Today Brightcove announced the commercial availability of Google’s Widevine multi-platform digital rights management (DRM) technology as part of Video Cloud, delivering on the commitment we first made at NAB this year. We’re proud to be the only online video platform provider offering commercial availability of Widevine DRM, and are equally excited to announce our first Video Cloud/Widevine customers in Television New Zealand and LG Electronics.
DRM is a critical step in the evolution of online video as publishers are under increasing pressure to monetize their premium content and services. Widevine supports monetization strategies by protecting valuable video content against piracy and misuse while also ensuring the integrity of business relationships such as licensing and distribution agreements between content owners and distributors.
Using Widevine, Video Cloud customers can securely deliver and enable playback video across a broad array of consumer electronics devices including connected TVs, Blu-ray players, smartphones, game consoles, tablets, set-top boxes and PCs. With more than 539 million enabled devices worldwide, Widevine offers one of the largest DRM footprints in the industry.
Television New Zealand Online Product Manager Richard Beniston commented on the importance of DRM for his organization: “As a broadcaster holding a significant amount of acquired content, DRM solutions are critical to our ability to securely deliver key content to the endpoints where our viewers want us to be. The Widevine/Video Cloud solution enables us to extend our service to a number of crucial connected devices, and Brightcove has demonstrated a clear understanding that cross-platform DRM is an integral piece of the puzzle for us.”
LG Electronics, also a Video Cloud customer, is using our Widevine integration to bolster its premium content initiatives. “LG is increasing the amount of high-quality premium video content on the LG Connected TV platform in direct response to consumer demand,” says Young-jae Seo, vice president of the service division of LG’s Smart Business Center. “Brightcove’s integration of Widevine with Video Cloud seamlessly automates the complicated processes associated with digital rights management, allowing us to securely deliver content and protect our content partnerships.”
Our cloud-based Widevine DRM is incorporated into Video Cloud’s media asset ingestion process. This lets content owners and licensees securely upload premium content for programmatic encryption and packaging with Widevine DRM. The packaged assets can be distributed through Video Cloud to distribution partners and CDNs for delivery to Widevine-enabled CE devices.
We’re showing the Video Cloud/Widevine DRM integration during IBC, September 7-11 in Amsterdam. We encourage you to visit the Brightcove stand, 5.C20, to see it for yourself.