DRMtoday for Widevine CAS
Using a conditional access system (CAS) for broadcasting has typically been expensive, but it doesn’t have to be.
DRMtoday provides a streamlined managed service for Google’s Widevine CAS to simplify deployment and greatly reduce the cost of securing your PayTV video service.
Cut your CAS costs
Gain more value from your infrastructure and business model by saving on delivery. Widevine CAS offers a modern method to securely reach audiences at a fraction of traditional CAS costs using open technology.
- No device royalties
- No proprietary STB middleware
- No smart cards
- Avoid vendor lock-in
Superb security
We make setting up Widevine CAS key management and entitlement simple.
Built for Android TV
Easily operate DVB and IPTV services across Android TV with native set-top box security.
Cloud delivery
Avoid an on-prem EMMG with our leading worldwide cloud license delivery.
Seriously scalable
Based on our proven DRM license network we easily scale to meet any growth with billions of deliveries each month.
Hybrid licensing
In addition to CAS you can also access multiple DRM systems for protecting OTT streams across all screens.
We work directly with leading SOC vendors to ensure Widevine CAS works smoothly and securely across set-top boxes.
Widevine CAS enabled devices feature level 1 hardware security for HD, UHD, and HDR playback experiences.
We don’t just help curb piracy, DRMtoday solves content owner protection requirements.
DRMtoday has received the Farncombe Security Audit® mark from Cartesian’s extensive review of our service.
Easy admin
- Manage and monitor your licensing activity through our user-friendly dashboard.
- Reselling support to oversee your own clients.
- Multi-tenancy for enterprise media groups to oversee their service brands.
We’ll get you to market fast
As a member of Widevine’s Third Party Labs (3PL) partner program, we’re trusted to provide dedicated end-to-end Widevine CAS solutions. Our approach gets you running quickly by avoiding custom development and lengthy implementations.
Use the standard Android TV media framework and our PRESTOplay for Android SDK for rapid IPTV/DVB & hybrid OTT player set up.
Need deployment assistance?
We’ve been working with conditional access since 2007. Our expert support is on your side to solve any challenge encountered along the way.
- Enable STB hardware playback
- ECMG customization
- Headend integration
- Hybrid PayTV & OTT solutions
“The flexibility and extension of castLabs’ DRMtoday cloud service and its professional services allowed us to converge our PayTV CAS and OTT DRM requirements into one single solution. castLabs provided us strong support and confidence during the whole Widevine CAS migration process.”
Let’s get technical
DRMtoday for Widevine CAS workflow
- At the headend, a scrambler encrypts the source video with often changing scrambling keys (control words). This is usually performed by a headend multiplexer.
- The Simulcrypt Synchronizer (SCS) sends these control words to the Entitlement Control Message Generator (ECMG) which wraps them with another, seldom changing service key (entitlement key).
- The ECMG talks to our DRMtoday license server over HTTPS to ingest and pull entitlement keys.
- The ECMG embeds the entitlement keys together with additional metadata into an Entitlement Control Message (ECM) and sends this back to the SCS.
- The headend sends the ECM to the Android TV device with the encrypted broadcast video.
- On the STB, our Widevine CAS enabled PRESTOplay player software asks DRMtoday for the entitlement key via HTTPS.
- If the customer is authorized, DRMtoday delivers Entitlement Management Messages (EMMs) which are special Widevine licenses containing the entitlement keys needed to unwrap control words. The broadcast stream can now be safely decrypted and played.
| Security | |
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| Widevine CAS Widevine security level 1
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| Hardware-security licensing In Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) |
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Group licensing
Combine multiple individual channels within a group license. A single group license can then be delivered which is valid for any channel within the group. This is useful to simplify delivery loads and improve channel change latency.
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License pre-fetching
When a license expires a new license can be automatically available ahead of time to use. This helps to avoid playback delays and mitigates against latency when changing channels.
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License renewals
This is useful for subscription management. For example: An issued license may have a preset time limit. When it expires a STB can automatically try to renew the license. If the user still has a valid subscription then the license is renewed, and if not the request is denied.
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Persistent licensing
Enables licenses to be downloaded on user devices for secure local offline playback.
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| Entitlement key rotation | |
| Content key rotation | |
| Encryption modes | AES-CBC/ECB/CTR/OFB/SCTE, ATIS-IDSA, DVB-CISSA/CSA2/CSA3 |
| Entitlement Control Message Generator (ECMG)
On-prem or as a managed cloud service
Supports DVB Simulcrypt
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| Entitlement Management Message Generator (EMMG) | |
| DRM for OTT Widevine, PlayReady, FairPlay Streaming, WisePlay |
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| Playback use-cases | |
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| Platform support | Android TV 9+ |
| IPTV & DVB delivery | RTP, UDP, DVB-C/S/S2/T/T2 |
| Video format | MPEG-TS |
| SD/HD/UHD/4K | |
| Pre-integrated with PRESTOplay for Android
For hybrid IPTV/DVB & OTT as a single player |
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| License delivery network | |
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| Server infrastructure | Global multi-region AWS servers |
| Highly scalable | |
| Fault-tolerant & high global availability Multiple instances per region
for added redundancy
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| Low-latency licensing Fast channel start times
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| Rapid world-wide key synchronization | |
| Online dashboard | |
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| ECMG configuration Including channels & groups |
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| Configure delivery & authentication behavior | |
| Extensive documentation | |
| Delivery logs and reporting Including user device type
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| Reporting API Examples: download delivery logs, monthly summaries
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| Configuration API Examples: license delivery, user accounts, ECMG
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| Reseller support and client management | |
| Customer support | |
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| Customer support portal | |
| 24/7 support available (Gold SLA) | |
