VOD Anywhere
‘DIGITAL LOCKER’ COULD HELP CABLE GROW ON-DEMAND
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/15/2010 3:16:11 PM
Soon, you may be able to buy a copy of The Hurt Locker from a retailer - and then access it from a "digital locker" through your cable company's video-on-demand service.
The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, a coalition formed a year and a half ago, is establishing standards that would let consumers buy a piece of digital media once, and then play it back on different devices after logging into their account.
“The digital proof-of-purchase is in the cloud,” said Mitch Singer, president of DECE and Sony Pictures Entertainment’s chief technology officer.
STREAMLINING DOWNLOADS
Primarily, the initiative is an effort by movie studios to replace the gaping hole left behind by falling DVD sales. DECE aims to standardize and streamline the digital supply chain for movie downloads, which has been a mish-mash of different formats and proprietary standards.
DECE “has to happen, because you’re talking about the disappearance of a multibillion-dollar business,” said Brian Baker, CEO of content-protection vendor Widevine Technologies, which is a member of the coalition.
But DECE, which counts 48 member companies to date, also could open a door for new value-added services for cable VOD products, according to industry executives. For example, an MSO could now start selling videos — rather than just renting access to them — which could be accessible on multiple devices through any DECE-enabled affiliate.
“It’s potentially a new business for cable operators,” said Dave Brown, director of strategy and business development for Motorola’s Broadband Home Solutions group. “Now they can be a sales channel for electronic sell-through.”
A pay TV provider could also charge a monthly premium to allow subscribers to access the content in their personal DECE “locker.”
Already, Comcast, Cox Communications, Liberty Global and CableLabs are members of DECE. Individual operators, though, aren’t ready to talk publicly about where they see the idea headed.
Cox manager of public relations Erin Lambremont said how DECE will play into future VOD offerings has yet to be fully determined, “but suffice it to say we view these type initiatives as additive to and not replacements for VOD.”
For DECE, the next major milestone involves completing its core technical specifications, including media format, as well as getting the centralized digital rights locker up and running.
After evaluating six providers, the coalition selected Sterling, Va.-based Neustar as the vendor for the “digital rights locker,” a network-based authentication service and account management hub that will authenticate users’ right to view content from multiple services and on multiple devices.
Singer is hoping the rights locker from Neustar, which currently operates the directories for telephone-number portability in North America, will be ready to test later in 2010.
So far, DECE has agreed on a common file format and approved five digital rights management technologies for use with its spec: Adobe Systems’ Flash Access, CMLA-OMA V2, the Marlin DRM open standard, Microsoft’s PlayReady and Widevine.
Now, DECE is hammering out the specifics on its media format, which Singer said will be based on MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding H.264 with 128-bit encryption. “There’s a lot that needs to happen before we get into the market,” Singer said.
HOLDOUTS REMAIN
One sticking point for DECE is that there are two notable holdouts: The Walt Disney Co. and Apple. Disney is developing a competing system, KeyChest, that would perform similar authentication for digital content, and Apple sells songs and videos in proprietary formats through the iTunes Store.
DECE hopes to build critical mass to become the one industry standard accepted by everyone. “The important thing is that this will be cross-retailer, so it will work whether I buy it on Blu-Ray from Best Buy or buy it from any other retailer like CinemaNow or Comcast,” Singer said.
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