Cisco: Multi-DRM (Digital Rights Management) Done Right

Content protection technology used to be selected by the video service provider, and was typically based on a controlled proprietary solution. That is no longer the case.

Consumers today enjoy all kinds of content on a myriad of devices. No longer are viewers tied to the living room — they can enjoy content on tablets, gaming consoles, mobile devices, and new technologies emerging every day.

All of this content is protected by several different Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, which control the access to copyrighted material.

Different types of content and devices may require building and maintaining unique DRM solutions comprised of encrypting systems and specific DRM schemes.

In the future there will be many more types of devices and content, and each may require a wider variety of DRM protections.

The proliferation of devices and formats can lead to exponential complexity and increased cost. If not done right, the operator can find itself needing to build, maintain and operate isolated systems, and integrating these systems can be a nightmare by itself.

Cisco VideoGuard manages this complexity by leveraging cloud technologies to combine all the different DRM schemes into one centralized architecture. It provides a single point of control for simulcrypt technology, multi-DRM backend, and hardening of third party DRM protocols, so adding new devices and formats can be done with much less cost and complexity.

Over the past three decades Cisco had developed and deployed content protection technology for the world largest Pay TV providers. Our VideoGuard solution is deployed on over a quarter of a billion devices worldwide. We accumulated a tremendous content protection knowledge and expertise and are now taking it to the next level.

Enough said. Now, as we are focused on video, we thought it might be fun to bring the above story to life. Which is why we created this short clip. Enjoy!