Intertrust Tops 2B Devices With OTT Content Protection

Intertrust, a provider of digital rights management (DRM) technology, today said that its ExpressPlay DRM, a multi-DRM technology available across all streaming platforms, DRM, and media formats, now protects the over-the-top TV content for one-quarter of the world’s population, “supporting a seamless viewing experience for more than two billion people.”

The company said the growth in service population “came hand-in-hand with new records on the platform’s ability to handle massive transaction loads peaking over 50,000 requests per second in multi-operator, multi-DRM settings across several continents.”

Today’s announcement, at IBC in Amsterdam, also came in conjunction with a major expansion of ExpressPlay DRM’s sister product, ExpressPlay XCA, which is the world’s first open-standard software conditional access (CA) system for smart TVs and set-top boxes. Operators can use ExpressPlay XCA to bridge the gap between CA and DRM content protection in a single, converged broadcast and broadband service.

ExpressPlay is the only multi-DRM cloud that supports Apple FairPlay DRM, Google Widevine, Adobe Access, Microsoft PlayReady and open-standard Marlin DRM. It is fully compatible with ExpressPlay XCA, which uses Marlin DRM to provide seamless interoperability for hybrid TV operators on mobile, web, smart TVs and set-top boxes. ExpressPlay, which offers integration with leading watermarking technologies to protect early-window 4K/UHD content, also delivered another recent world record as the first DRM used for this application.

“ExpressPlay traces its roots to our pioneering DRM products in the ‘90s, and it is deeply rewarding to see it become the global gold-standard for multi DRM,” said Talal G. Shamoon, CEO at Intertrust Technologies. “As we license our technology to major native DRM platform providers, it’s an honor to run multi-DRM services for the world’s leading studios and service providers, who trust us to deliver flawless, secure services for their valuable content offerings.”

Protecting both content creators and users in all major broadcast markets, including wide adoption across Europe, the U.S., China, and India, the ExpressPlay platform is geographically distributed for high availability and low latency. It is the leading DRM technology in China and an essential component of nationwide video distribution initiatives in the U.K., Italy and Japan.

In the last year alone, ExpressPlay DRM has supported 23 million concurrent OTT users at a single major International sports event, with a peak handling load of 100 million daily active users for a specific event in one day.

The cloud-based service can enable online media service with robust rights management in a few easy integration steps without any new infrastructure or setup cost. It offers enhanced hardware security that meets Hollywood standards for premium UHD/4K and early-window content, single API access for multi-DRM support, and end-to-end content protection enhanced with session-based video watermarking.

Media and analysts can learn more about ExpressPlay DRM at IBC 2019 in Amsterdam which takes place at the RAI convention venue. Interested parties are invited to the Intertrust booth in Hall 5 (Booth 5.A55), or they can contact [email protected] to arrange an online or in-person briefing and demo.

For more IBC 2019 coverage, click here.