Patent ID: 8402280

Claim:
A method, comprising: buffering in a first buffer an audio video (AV) stream encrypted under a shared symmetric key in an M2TS format, where all content data of the AV stream at picture level and below, with the exception of content headers of the content data, is excluded from the buffering; buffering in a second buffer content header information encrypted under the shared symmetric key, the content header information indicating locations of the buffered content headers, such that the buffered content header information is usable as an index for locating the buffered content headers to allow retrieval of the buffered content headers without decryption of an entirety of the buffered content data; and buffering in a third buffer a content elementary stream encrypted under a hardware secret key for consumption of a hardware bit stream decoding engine; wherein the buffering of the AV stream, the content header information, and the content elementary stream is a result of content digital right management (DRM) hardware processing and is at least in part for use by a software player.