Why is DRM useful to distribute video content?
Anyone in the business of commercial video distribution, be it in the enterprise or entertainment space, should be fully aware of the imperative to protect such video from unauthorized viewing, copying or re-distribution. If you don't have such protection in place, its increasingly hard to create a viable business around the video service. Content producers (including movie and TV industries) are especially protective of their video assets and, if you try and license such assets for your service, they impose strict rules on distribution to ensure that appropriate protections are in place. DRM solutions are the core of such protection mechanisms. They are used to encrypt video before distribution AND control the distribution of the vital license information that limits viewership to a specific time window and to trusted devices and consumers. See our comparison matrix. The specifics of DRM requirements and constraints can vary with the quality (or value) of the assets being licensed. These requirements can dictate what content can be delivered to particular classes of devices, such as PCs, smart phones and tablets for example. In general, and with today’s technology landscape, SD (480p) playback can utilize software-based DRM while HD (720p+) playback typically requires a hardware enhanced DRM implementation (see FAQ section on hardware security). Providing 4K/UHD quality content also typically requires hardware-secured DRM along with additional security requirements beyond DRM, including watermarking (see FAQ section on watermarking).