Weighing multiple security perspectives in the new world of pay-TV

 

The new decade brings security challenges to the pay-TV world that are not just about trying to outpace video pirates (writes Steve Christian, VP of Marketing at Verimatrix). Video service providers are contemplating landmark changes in their service profiles, which provide them the opportunity for them to take a fresh look at the value brought by security providers.

These significant changes, surveyed from a global perspective, include:

• Transitioning from analogue to digital
• Upgrading from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 (with or without HD)
• Adding hybrid IP-based solutions to broadcast networks

Pay-TV operators of all types, and at all stages of network development, are realising that a flexible and effective content security architecture can be the essential enabler of innovative business models and improve their competitive positioning. The shape and flexibility of an overall security solution has therefore become a critical strategic decision.

Evolving security threats

All pay-TV operators have the fundamental interest in securing their revenue from various types of revenue leakage, including theft of service. As pay-TV globally increasingly moves to digital, IP-based network delivery, operators must prepare for evolving security threats - and the commercial stakes for HD content are significantly higher than that of SD – and now 3D is on the horizon as well.

While the delivery of content to a new breed of IP-enabled set-top boxes (STBs) or other networked equipment brings potentially very significant changes to the economics of a pay-TV operation, it also raises concerns about unlimited re-distribution. Connectivity can actually be an asset for content management as it also creates greater visibility of content throughout its lifecycle. Two-way IP networks provide the potential for checking that digital rights management (DRM) rules are being enforced, and tracing individual content files.

All these factors lead to the imperative of monetising premium content.

Complex security considerations

In response, as operators are planning for these network upgrades, they must address a unique set of complex issues. The goal is to ensure the security path taken minimises costs without sacrificing their ability to meet service requirements over the long term. For example, any re-evaluation of security options, whatever the nature of the planning horizon that triggers it, brings into play a matrix of considerations having to do with legacy video formats, the proportion of subscribers affected by the new security system, the ages and types of STBs in the field, managing the infrastructure logistics, and the service providers’ longer-term service goals.

However, there are other perspectives that need to be considered regarding conditional access and rights management requirements.

Regulatory

Service provides need to consider their region’s regulatory environment in licensing and securing content delivery. The convergence between broadcasting and broadband can be a significant headache for regulators, with a blurring of previous demarcations between entertainment and communication and often even between the governmental agencies involved.

Great variations exist in regulatory ambitions and politics between countries. For example, some countries may want to block content that is critical of the government, while other countries are mainly concerned about material that is deemed culturally offensive. One common theme is a concern with copyright enforcement and an interest in developing tools that can help regulators police the system being created, such as digital watermarking.

Content owners

For the studios and content owners, the threat of large-scale piracy, which undermines the revenue potential of their product, is still very prevalent. Content owner’s focus is on enforcing digital rights through technological and legal processes to ensure that a single distribution channel does not impact potential revenue in other geographic or release windows.

However, they are also feeling the pressure for innovative business approaches from ever more demanding consumers and the growing capacity of broadband connections. Furthermore, new media outlets and video-enabled devices are up-ending established business models. Content owners are examining if more transparent and inclusive distribution policies will maximise profits through broader consumption or risk eroding profits through piracy.

Subscribers

Yet arguably, the most important perspective to consider is that of the subscribers. The new world of pay-TV has the potential of confusing customers as they find new options in consumption devices and new ways of accessing services. Apart from a new competitive front for pay-TV services and rethinking the content navigation experience, multi-screen delivery may challenge consumer’s understanding of their usage rights.

Tomorrow’s successful service providers must be able to offer consistency across all access points regardless of the potential back-office complexities. Most consumers are simply looking for clear and transparently enforced rules relating to the material they purchase. And operators certainly want to avoid a flood of customer service calls from frustrated subscribers.

IP-centric security approaches

Weighing all of these perspectives, service providers ultimately want to migrate to a security system that can serve as a single-source content security platform for services that are designed to reach multiple screens across multiple networks. They want a solution that can draw on encryption, conditional access (CA), DRM and watermarking techniques to dynamically apply whatever types of security are appropriate to each individual content stream no matter which delivery network is used and no matter what type of device is used to access it.

Fortunately, software-based security systems now provide the flexibility to escape traditional CA system restrictions without compromising security or adding complications to the consumer’s experience. In fact, software-based systems can provide new levels of security essential to new multi-device service models that would be impossible to achieve with legacy systems.

A unified, software-based pay-TV security system is a vital ingredient for operators looking to expand their service profiles, partly to meet regulatory, contractual and service protection obligations. Most importantly though, a unified security system that supports multi-layered protection, allows new business models to emerge and flourish.

Source: IPTV-News