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21-Jul-2010
by Philip Hunter
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Project Canvas will be’ big tent’ for DRMs
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Convergence TV
Project Canvas has been forced to make some technology compromises for its Internet TV delivery platform to be ready for launch, as hoped, early in 2011, notably by delaying support for multiple DRMs. Instead, Canvas has decided to launch with just one DRM, from the Marlin Development Community (MDC), which was set up in 2005 by four consumer electronics companies - Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Sony – plus content security technology developer Intertrust as the driving force.
The DRM was the most important and contentious technology choice facing Canvas, having to meet conflicting objectives. On the one hand, it has to satisfy the BBC Trust’s stipulations for openness and universal access, and on the other make the Internet sufficiently secure to deliver high value premium content from movie studios and others.
The DRM also had to be low cost. This was the main reason for the choice of Marlin, according to Michael Comish, CEO of Blinkbox, the online VOD company specialising in movies and trailers, which will be a user of Canvas. “Other people were slightly surprised by the choice of Marlin because it hasn’t been deployed recently,” said Comish. “I think one reason they went with Marlin is that the DRM will be zero cost to content providers. It’s a pretty big coup for Canvas really, because for all other services you’re not paying additional monies in DRM.”
It can also be seen as a coup for Marlin, given Project Canvas’ high profile, increasing its chance of adoption for other similar online platforms around the world. As Comish notes, Marlin has been sufficiently well proven to be endorsed by the leading movie studios, which was another major factor in its adoption by Canvas.
“The studios are also reassured by the big names that are getting behind Canvas. The push this will provide next year will only help grow the market for streamed premium movies and TV, wrapped in a DRM they are happy with,” Comish says.
The fact Marlin had been in play almost three years for IPTV services in Japan was also taken into account. The initial adoption, by Japanese web TV portal Actvila in 2007, was itself less of a surprise since the portal was created by Hitachi, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba, two of which founded the Marlin Development Community.
Marlin also ticked other important boxes, such as flexibility, according to Anthony Rose, Chief Technology Officer at Project Canvas. “Our content protection requirements have to cater for the widest possible number of content providers, including giving reassurance to those looking to support pay per view and subscription access to film,” explains. “The industry is looking for a fully supported DRM solution and Marlin will give content providers the best option at launch.”
Marlin’s support for open standards was also critical, Rose adds, in particular the fact it will be aligned with standards defined by the Open IPTV Forum, whose remit is to facilitate a consistent global IPTV market.
Marlin was considered the best fit at this stage for Project Canvas and its aim of making its platform, in effect, ‘iPlayer 2.0’, opening up access to multiple sources of content and providing a half-way house between the walled garden of IPTV services and unfettered web based portals such as YouTube.
But Marlin will not be the only DRM for Canvas, merely the first, as Comish was keen to emphasise. “There will be other DRMs – Canvas is planning to support RTMP, RTMP/E, SSO streaming and a range of others, although they haven’t announced them all,” said Comish.
These are really components of complete rights management systems with RTMP, for example, being Adobe’s proprietary protocol for streaming content over the Internet between a Flash player and a server. The point is that Canvas will, in time, support all the main DRM and content protection mechanisms that rights owners, ISPs or CE vendors may want to deploy. This includes traditional smartcard based mechanisms.
Other aspects of the Canvas technology platform are proving less controversial and will conform with the requirements of its founders, especially the BBC Trust, to make content fully accessible and usable. This means features such as audio description are incorporated into the core technical specification as soon as reasonably possible. “There should be appropriate information and signposting to help users make informed choices about the suitability of content wherever possible,” Rose notes.
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About the author
Philip Hunter is a leading specialist writer on the business of delivery and consumption of digital entertainment. He writes widely for both technical journals and specialist web sites, as well as more general interest publications such as Prospect Magazine, conveying complex ideas and subjects in a clear but not condescending manner. In the multimedia content and TV arenas, Philip combines in depth technical knowledge with appreciation of the business models that will bring success in the new age of on-demand content consumption, identifying the opportunities and pitfalls facing operators, broadcasters and content providers as they embrace new platforms beyond the traditional end point of the set top box.
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