoken dialogues and music, and sound effects.

In the UK, Ireland, and many other countries, both terms are collectively called subtitles. While for those hard of hearing, captioning becomes ‘subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH).’

In New Zealand, an ear icon with a line represents subtitles for the hard of hearing, now referred to as captions.

Importance of Multi-Language Captions and Subtitles

The global Captioning and Subtitling Solution market size is projected to reach US$ 476.9 million by 2028, from US$ 282 million in 2021, at a CAGR of 7.7% during 2022-2028.

The key drivers of the increase in the growing demand are the surging popularity of video content and the rise of streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime with multi-lingual subtitle support. These platforms, media, and all video production-related industries use multi-language subtitles and captions to reach wider audiences and make content accessible across the globe irrespective of language barriers.

Not only captions and subtitles are for those hard of hearing or non-native speakers, but they also help those who have slow-paced verbal communication or have a noisy background. Viewers can choose their language and multilingual subtitles make the content go global, breaking the language constraints.

Internet penetration has allowed worldwide access to videos on various channels. Everything from social platforms to eLearning courses is readily available in video format. Creators cannot create videos multiple times in different languages instead, videos have subtitles attached to them. Search engines like Google and YouTube use accompanying text with the video to index them.

Parasite director Bong Joon-ho in 2020 Golden Globes acceptance speech – ‘Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films’

Need for Captions and Subtitles

Improves Accessibility for people

According to the World Health Organization, by 2050, nearly 2.5 billion people are projected to have some sort of hearing disability. Currently, more than 5% of the global population has a hearing loss disability. With such a growing population of hard-of-hearing and deaf individuals, adding captions and subtitles increases accessibility. The people will leave the video or website where it is hosted if the video content is not accessible to them.

According to The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), civil rights law prohibits discrimination against persons with disability. Although ADA does not explicitly mention online video captioning, numerous lawsuits set legal clauses on video accessibility. The 2012 lawsuit, National Association of the Deaf v. Netflix, categorizes Netflix as a ‘place of public accommodation’ and hence requires closed captioning.

Language barrier

Providing subtitles is considerably beneficial to reach wider audiences all over the world. According to Statista, in 2022, nearly 1.5 billion people worldwide will have English as their native or second language, just more than 1.1 billion Mandarin Chinese speakers. Being multicultural, Spanish is the second most common language spoken in the United States. With such a diversity of languages, you are most likely to utilize the full potential of your content with subtitling.

Retains Viewership

Closed captioning helps to watch videos in sound-sensitive environments. In today’s time, whether commuting on public transport or keeping the content volume restricted, closed captioning is of great importance. Even when people are watching videos, they are likely to read captions if the speech rate is high or some words are unclear or unknown. It makes the video meaningful even with no sounds. It increases the retention rate and the average watch time.

Improve seo

When you host videos on Google, YouTube, or Facebook, the algorithm indexes them through the text associated with them. Also, search engines treat each language as a separate result, hence videos with SRT (SubRip Subtitle file) translations have higher search rankings. The plain-text SRT files contain important information about subtitles, (timecodes of your text to check the compatibility match of subtitles with your audio), and the sequential number of subtitles.

Improves language learning

For most of us, watching foreign language videos helps us get insight into the language. It helps gain proficiency in learning words, conversations and colloquialisms. Subtitles displayed on the screen along with the video further improve your vocabulary. In addition to the words, you get a visual element associated with them which makes you learn and remember them for long.

Subtitle and Caption File Formats

The file format of captions and subtitles depends on the website your videos are hosted on. SubRip Video Subtitle Script (*.srt) , WebVTT (*.vtt), Sonic Scenarist Closed Caption (*.SCC), Flash XML in Timed Text Authoring Format DFXP (*.xml) or (*.dfxp), PBS COVE (*.sami) and many more. The most popularly used formats for video streaming are .srt and .vtt.

SRT File Format

SRT stands for SubRip Text and is the most basic and easy-to-use subtitle format. It was initially used to extract captions and subtitles from media files using DVD-ripping software, hence the name. It contains a sequential number of subtitles, start and end timestamps, and subtitle text. Before the SRT Text format, caption files used XML-based code, which was clunky.

1. A numeric counter indicating the number or position of the subtitles
2. The start and end time of the subtitle separated by –> characters
3. Subtitle text in one or more lines.
4. A blank line indicating the end of the subtitle.

VTT File Format

The next most popular caption and subtitle file format is Web Video Text Tracks (WebVTT). The main differentiating factor between vtt file format and srt is that the former can include metadata while srt can’t. The metadata in your subtitle helps promote online visibility. VTT format was initially created in 2010 with the idea of having srt as the base and enabling HTML5 code functionalities. The features include font, coloring, text formatting, and movements across the video.

1. Chapters for content navigation
2. Text video descriptions
3. Other metadata aligned with audio or video content

How to Upload your Subtitles and Captions for Hosted Videos

According to multiple Video Hosting providers, content creators are nowadays more focussed towards the security of their video content and advanced player integration. An advanced player is the only medium through which your content can be synchronized with the attached captions. Thus it is the responsibility of the hosting provider to provide necessary functionality with the player to search and attach multiple language subtitles and captions.

Advanced hosting providers not only provide you with dashboard and APIs to attach subtitles and captions files but also DRM encryption. For example, VdoCipher provides APIs and plugins for easy integration and also you get a fully versatile dashboard for manual attachment of subtitles and captions files. The dashboard also contains security, access management, player customization, analytics and other important features required for a professional video creator.

To add single or multi language subtitles or captions through VdoCipher dashboard, you can follow the following steps.

• Sign in to VdoCipher Dashboard.
• Click on the edit button of the video where captions/subtitles are to be added.
• Now click on the subtitles tab.
• Select your desired language and upload the respective VTT or SRT file.

• This will attach the file and can be turned On during playback for that video.

Note: other video platforms like YouTube also have similar steps for uploading captions with minor differences in selection via dashboard.

You can read more about how to add subtitles to a video on one of our other blogs in more detail.

Closed Captions vs Subtitles

Closed captions and subtitles are two types of text that can be added to video content to help viewers understand what is being said on-screen. Closed captions are designed to provide a complete textual representation of the audio, including background sounds and speaker changes, making them ideal for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Subtitles, on the other hand, assume that the viewer can hear the audio and only provide a textual representation of the spoken dialogue. As a result, subtitles may not include important contextual information like sound effects or speaker identification. Both closed captions and subtitles can be useful for viewers who are not fluent in the language of the video, but closed captions are typically preferred for accessibility purposes.

FAQs

How to turn off closed captions on Android?

• • There are two ways of turning off closed captions on Android.
  • Go to the watch page of any video.
  • Tap the video player once to show options, then tap cc to turn on Captions.
  • To turn off Captions, tap cc again.

Or

• On an Android device, go to settings.
• Additional settings<Accessibility<Caption preferences (under hearing) – toggle
• There are even options to change caption size, style, and language preferences.

Can Captions and subtitles be downloaded on YouTube?

Yes, YouTube videos with subtitles attached to them can be downloaded as text. It could help in offline viewing, research or studying.

How to put closed captions on Netflix?

Open Netflix. Select the Audio & Subtitles icon at either the bottom or top of the screen. Choose from the languages or select Other to see all language options based on location and language settings.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

The post Closed Captions vs Subtitles differences, formatting and working appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

With increasing internet bandwidth, and improved hardware and software, delivering video content to viewers has drastically improved. Educational streaming materials like lectures, assignments, tutorials, how-to-dos and visual graphics are now readily available over the internet.

Video streaming in education is the technological approach to deliver educational content, such as live and pre-recorded lectures, interactive classes, webinars, and multimedia sessions over the internet. Learners on the other hand access video content anytime and anywhere on their connected devices including smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Video files when downloaded take up a considerable amount of storage space. A streaming media file is played as it is received and does not remain on the viewer’s device storage.

Importance and Benefits of Videos in Education

In the last few years, videos have increasingly become a replacement for traditional classroom learning. Videos have proven to be a strong medium to deliver lectures and education of all forms to students learning remotely.

One of the main reasons why video education is benefitting both educators and students is the power of demonstrating complex concepts in an easy-to-learn environment of video learning. Video content is interactive and the most engaging mode of conveying information. It helps increase the retention and engagement rate.

• Highly engaging and interactive – The use of images, audio, and animations gives an auditory and visual viewing experience which helps to capture the attention of students. Often educational videos have polls, quizzes, and interactive elements which keep the students engaged and motivated.
• Video content is personalizable – Videos can be easily personalized based on the specific needs of a student and learning styles. For example, some educational videos have animations while some include narrations.
• Great assistant in learning – Especially for students, video adds a diversity of learning experiences such as virtual tours, lab simulations, real-world problem solving, and more.

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning

Humans have a deeper understanding of pictures and words compared to words alone. We ourselves choose books and study materials that are filled with charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps. In educational lectures and work organizations, we rely on PowerPoint presentations and videos to efficiently learn and grasp concepts.

According to Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning, “humans learn more from pictures and words than from words alone. Moreover, just adding words to pictures is not an effective way to achieve multimedia learning.”

Types of Video for E-learning

Interactive videos

Interactive videos allow the viewer to perform some actions such as clicking on the image, and taking quizzes or polls between the videos. The participatory actions may include hovering, dragging, gesturing, and scrolling.

360-degree and Virtual Reality (VR) videos

360 videos are like personal field trips. Learners can have an immersive, concrete learning experience that is otherwise not possible in a classroom. VR video simulations take learners to a whole new level of experience. From exploring a planet to walking alongside an animal, VR simplifies understanding and provides a more active learning environment.

Micro-learning videos

Microlearning is a way of delivering video content in which the information is broken down into short videos, with each tackling a single learning objective. The videos are short, usually 2-4 minutes, and require little understanding effort from the learner. Examples include employee training videos.

Webinar videos

Web seminars or webinars are online-hosted video presentations, lectures, or workshops. Usually, an expert takes a webinar and participants can interact in real-time discussion and ask questions. Webinars don’t require a big venue and virtually you can meet and learn from people across the globe.

Animated explainer videos

Animated explainer videos open fun and exciting ways to learn. They create a sense of visual learning and are most beneficial to achieve great outcomes for slow learners. Animated explainer videos combine eye-catching graphics and simple voiceovers and music.

Screencast videos

It’s a digital technique where everything that happens on a computer screen is recorded as well as the narration. Basically, it’s a screen capture and covers images, text, images, and mouse movements. Screencast videos are usually instructional videos where the instructor performs some action on the computer screen to educate learners.

Real-life teaching videos

Real-life teaching videos are similar to actual classroom teaching scenarios. There is a typical educational setup and teaching is completely virtual.

Best Practices for Creating Engaging Video Content in Education

• Create videos that last less than 6-7 minutes – Short videos have proven to be beneficial in conveying information compared to long-duration videos. Videos limited to 10 minutes have high retention rates and often educators chunk down a long concept into shorter videos.
• Add quizzes and polls to make videos more interactive – Interactive activities like polls and quizzes increase viewers’ engagement and test their grasping capabilities. Quizzes and polls are displayed alongside the video in real-time at designated points.
• Provide captions or text scripts – Captions are the written- form of the audio content and help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Text scripts include written dialogues and narration helps non-native speakers and those having difficulty understanding the audio. Both captions and text scripts open accessibility to a wider range of audiences.
• Set up a proper environment – The key considerations include proper lighting, camera quality, audio clarity, uncluttered background, high-speed internet connection, and preparation for technical glitches in advance.
• Choose a hosting platform for your videos – A video hosting platform is where teachers and educators upload their videos and the service provider manages all the aspects related to your videos such as seamless delivery, CDN-based serving, encryption, and more. Secure video hosting services like VdoCipher offer Hollywood Grade DRM encryption to fight piracy and unauthorized access.
• Understanding the latest streaming stats can also help enhance the effectiveness of video streaming in education, ensuring that educators and institutions are leveraging the most current data to engage learners.

Features of an Online Video Streaming Platform for Education

Security & privacy

The hosting platform must have robust security measures in place. It ensures the videos hosted on the platform are protected from unauthorized access and downloads. Also, various information like personal data and confidential data must be kept secure.

Video analytics

Video analytics allows for collecting and analyzing the video parameters like view count, traffic source, and watch time. It helps in understanding the viewer’s behaviors, preferences, and overall performance of your videos. Some platforms even provide heatmaps to determine which part of the video was skipped or played for a long.

Scalability

A video hosting platform must be scalable enough to handle growing users and videos without any interruptions or performance issues. The platform must be able to accommodate the increased bandwidth and storage demand in able to serve the video content efficiently. Even when a large number of simultaneous users access the platform, there should not be minimum delays or downtime.

Accessibility

The platform must be accessible by low-spec devices as well as by those having limited internet access. Features such as multilingual subtitle support, adaptive streaming, and closed captions make the platform much more accessible. Overall, more accessibility makes the hosting platform reach a wider audience and boosts engagement and revenue.

Integrations

While hosting videos on a platform, you require integrations with third-party tools and platforms. The integrations include anything from embedding videos, social sharing, integrating video editing tools, or collaborating with other services. The hosting platform must be capable of offering easy integrations with other platforms.

Pricing

The pricing of every video hosting platform varies with the features and services they offer. Some are pay-per-use, subscription-based, or free with limitations. The choice completely depends on your business requirements and budget. Some platforms even offer discounted pricing on long-term commitments.

Customer support

While using any platform, there arise technical issues or queries that need to be addressed on priority. Good customer support is available through support channels like email, phone, chat, and nowadays, WhatsApp too.

Online Video Education is the Future

The way people now access and learn new skills has evolved. With the flexibility of growing learning options and accessibility, online video education is definitely the future of learning. Its major importance stems from the major advantages of accessibility, affordability, convenience, and retention rates.

This new form of learning is more interactive, engaging, and most importantly, accessible to those with tight schedules or remote learners. Today, a student sitting in one corner of the world can gain knowledge of any topic of interest from anywhere and anytime. It’s true that there are still regions where people don’t have access to smartphones or the internet, but things are slowly digitizing.

Irrespective of age and location, online streaming in education videos are accessible to everyone as long as they have internet access. During the pandemic, we have seen how quickly things moved toward digital learning. It saved time and effort and students could study at their own pace and at ease.

Compared to traditional class setups, online videos are always affordable. From trainers to offline training institutes, nearly everyone has moved towards online classes. To learn a new skill, you don’t have to go to a physical setup and rather opt for online classes from a reputed educator. Those who cannot afford classroom studies, maybe due to financial issues or time dependency, can easily study at the home, workplace, or even while commuting.

As discussed in the above sections, streaming in education videos give learners a better understanding of the subject better than text. The whole online learning experience is more personalized and customizable as per the learner’s preference. Slow learners often face difficulties in classroom learning and while through online video learning, they can study at their own pace, pause, rewind, and again play content in a loop.

VdoCipher – Best online video streaming platform

When uploading videos on a hosting platform especially paid one, the security of the videos is a necessary requirement. At no cost, you can afford to have your videos illegally downloaded or shared. There is also the risk of unauthorized access and compromise to premium and sensitive media files. The extent of piracy can be easily analyzed by the fact that up to 24% of the global bandwidth is taken by illegal downloads of copyright content.

‘In 2022, online movie and TV piracy accounted for nearly $52 billion economic losses.’

To fight video piracy and secure your premium videos, VdoCipher, a secure video hosting platform with a complete infrastructure setup is helping elearning and media platforms. VdoCipher offers Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption using Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM which protects videos from illegal downloads and unauthorized access.

How DRM protects video content?

Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology controls the access and usage of video content by restricting unauthorized copying, distribution, and access. DRM is implemented at the hardware and software level and it is by far the highest available level of video security. The chunks of video are converted into an encrypted format and decrypted at the player’s end with a private decryption key. The raw video file is not available to the viewer for downloading or pirating.

Common encryption technologies like AES128 and RTMPe have a partial key exchange mechanism that exposes the key for hacking and unauthorized video downloads using plugins. So, in order to have complete video security with the latest technological advancement, DRM is the only choice as provided by VdoCipher at an affordable price.

‘Covering more than 120 countries, over 3000 customers trust VdoCipher to secure their premium videos.’

Why choose VdoCipher to host videos?

Video security with DRM encryption – Highest video security using Google Widevine and AppleFairPlay DRM

Secure offline downloads in apps- iOS native SDK to enable secure video download on device. Restrict offline download availability and apply time validity for downloaded videos.

Dynamic watermarking – a customizable watermark that is dynamically placed over the video. Customizable for transparency, color, and size.

Screen capture block in Android and iOS native apps – VdoCipher native SDK integration restricts screen capture at the hardware level and discourages screen capture.

Geo-restrictions – Restricting users based on their IP group helps control access in a particular geographic location.

WordPress plugin – VdoCipher WordPress video player plugin works with popular WP membership plugins such as MemberPress, Restrict Content Pro, and WP eMember. The plugin also supports LMSs like LearnDash, Sensei, and WP CourseWare.

HTML5 video player – VdoCipher HTML5 video player comes with dynamic controls and supports multilingual subtitles and adaptive bitrate streaming. Script code easily enables CTAs like forms and buttons

Adaptive video streaming – Adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) allows automatic adjustment of the video quality as per the viewer’s internet connection speed. This is very beneficial for students having poor internet connectivity or those living in remote locations.

FAQs

What are the benefits of video applications in education?

Video applications in education make the learning process more engaging, personalized, accessible, and cost-effective.

What equipment and tools are required for online elearning video streaming?

For recording video lectures, you require a camera, an editing tool, and a stable internet connection. For live streaming to your students, you need a good quality webcam, microphone, and a device like a smartphone connected to the internet.

Name some of the free video platforms for education.

YouTube, TED-Ed, and Khan Academy are some platforms that offer free video lessons.

What is the biggest challenge while streaming elearning videos?

The major challenge is video security. Anyone can easily access and download your video content if there is no robust security in place like DRM encryption. Platforms like VdoCipher not only secure your videos with DRM encryption but also prevent illegal downloads and piracy with features like dynamic watermarking, screen capture prevention, secure offline downloads, and more.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

The post Online Video Streaming in Education appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

Video content is consumed in various mediums like recreational videos, educational videos, training courses, social media, and more. This leads to the need for a place where these videos are uploaded and shared online. It is fulfilled by video hosting streaming platforms like YouTube. The platform offers a range of features, such as the ability to upload large amounts of video data, customize the video settings, add a layer of security to the videos, monetize the content, and much more. Some of the video hosting streaming services, like YouTube, are free and have limited features. On the other hand, paid platforms come with a range of features, more bandwidth and storage space, security features, and much more.

What is a video streaming hosting service?

According to Statista, in 2022, more than three billion internet users streamed or downloaded videos at least once per month. This figure is expected to keep increasing every year. With videos being the most popular and consumed content type, uploading them directly to your website takes a lot of hosting web resources. The problem with video content is their large file size as compared to text or image content which puts a heavy load on your website’s server. It not only impacts the site’s performance but is also not a cost-efficient way to manage video content.

Be it a small business using videos for marketing, individual creators, media, and eLearning platforms; you need a video platform that stores your videos on separate servers. You can upload videos on their platforms, share and easily add them to your website using an embed code. The services offered by such platforms is known as video streaming hosting service. Your uploaded content can be watched on the platform’s site or within an app or embedded on your external webpage within a video player provided by the platform.

How is Video Streaming different from Video Hosting?

Video hosting refers to the service of storing and hosting video content on a server. In contrast, video streaming refers to the delivery of that video content to a viewer over the internet in real time.

Video hosting involves uploading a video file to a server, which is then made available for viewing online. The viewer can watch the video by visiting a webpage where the video is embedded (using an iframe or video tag), or by downloading the video file directly from the server. Video hosting services typically allow users to upload and share their own videos and view and share videos from other users.

On the other hand, video streaming involves delivering the video content to the viewer in real time as it is being played. This is done by encoding the video into a stream of data that can be transmitted over the internet and using a smart HTML5 player that is able to decode and play the stream. Video streaming allows the viewer to watch the video as it is being transmitted rather than having to download the entire file before viewing it.

Overall, the main difference between video hosting and video streaming is the way in which the video content is delivered to the viewer. Video hosting involves storing the video on a server and delivering it to the viewer in a pre-recorded format. In contrast, video streaming involves delivering the video to the viewer in real-time as it is being played.

For security reasons, encryption over the video’s storage and playback is always advised. The video file is likely to be leaked during the upload or storage process and during the playback. To solve this issue, multi-DRM technology is used to encrypt the video before hosting. When the final playback request is placed, the decryption works through a dynamic key exchange mechanism with the key stored in hardware-level security black box called CDM.

Benefits of using video streaming hosting services

Actionable analytics

Video analytics is not just the number of views and traffic sources. A good video streaming hosting provider offers a detailed breakup of videos, such as which parts the viewer skipped or watched repeatedly. Some even offer heatmaps to optimize and make videos more engaging.

Piracy protection

Making the content downloadable makes way for video piracy. When choosing a secure hosting streaming provider, the security of your videos is a major concern. The content should not be available for illegal downloads or unauthorized access. Hosting and secure video streaming platforms like VdoCipher, being direct partners with Google, use the highest level of security known as Digital Rights Management (DRM) to secure video content.

Instant playback

Video content is served in such a way that you can almost play immediately as the page where the video is embedded loads. Without having to download the entire video, the video plays with minimized buffering and delays.

Adaptive Bitrate Streaming

In times of streaming videos at poor internet connectivity, there are playback issues that ultimately affect the viewing experience. Most video streaming hosting services offer multiple video quality options so that the device automatically selects the best streaming bitrate as per available bandwidth.

Improved viewer experience

Video streaming hosting services make the video quality crisper, and videos are optimized for a top-notch viewing experience. The video player gives viewers more controls to play around with the video, like pause, rewind, and much more, which contributes to a positive viewing experience.

Control over your content

A free video streaming hosting service limits the control and right over the videos you upload. You rarely have control over how the content is distributed. A dedicated video streaming service gives control over your content, ad placements, monetization options, and more.

Customization options

Professional video hosting streaming platforms give you plenty of options to customize your videos for optimized performance. The various customization options are inserting CTAs, adding links in the video, editing color, transparency, and theme of the player.

Key factors to consider in a video streaming hosting platform

1. Storage and bandwidth – You should be aware of the number of videos you can upload and the storage space and bandwidth allotted to you.
2. APIs – to help integrate and access third-party services and tools. APIs ease video management, enable auto video upload, add interactive features to the player, customize design, and more.
3. Video security – includes secure video streaming and hosting. Security measures include DRM encryption, domain restrictions, password protection and geo-restrictions.
4. Adaptive Video quality – video player must be able to provide multiple video quality options on the player so as to switch the video quality as per internet connectivity automatically.
5. Multiple file format support – capabilities to convert a video file into the best resolution formats as per playback device type.
6. Video upload specifications – video file size, min and max dimensions, video duration, file formats, and total file storage.
7. Monetization options – availability to monetize your videos. If so, then what are the criteria or minimum requirements to monetize?
8. Video analytics – video parameters such as the number of real-time visitors, traffic source, conversion rate, view time, and other engagement metrics in a proper dashboard.
9. CDN-based content delivery – video served via CDN have minimum buffering and latency. The content is available uninterruptedly, even during peak traffic surges.

Types of hosting for video streaming

Free Video hosting – Free video hosting typically offers basic features, limitations on the number of video uploads, and may even include advertisements. It is a good option for those who are just starting and have limited resources. These free hosting platforms have limited security measures in place to protect your videos from piracy. YouTube is one such example.

Paid Video hosting – Paid hosting services, on the other hand, offer a wider range of features and often do not have video upload limitations or included advertisements. You get advanced hosting and streaming features such as video analytics, player customization, support for higher video resolution, and much more. Platforms like VdoCipher offer secure Hollywood Grade DRM Encrypted video hosting to protect your videos from illegal downloads and piracy.

Self-hosted videos – In self-hosting, videos are uploaded and hosted to your website or some rented webspace. Self-hosting requires more work on your part and involves technical implementations. Apart from this, it can be more costly, not scalable, prone to security risks, and impacts the website’s load time.

Best Web Hosting for Video Streaming

VdoCipher

Using Google Widevine and Apple Fairplay DRM, VdoCipher offers secure video hosting and streaming with Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption. Trusted by over 2500 customers across 120 countries, videos streamed via Vdocipher cannot be downloaded using any internet plugin or software.

VdoCipher provides multiple ways to embed videos (API, iFrame, and Script) on a website where you can monetize your video content. VdoCipher WordPress Plugin makes the complete video embedding process easy and fast and supports the most popular WordPress LMS. We use Global AWS Cloud Infrastructure which are compatible with all major web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Users get AWS-powered server, transcoding & CDN infrastructure to ensure a smooth playback experience.

Apart from the highest level of DRM video security, other key features include dynamic Watermarking, secure offline downloads in Android, geo-restrictions, CDN-based delivery, smart HTML5 video player, video APIs, plugins for WordPress and Moodle, and much more.

Features:

• Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM Encryption
• Secure Offline Downloads in Apps
• Dynamic watermarking
• Screen Capture block in Android and iOS Native app
• Smart HTML5 Video Player
• Amazon AWS Server + CDN
• Google SafetyNet for App-Based Security
• Affordable pricing. No hidden costs
• Ready to use VdoCipher plugin
• Adaptive bitrate streaming to minimize bandwidth usage
• IP-based Geo-Restrictions
• Easy to use Dashboard to upload and edit videos

YouTube

YouTube is by far the most popular streaming platform in the world with over 2.6 billion users worldwide as of 2022. With more than 500 hours of video content uploaded every minute, YouTube continues to grow as a video streaming and hosting platform. Everyone knows YouTube is free and actually used as a search engine by millions of people across the globe.

With increased chances of going viral to increasing brand awareness and monetization options, YouTube has a cluster of features. But for businesses, there are some challenges. Once the content is uploaded on YouTube, it somewhat does not belong to you. If you embed the video from YouTube onto your site, you’re losing some of the SEO value of your video and video security is a big concern.

• By default, you can upload videos that are up to 15 minutes long. Verified accounts can upload videos longer than 15 minutes.
• The maximum file size you can upload is 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less. Videos can be compressed using H.264 Codec encoding.

Pros

• It’s free
• Multiple monetization options
• Private and unlisted video options
• Easy video embed
• Large audience base

Cons

• YouTube’s free version contains ads that disturb the viewing experience
• Potential copyright issues
• Fewer customization options
• Suggested videos

Wistia

Wistia is a video streaming and hosting service to host and analyze your videos in one place. Trusted by brands for video marketing, wistia comes with all the necessary marketing tools to promote and manage your videos.

It includes a variety of features like engagement graphs, video heatmaps, lead generation tools, and viewer-based tracking. Another feature of wistia worth noting is the A/B testing to simultaneously compare two videos. Other notable features of wistia include a custom video player, built-in social sharing, video SEO, and native Facebook/Google Integration.

• Max file size – 8GB
• Bitrate – 5000 – 10000 kbps
• Max video length – 2 hours
• Max length of a live event hosted with Wistia live – 4 hours

Pros

• Customizable video player
• CRM integrations
• Marketing automation integrations
• Advanced analytics
• Soapbox chrome extension to record and edit videos directly from the browser. Sold separately.

Cons

• More expensive than direct competitors
• Limited third-party integrations
• Pricing based on the number of videos included

SproutVideo

SproutVideo offers video hosting service to businesses with features like video marketing, player, video seo, analytic tools, video website templates with built-in SEO, and engagement tracking. Additionally, SproutVideo offers collaboration and sharing tools along with audience building, lead capture forms, and advanced video analytics.

Max file size – 100GB. If uploading via API, the max video size is 5GB.

Pros

• Custom playlists
• Advanced video analytics
• Lead capture

Cons

• Playback caching is slow, causing the player to pause during playback.
• Plugin Support is not too Extensive
• Complexity
• Not enough personalization

Spotlightr

Spotlightr is a video hosting solution with a suite of marketing tools to help businesses grow their videos. The videos seamlessly stream across multiple social media channels like Facebook, YouTube, and more. Including basic HLS encryption, Spotlightr offers features like domain restrictions, in-app recording, analytics, and customizable branding.

Recommendations for video upload to Spotlightr for web

• MP4 format codec: H.264
• Frame Rate: 24, 25, or 30
• Frame Size / Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (1080p)
• Bitrate: 5,000 kbit/s (5 Mbps) for 720p | 8000 kbit/s (8 Mbps) for 1080p

Pros

• Social sharing
• Player customization
• Marketing automation
• Range of integrations

Cons

• Buffering of some embedded videos
• Storage limits are a bit restricting
• Some quirks to the UI such as folder organization

IBM Video Streaming

IBM offers end-to-end, scalable cloud-based video service for live and on-demand video content. The platform is majorly used for public service virtual conferencing, recreational activities, employee training, and commercial and government proceedings.

The key features include HD Live broadcasting, integrated QoS features, mobile compatible player, Multi-CDNs, broadcast recordings, a customizable channel page, and more.

Pros

• Integration with the live platform such as Zoom
• video management system back-end is good
• Multiple channels for streaming
• Great interface for viewers
• Built-in user management

Cons

• Renewal process is not that easy
• The download speed can be faster
• Limited video statistics

Dailymotion

Launched in 2005, Dailymotion is a video sharing platform where users can browser, upload, and share videos. With localization in 20 languages across 35 countries, Dailymotion is a trusted name to host premium video content.

The several benefits offered by Dailymotion include global audience reach, a revenue share monetization program, a fully accessible video player, live streaming, advanced video analytics, content management, and much more.

Pros

• Ad monetization with a lot of flexibility
• Ease of video upload and management
• Multi-device compatibility
• Social sharing

Cons

• Ads auto plate before, after and during video playback
• Performance can be improved
• High load time compared to other platforms
• Basic HLS encryption for video delivery

FAQs

How to choose a video hosting platform for my needs?

The various factors to consider include the type of content you wish to share, whether the videos are monetizable or not, the features you need, the number of videos you wish to upload, video security, pricing, and more.

How do video hosting and streaming services work?

When a video is uploaded to a hosting platform, it is stored on the server, and data is served via the internet. When a viewer makes a playback request, the video is accessed via the browser or dedicated app and streamed as soon as the request is made in real time.

Can videos on a video hosting platform be monetizable?

Platforms like YouTube offer monetization options through advertising. Different platforms have various criteria to meet the monetization requirements. YouTube for instance requires 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past 12 months to meet the Partner Program requirements.

How to protect videos from illegal downloads or unauthorized sharing?

• Use a hosting platform offering robust security features
• Platforms like VdoCipher offer Digital Right Management (DRM) to secure your videos with Hollywood Grade encryption technology
• Add dynamic watermarking to establish brand identity and discourage video sharing
• If possible, make your videos limited to certain users or groups using the privacy settings.

What are some of the popular video hosting platforms?

YouTube, VdoCipher, and Dailymotion are some of the most reliable video hosting services.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

The post Best Video Streaming Hosting Service Providers in 2023 appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

‘According to Nielsen, OTT streaming accounts for 34.8 percent of total television consumption in the US, ahead of cable TV and broadcast.’

OTT is more appealing to viewers as it gives them the luxury of watching videos per their schedule. Additionally, they can skip paying a satellite or cable company to watch content that they may not be fully interested in. The availability of the internet and smartphones contributes to the increasing popularity of OTT content.

OTT has undoubtedly emerged as the medium to target a wide audience and generate revenue via various models. Now it is possible to build your own OTT app in your niche and see an increase in engagement and subscribers. One thing to remember is the secure upload of your video content, as you cannot risk videos getting leaked or pirated. To do so, businesses need a secure OTT video streaming solution provider like VdoCipher to manage your videos and protect them from online video piracy.

What is Over-the-top Media Service or OTT

OTT or ‘over-the-top’ media service refers to the delivery of media content to the viewers using the internet. OTT bypasses the traditional modes of media delivery via satellite or cable connections.

Over-the-top services are directly accessible via websites, apps, or browsers on mobile devices, personal computers, smart TVs, and digital media players, including gaming consoles. All you need is a high-speed internet connection and a connected device. Common examples are Netflix, Hulu, ESPN+, and Amazon Prime Video. Although cable services require a subscription, the OTT content is directly online streamed to the viewer and can be consumed at any time and anywhere in the world on various devices.

Over-the-top content is directly delivered to the viewers from a third-party OTT provider, with the ISP transporting IP packets. Some OTT platforms have a subscription model to access content priced monthly and annually. In contrast, some OTT services don’t charge a subscription fee but show advertisements.

“People are more demanding in how they want to consume their content, and what kind of content they want to have, and what they want to see on their home screen.” – Guillermo Martinez, Strategic Partner Development Manager for Android TV.

Importance and Benefits of OTT Platform

Cost Effective

Compared to traditional TV connections, subscribing to OTT platforms is more cost-effective. Additionally, you get access to foreign content and a huge HD and 4K content library. Also, there are no monthly fixed bills to be paid, and you can pay monthly or annually.

More personalized

The beauty of OTT platforms is how they tailor and recommend content as per the viewer’s interest, viewing history, and more. Viewers can surf the content they wish to watch, choose different genres, browse by languages, and much more. There is no fixed timing to watch your favorite content. You can, anytime, anywhere, watch at your convenience. All you need is an internet connection and a connected device.

Multiple ways to access OTT services

OTT video content can be viewed on multiple devices; some have user profiles for multiple users to watch the videos simultaneously. With just a login, you can watch the content on a smart TV, add-on devices like Chromecast Stick, smartphone, laptop, or tablet. The OTT platforms may be app-based or even accessible via a browser.

Download choice

Most OTT applications have the features of offline content download. You can easily download them for offline viewing, which is unavailable on cable television.

Variety of original content

In 2021, OTT giants Netflix and Amazon Prime invested nearly $500 million in original content in India. There is a vast library of content covering multiple genres and languages. A large collection of video content, shows, movies, and regional content is unavailable with a cable connection.

Best viewing experience

OTT offers the best video quality content experience across all devices based on your subscription. There is 4K content, and based on your internet connectivity, the video quality is automatically adjusted to match your bandwidth (Adaptive Bitrate Streaming). This way, video content is delivered uninterruptedly and seamlessly.

How OTT Solution Provider Works?

There are two sides to an OTT platform working; one is to store the video and audio files over the cloud, and the second is to deliver them for playback. A small or medium OTT provider is busier with content creation and marketing of that content to gain viewership. Also, in-house video storage and playback infrastructure is a capital-intensive project. To handle the capital-intensive start, cloud storage solutions like AWS come in handy. Still, upload, multi-format storage, encryption, CDN, and secure delivery are many such things that are extremely necessary. These challenges are why OTT video streaming solution providers like VdoCipher handle the end-to-end storage and delivery solution. They also provide APIs, SDKs, Player customization, and many other layers of security and features. When using an OTT solution provider, a basic workflow looks like this,

• The media broadcasters upload video content to a secure OTT solution provider platform like VdoCipher. At this stage, the media files get encrypted, transcoded, and stored in multiple formats for multi-quality playback and device support.
• The video content is cached on geographically located remote servers through Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• When the viewer makes a playback request, the video content is delivered via the CDN servers and gets finally decrypted with the DRM dynamic key exchange management system. The DRM protects your video from not only getting illegally downloaded but also prevents screen capture in some devices like Apple.
• Further layers of security like “Play Integrity” are also placed to safeguard your media content from playback on unauthorized apps, rooted Android OS, etc.

Challenges in Setting up OTT Streaming Infrastructure

Compatibility across devices

In the case of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), the content was served to a traditional set-top box installed at the viewer’s home. The client media player is embedded in a connected TV or set-top box. One playback device and a single media format. Conversely, with OTT DRM, the video content is made available across multiple devices (smartphones, laptops, connected TV, game consoles, etc.). Each device supports a different media format, video resolutions, and more. The infrastructure should be so designed that every piece of content is available in the best possible resolution and file format on every supported device.

Storage optimization

For every OTT service, content is king. The demand for fresh, high-quality video content keeps rising, and so is the storage space. The OTT video content needs to be in the best possible resolution and storing different file formats requires enormous storage space and hence, increased storage costs. Thanks to video hosting websites like VdoCipher that offer complete video hosting infrastructure with additional security features based on your video bandwidth and storage utilization at affordable pricing.

Video Quality

OTT services must provide seamless and smooth video content delivery with the best viewing experience. This means the video streaming must have reduced buffering and latency. In places with low internet bandwidth and connectivity, the content faces buffering and latency issues, leading to poor user experience. The video delivery must be optimized to deliver interrupted video streaming even during low connectivity. It is possible via Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR).

Content Delivery Speed

The moment you make a playback request on an OTT streaming platform like Netflix, the content is served almost instantly with minimized latency. This is made possible via Content Delivery Network (CDN). The geographically distributed network of servers stores the content copies, and whenever a playback request is made, the content is delivered via the viewer’s nearest proxy server. The OTT service infrastructure must employ CDN to serve video content without interruptions, even when the origin server is impacted. The challenge that needs to be addressed by every OTT video streaming platform is the content delivery speed. The faster the content reaches the viewers, the higher the retention rate for that content stream.

Video Piracy

Ever since the videos made an online presence, the cases of video piracy and illegal downloads have skyrocketed. Each year, businesses lose reputation and billions in revenue because of content leaks, piracy, and unauthorized distribution of media content. While setting up an OTT streaming infrastructure, securing the video streams is the utmost priority and comes with huge challenges. The videos must be well encrypted using advanced technologies like DRM, which employs private key exchange mechanisms to secure videos from illegal downloads, hackers, and usage.

Types of OTT Solution Provider Platforms

OTT video or TV solutions – comprises OTT television, streaming television, a broad range of video content. The video distribution is through an app, PC, phone, or smart television. Examples include Netflix, Peacock, ESPN+, and YouTube TV.

OTT Messaging solutions – OTT messaging is an alternative to mobile operators’ text messaging services. According to Statista, in 2021, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat were the most popular OTT messaging apps, accounting for nearly 74% of active users. OTT messaging solutions are more interactive and engaging, use the internet, and have overtaken SMS services.

Voice calling solutions for OTT – Includes VoIP, for instance, Skype, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Zoom, which use open internet communication such as WiFi and 4G.

OTT Audio Applications – Music streaming services like Spotify, Podcast, and SoundCloud.

OTT Video Streaming Statistics

• On average, a viewer pays $8 per month per OTT service and spends over 100 minutes daily on an OTT app.
• In June 2021, streaming services accounted for only 27% of total TV screen time in the US. Out of the 27%, 7% were from Netflix.
• Among all countries, the USA will generate $87.26 billion in 2022, making it the leading OTT revenue generator in the world.
• The largest SVOD (subscription video-on-demand) revenue in 2021 was Netflix, with 30.8% of all OTT subscription revenues in the US, followed by Disney
• The largest segment is OTT Video Advertising, with a market volume of US$180.40bn in 2022.
• The next most significant contributor is video streaming, with an estimated market size of $70.8 billion in 2021.

Need for Security as a Solution for OTT

As the OTT platform content is streamed online, there are various ways to compromise security. It includes password compromise, unauthorized access or login, downloading via third-party software, and much more. There are even instances when confidential and sensitive data such as addresses, payment details, and other information is leaked online. The chances of malware attacks are also pretty common nowadays.

Video Piracy has become a serious problem for OTT platforms. Easy access and global internet availability allow for the set up of peer-to-peer sharing networks like Torrent for the mass distribution of pirated content for free. The shutting down of some of these websites has proven ineffective as new sites such as Pirate Bay, and 1337X have emerged.

‘Annual global revenue losses from digital piracy in the movie industry count between $50 and $96 billion while the illegal download of copyrighted materials amounts nearly 25% of the global bandwidth.’

Today content distributors and OTT platforms are focusing on implementing the best possible security to authenticate and authorize users to avoid video piracy, financial loss, and brand image tarnishing. Securing video content not only at the source level but at the viewer’s device limits the instance of video piracy. Thus, any OTT platform must use technology like DRM, offered by VdoCipher, to not only securely deliver content to authorized users but also prevent it from illegitimate downloads and sharing.

Custom OTT Solution Development with Security

As we discussed in the working of an OTT solution provider, two heads must be developed. The first one is secure and multi-format storage, and the second is secure delivery. This Video Streaming Infrastructure will provide scalable, secure, and faster video delivery for authorized playback or download. It is better to use AWS S3 for storage as it provides a scalable infrastructure for video object storage, but further additions are required to enhance the delivery. These additional features include global distribution via AWS CloudFront CDN, transcoding, and encryption. To list down, here are the following necessary components needed to be set up.

1. Setting up an S3 bucket
2. Upload a video to the S3 bucket
3. Transcoding to support Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
4. Encrypting the Files before storage
5. Create a CloudFront origin access identity and CloudFront distribution
6. Configure your CloudFront distribution for your custom domain name
7. Dynamic key exchange playback for Encrypted video chunks

All these components are required as basic features to handle different devices and across globe secure delivery. If adaptive bitrate streaming is not set up, it will lead to playback disruption for low-bandwidth network users. Similarly, CDN provides faster delivery across the globe. Finally, setting up a DRM layer of security will protect your videos from illegal downloads and screen capture. Also, setting up all these components requires your familiarity with coding. Using a secure video hosting solution provider with AWS infrastructure is better if that is your weak or capital-intensive area.

Best OTT Solution for Video Delivery – VdoCipher

Encrypting video content makes it into an unreadable format, and every time a playback request is made, an encryption key has to be provided along with the content. Hackers can easily retrieve this key and gain free access to the premium content. Now arises the need to securely deliver the content and protect the key from unauthorized access.

To better manage the key exchange for decryption and how the media content is accessed and consumed, the best available solution to the rescue is DRM (Digital Rights Management). OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have DRM as an integral part of their ecosystem.

VdoCiper, a secure video hosting platform offering Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption, protects your premium videos from unauthorized access and illegal downloads. 2500+ customers from over 120 countries rely on VdoCipher to secure their video content and revenue against video piracy. Being a direct partner with Google and using Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM, videos streamed via VdoCipher cannot be illegally downloaded using software or internet plugins.

Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption

Secures videos from unauthorized access and downloads using the highest encryption security, Google Widevine, and Apple FairPlay DRM.

Dynamic Watermarking

To discourage screen capture and establish brand identity, user ID and email information are dynamically watermarked over the video. It is customizable for color, transparency, and size.

Secure Offline Downloads in Apps

VdoCipher iOS native SDK enables video download on the device in a secure manner. You get an option to limit the time duration for which an offline video will be available for download. Also, you can download it inside your Android app with time validity for the downloaded video.

Screen Capture block in Android and iOS Native app

Our native SDK integration blocks screen capture at the hardware level and discourages screen capture. This is a very useful feature for securing your videos against piracy.

Play Integrity for App-Based Security

Google’s Play Integrity provides additional video security against application tampering and replay attacks. VdoCipher’s Android SDK easily integrates it to block playback on duplicate apps. Check out our play integrity apk documentation to know more.

WordPress and Moodle Plugins

VdoCipher WordPress video plugin seamlessly supports all popular WP membership plugins, including Members, Restrict Content Pro, MemberPress, and WP eMember. The video plugin also supports LMS such as WP CourseWare, LifterLMS, Sensei, and LearnDash.

Geo-Blocking

Blacklisting or whitelisting specific countries is possible with geo-restrictions. You can block a range of IPs, such as a company or college. Add time-based restrictions and set the expiry of URLs.

Smart HTML5 Video Player

Our smart HTML5 video player comes with dynamic controls with multi-lingual subtitle support. There are dynamic controls to change playback speed, choose theme options and Javascript API to add overlay buttons and track viewer interactions with video.

Adaptive Video Quality

There are times when the video quality deteriorates, or the video stops playing due to low internet connectivity. We offer multiple bitrate streaming, meaning the video stream is encoded at different bitrates, and video quality auto switches during playback.

AWS CDN and Server

VdoCipher uses Global AWS Cloud Infrastructure (Storage on AWS S3, Transcoding via VdoCipher algorithms on EC2, Streaming of content via CloudFront CDN). Content delivery via geographically distributed CDN servers ensures minimized latency and uninterrupted delivery of videos.

FAQs

Which OTT platform has the highest subscribers in the world?

Netflix remains the top OTT platform with the highest subscribers despite the recent dip in paid subscribers. It has over 223 million subscribers worldwide in the recent quarter.

What are the major monetization options available for the OTT platforms?

SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand), AVOD (Advertisement Video on Demand), freemium, and sponsored content are the major monetization models.

What are the benefits of OTT advertising?

OTT is an emerging market with increased brand awareness, mostly unskippable ads, and a younger demographic reach.

What is the difference between OTT and VOD?

OTT is related to how the content is delivered via the internet, while VOD is related to how the content is consumed. It can be via a single purchase, subscription, or service.

How do Multi-DRM solutions like VdoCipher secure OTT video content?

Multi-DRM using Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay security ensure that your videos are securely encrypted, transmitted, and accessible to only authorized users.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

The post OTT Video Streaming Solution Provider for Best Delivery and Security appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

Recently, The Digital Learning Pulse Survey by Bay View Analytics and Cengage in April 2022 collected responses from 1,246 students. The survey was on how the shift towards digital learning is affecting them.

• 935 students are currently enrolled in online courses and desire to opt for more courses in the future.
• Of those students taking online courses, 62% gave online courses learning an “A.”

What is an online course hosting platform?

A course hosting platform allows you to upload your courses onto their servers and then embed them into the relevant pages on your site, where it won’t slow down your page load times. Course hosting platforms also have additional benefits, such as securing your online course videos, video analytics information, and sharing options.

If you have a website, surely you can upload your online course video files to the server and play the content on your website. But hosting courses locally isn’t a good idea. Unlike plain text or images, video files take up considerable storage space and bandwidth. Plus, there are all sorts of playback issues, buffering, latency, quality problems, device support, and, most importantly, video security. As a course creator, you won’t expect your videos to be leaked and made available on the web. Your whole earning model can be dramatically affected. These cumulative issues may lead your website not to bear the load, leading to page loading delays.

Hosting your videos on a professional and secure online course hosting platform easily cuts through all these issues. Later, you can easily add the video course to a website, web page, or social media using copy-paste the embed code with the touch of a button.

Free Course Hosting Platform

These platforms allow free video hosting with limited upload count, bandwidth limitations, and a few additional features. You might even face your website downtime, or it may not be capable of handling traffic spikes. Due to the free service, there is mostly a basic plan and no flexibility in various web hosting packages.

The free hosting platforms may seem reasonable in the initial phases of video hosting. Still, as the video requirements increase, people have to shift towards paid course hosting. Another concern with free video hosting is video security. These platforms, in most cases, won’t provide secure hosting, i.e., your videos are at risk of piracy. Anyone can download your video and make them available on the web. Even when you lose your data, there is no backup to recover them.

‘According to Eurostat European Statistics, in 2021, among all EU Member States, Ireland had the highest share (46 percent) of people aged 16 to 74 doing an online course.’

Paid Course Hosting Platform

Paid course hosting platforms have flexibility in bandwidth and storage consumption. These platforms employ the latest technologies to keep your content performance at the best possible state. Most of the paid course hosting platforms have high uptime and better management of your video content during peak surges. You can choose the paid plans based on your bandwidth requirements and the number of videos you plan to upload. Anytime the business from your end increases, there is always room to opt for a higher plan with more bandwidth and other features.

Security is one of the main factors in choosing a paid course hosting provider. Creators wishing to monetize their content or prevent unauthorized access require a secure video hosting platform like VdoCipher. The course hosted and served via VdoCipher cannot be downloaded or shared using any internet plugin or software hack. This helps secure your videos and boosts the generated revenue, and at the same time, protects from video piracy and illegal downloads.

Difference Between Free and Paid Course Hosting Platforms

Types of Course Hosting Platforms

Some course hosting platforms are designed specifically for video courses, while others are more general purpose.

1. Video course hosting platforms: Built specifically for hosting and delivering video courses. The services include video hosting, CDN-based delivery, password protection, easy-to-manage access from Dashboard, video analytics, and most importantly, video security of your premium videos.
2. General hosting platforms: These platforms host a variety of course content, one being video courses. They may lack the features of a dedicated video course platform but still deliver and manage video courses.
3. Self-hosted course videos: This means hosting and video course content delivery on your own website or server. Self-hosting may give you better control over the delivery and management of courses but requires more technical knowledge and hosting expertise. Your webpage where the courses are hosted may even suffer latency, unauthorized access, and page load time delay, which can be easily addressed by opting for a secure video hosting platform like VdoCipher.

Features of a Good Online Course Hosting Platform

Easy Embed Options

When you upload a course to a hosting platform, you require it to be placed or embedded into your website or other platforms. An embed code is used to add the video to your website, and viewers can watch the video without leaving the website. The video can easily be altered for height, frame size, and more. The hosting provider must have easy embed options with a simple embed code.

CDN-based Delivery

Content delivery networks serve content via a group of geographically distributed proxy servers. The servers create a copy and store cached information. The content is delivered via the nearest CDN instead of the origin server whenever a user makes a playback request. CDN-served courses have minimum latency and buffering and are readily available to the viewer even during the time of peak traffic. It also provides security against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

APIs for Easy Integration

To streamline and automate the workflow, the course hosting platform must provide APIs and SDK support. APIs help manage videos, enable auto upload, add interactive features to the player, customize designing, and much more. A course hosting provider’s API allows third-party tools and applications to integrate the provider’s hosting functionality and features.

Adaptive Streaming

Your course learners may sometimes encounter slow internet speed or network congestion. In such a scenario, the video quality is badly hampered, and there is buffering and latency. In ABR streaming, the video quality automatically adjusts to the viewer’s available bandwidth. The video file is chunked into variable bitrate segments. If the hosting platform lacks ABR, the viewing experience may suffer due to buffering and more load time.

Multiple File Format Support

The file format varies with device and browser. While converting a video into various file formats, often the video quality is lowered. A video may play at a low quality on one device and comparatively better on another. A course hosting platform must be capable of converting the video file into the best resolution formats for every device type.

Customer Support

The platform must provide dedicated video customer support to address any issue faced by the customer. The support channel may be email, phone, WhatsApp, or contact form. The priority of addressing the problem is what makes a good customer service portal.

Affordable for small creators as well as enterprises

The pricing model of the platform must have a range of plans to opt for based on bandwidth, storage, and other requirements. You may look for those giving free trials before choosing a higher-paid plan.

IP/Domain Restrictions

It is a very helpful feature if you want to restrict course access based on IPs. Viewers connected to those IPs are not permitted to watch the video. Course hosting platforms even provide the feature of Domain Restriction, wherein viewers in a particular list of restricted domains are blocked from watching the content.

Security

While choosing a course hosting platform, the security of your videos is a major factor to consider. You never expect your videos to be leaked or exposed to hackers or illegal downloads at any cost. Platforms like VdoCipher provide Multi DRM encryption using Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM.

Need for Secure Course Hosting Platforms to Host Online Courses

Some courses are available to the public for free, while for some, you pay in the form of on-time payment, subscription, or enrollment. For video creators looking for monetization or making the courses paid, protecting the videos from unauthorized access is important. Many viewers legally download and stream the content. This leads to huge revenue loss for the creators as the content is readily available without paying. The content makers are less motivated to create high-quality content which also affects the viewers.

‘Digital video piracy costs the US economy around $29 billion in lost revenue per year.’

Companies like Netflix have their anti-piracy team to address this issue. The device people use to download pirated content may become infected with malware which can compromise personal data.

When it comes to choosing the course hosting platform, security is one of the major deciding factors. Common video hosting platforms have standard AES-128 encryption as the video encryption protocol for video protection. In themselves, DASH, RTMPE, and HLS Encryption are not sufficient to completely secure the content. The major security flaws are Partial video encryption and the Open key exchange mechanism.

Tools like IDM and Video DownloadHelper can even download encrypted content, exploiting the vulnerability in the above-mentioned streaming protocols. We at VdoCipher use the modified and more secure streaming protocol to prevent illegal downloads, discourage screen capture and minimize bandwidth usage.

‘More than 2500 customers from over 121 countries rely on VdoCipher secure video hosting services to protect their premium video content and boost performance and revenue at affordable pricing.’

VdoCipher – Best Platform to Host Online Courses

If securing your videos is your main priority, VdoCipher is the best available online course hosting platform for your business. There can be security risks if the videos contain sensitive information and the hosting platform does not have adequate video security measures in place.

You no longer need to worry about unauthorized access to your videos or sharing because the videos are Multi DRM protected with Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption. We are a direct partner with Google and employ Google Widevine DRM and Apple FairPlay DRM to protect your videos. Apart from the highest level of video security, we offer features like Dynamic Watermarking, Secure offline download in apps, WordPress Plugin, and APIs.

Features

• Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM Encryption
• Dynamic Watermarking to brand your videos
• Domain Restrictions
• Screen capture block in Android and iOS Native App
• Secure offline downloads in apps
• Smart HTML5 Video Player with adaptive bitrate streaming, multi-lingual subtitle support, chapter segmentation via API, customizable controls, theme, and layout
• Global AWS Cloud Infrastructure
• Easy to manage Dashboard to upload and edit videos, generate embed code and view the usage of bandwidth consumption
• WordPress and Moodle Plugin for quick integrations
• VdoCipher Android SDK to integrate Google’s Safetynet to added video protection

FAQs

What is a course hosting platform?

A cloud-based platform to upload, store and share course videos. These platforms provide a reliable and secure infrastructure for course hosting and streaming.

How much does the course hosting platform cost?

The pricing varies depending on the number of videos uploaded, video size, bandwidth, and storage requirements. Contact us for more information on storage estimations and pricing.

Which is the best course hosting platform that offers free trials?

At VdoCipher, every new user gets 5 GB bandwidth for 1 month at no cost. Except for the FairPlay DRM trial, all the other features are included. Up to 4 videos can be uploaded in the free trial. If satisfied with the service and support, you can upgrade to the paid plan anytime.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

The post Online Course Hosting Platform with Security for Premium Video Content appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

DRM streaming uses digital rights management (DRM) technology to control users’ access and use of the content. It can help protect the content from being copied or shared without permission and ensure that the content used is in accordance with the terms and conditions of the license agreement. DRM Streaming allows the content owner to control how and where the video content is used.

Why Video Streaming is a necessity?

• Streaming videos do not take up any storage space on your device. The video is not actually stored on your device but is instead streamed to it. This is especially beneficial for devices with limited storage space, such as smartphones and tablets.
• Instant playback. When you download a video, you have to wait for the entire video to download before watching it. However, you can start watching it almost immediately when you stream a video. This is because the video is streamed to your device in real-time rather than being stored on your device.
• Downloaded video files are shareable with others via file-sharing networks and other platforms. Video streaming technology is harder to copy and prevents users from saving a copy to their computer if you don’t want them to.

Benefits of DRM in Video Streaming

Whether you are in the corporate world or a professional video creator, you can always stream your work online through various online platforms. There are several benefits of DRM-protected video streaming that will help you get your work out there.

Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming video services use DRM to prevent video piracy. When you watch a DRM-protected video, the video is encrypted and can only be playback on devices with the correct decryption key.

One of the benefits of DRM streaming is providing a more secure streaming experience for users. With DRM streaming, content providers can use encryption to protect their content from copying or sharing without permission. This can help ensure that users only have access to the content they are supposed to have access to and that it is not distributed illegally.

• Protect your content from being copied or illegally distributed. No matter how hard you try to keep on top of your work, there will always be people interested in taking credit for your work and passing it off as their own. This is why you need to have a DRM system on your work so that no one will be able to steal it from you.
• Video security. DRM encrypts the video content only to be played back by authorized users. It prevents unauthorized users from copying and sharing video content. DRM Streaming prevents piracy and protects your video copyright.
• Increased profitability for content owners. It is important to know that copyright-protected video streaming will allow you to stream your work on several different platforms.
• DRM streaming can help to ensure that your viewers have a smooth, uninterrupted viewing experience.

Top DRM Encrypted Streaming Technologies

DRM Streaming technologies are technologies that allow content providers to protect their digital content by streaming it over the internet. This technology protects the content by requiring the user to have a valid DRM license in order to play the content. DRM Streaming technologies help to protect the content from unauthorized access and ensure that the content is only played back on authorized devices.

VdoCipher Multi-DRM (Google & Apple) Streaming

There are many technical requirements involved to have Google Widevine DRM, and Apple Fairplay Service implemented. At VdoCipher, we offer secure video hosting solutions with Encrypted DRM Video Streaming. VdoCipher provides Widevine for Chrome, Firefox DRM via Widevine, and Fairplay for Apple devices, with Flash as a fallback. The multi-DRM video solution ensures that content providers can entirely rely on VdoCipher for distributing content on all devices.

• Complete video streaming solution
• Securely embed videos on your site with our standard APIs and Plugins
• Dedicated license servers and licensing database
• Streaming infrastructure includes Widevine architecture (encryption, transcoding, adaptive bitrate streaming & more)
• Upload videos easily through the Dashboard or VdoCipher APIs
• Quick integration with popular CMS with DRM and Watermark security
• Encrypted private key stored in AWS S3 or Google storage
• Dynamic HTML5 video player
• Adaptive Multi-bitrate Playback
• Free 30-day trial

Google Widevine DRM Encrypted Streaming

Google’s Widevine DRM is a content protection system for premium media. It is used by major partners worldwide such as Google Play, YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, Discovery+, Paramount+ and more. The purpose of Widevine is to provide the best experience for viewing premium content over digital distribution.

Widevine DRM encrypts streaming video content, allowing providers such as Netflix to deliver videos to viewers securely. It enables content providers to use a single solution to protect their content and provides a flexible, scalable, and secure technology platform, supporting the latest video formats and HD video.

The Widevine DRM platform uses standards-based royalty-free solutions for encryption, adaptive streaming, transport, and player software. It also includes free, open-source tools for content preparation and media playback, enabling openness and innovation at every level.

Widevine uses a combination of CENC encryption, adaptive streaming quality, and licensing key exchange to manage and send the video to users. It simplifies the work for service providers and supports the multi-level streaming quality based on the receiving device’s security capability.

Google Widevine DRM Streaming Features

Widevine DRM uses the open standard, Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP
(DASH). The DASH Protocol solves two major content delivery problems: Bandwidth and Transport.

Adaptive Bitrate Streaming – In an ideal scenario, videos are streamed to the users at the highest quality and rate. However, the delivery bandwidth may change over time for many reasons. As a result, the bandwidth decreases, and videos play at a lower bitrate to preserve continuity.

DASH solves this problem by taking video encoded at different resolutions and bitrates, converting it into fragmented MP4 files divided up into segments of the same length. When the device receives encrypted video, it checks the bandwidth and requests the
appropriate segment of the fragmented MP4 file from the server. As the stream quality is dynamically adapted, the viewer has an optimum playback experience.

Streaming over HTTP – Widevine DRM uses the open standard HTTP protocol because it is included in all browsers, and browsers are now part of most devices.

Google Widevine DRM Security Levels

The Google Widevine DRM has three levels:

Widevine Security Level L1 – Widevine L1 is the topmost level of DRM protection. All content processing, cryptography, and control are performed within the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). In some models, the security processing may perform in different chips. L1 devices can play videos at the highest possible resolution.

Widevine Security Level L2 – The cryptographic information is still processed within Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) but not video processing. It includes separate video hardware or software-based video processing. Typical 540p video resolution limit.

Widevine Security Level L3 – Does not have a TEE on the device. Only Software-based DRM protection. The content typically plays only at 480p.

Note: The Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is a secure area on a device that runs sensitive applications. The TEE is isolated from the main operating system and stores sensitive data, such as passwords and encryption keys. The TEE can also run applications that require a high level of security, such as financial applications.

Apple FairPlay DRM Streaming

FairPlay Streaming is an Apple-developed DRM system used to protect digital audio and video content from unauthorized access and use. FPS securely delivers keys to Apple mobile devices, Apple TV, and Safari on OS X, enabling playback of encrypted video content. Content providers, encoding vendors, and delivery platforms can encrypt content, FairPlay Streaming prevents unauthorized access and copying of audio and video content.

The content is delivered over the web via HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). FPS allows mobile devices and Apple TV to stop playback based on expiration information sent with the content key. Also, a constant FPS device identifier is sent to the server in a server playback context (SPC) message, allowing the server to anonymously and privately identify the device. FPS is integrated into the device operating systems, with native support on iOS and Apple TV. Safari on OS X enables FPS using Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) interface support.

HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) sends audio and video over HTTP from an ordinary web server for playback on iOS-based devices, including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV and on desktop computers (macOS). HLS is designed for reliability and dynamically adapts to network conditions by optimizing playback for the available speed of wired and wireless connections.

FairPlay allows a content provider to securely deliver an AES 128-bit content key from the provider’s key server. The content provider encrypts the H.264 video content with the content key. Then, FPS decrypts the encrypted video content with the content key.

Apple FairPlay DRM Streaming Workflow

• The user opens a video streaming client app to play a video.
• The client application notifies the AVFoundation to play FairPlay Streaming video content.
• AVFoundation downloads the m3u8 file from the content server and parses.
• AVFoundation checks the #EXT-X-KEY tag and requests the AVFoundation App Delegate for the content key for decryption.
• From AVFoundation, App Delegate requests Server Playback Context (SPC) data. After receiving it, the App Delegate sends it to the key server.
• The KSM module in the key server interprets SPC data and, from the key DB, retrieves the key required for content playback.
• The key server sends the retrieved content key to the client app in Content Key Context (CKC) data.
• AVFoundation Delegate in Client app enters CKC data into AVFoundation
• AVFoundation decrypts and plays content securely using the content keys contained in CKC data.

FAQs

What is the difference between DRM streaming and regular streaming?

The difference between DRM streaming and regular streaming is that DRM streaming is a way of streaming content that is protected by DRM. This means that the content can only be played on devices that support DRM, and that the content owner can control how it is used. Regular streaming is a way of streaming content that is not protected by DRM. This means that the content can be played on any device that supports the streaming protocol, and that the content owner cannot control how it is used.

Difference between streaming and downloading?

The difference between streaming and downloading is that streaming allows users to watch content instantly, but with a greater risk of buffering. Downloading allows users to view content at their leisure. For example, users must wait for content to download to their device before they can watch it.

What are the most common DRM streaming technologies?

The most common DRM streaming technologies are Google Widevine, Apple FairPlay Streaming, and Microsoft PlayReady.

Vishal Sharma

My expertise focuses on DRM encryption, CDN technologies, and streamlining marketing campaigns to drive engagement and growth. At VdoCipher, I’ve significantly enhanced digital experiences and contributed to in-depth technical discussions in the eLearning, Media, and Security sectors, showcasing a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital landscape.

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