Aiming to address DRM fragmentation across the industry, German VOD provider maxdome has turned to Irdeto to help move to HTML5 and MPEG DASH-based protection solutions.
A ProSiebenSat.1 Group subsidiary, maxdome claims to offer Germany's largest online video library and offers a wide variety of feature films, series, comedy shows, documentaries, and special children's programming – a total of more than 60,000 titles.
The company has been challenged by the fact that as browser vendors move to embed specific DRM technologies on each of their platforms, any OTT service viewed on a PC, Mac or the browser of any CE device will need to support multiple DRMs in order to ensure that all viewers can playback the content on the browser platform of their choice. Maxdome warns that this could cause a significant disruption to the user experience, and generate churn, if not addressed proactively.
Operating in what it calls a 'highly complex' OTT environment, maxdome offers a premium subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and pay-per-view service via online streaming and applications on a range of connected devices. With a heavily browser-dependent customer base, maxdome wanted to upgrade to support HTML5 browsers without plug-ins and a multi-DRM, MPEG DASH solution that would support that move.
The company is now using Irdeto Rights to support different DRM solutions for Web browsers through what it says is one of the world's first deployments combining MPEG DASH and Widevine.
With a previous strategy focused on Microsoft Silverlight, maxdome has now been able to move to a new model based around HTML5 and MPEG DASH streaming to ensure support across all browsers and expand beyond PlayReady, using Irdeto Rights to manage all DRMs and enforce maxdome's business policies across all platforms. This ensured that customer experience was not impacted by DRM changes while allowing maxdome to plan for future clients, browsers and DRMs as the market dictates.