Grass Valley and Irdeto launch multiscreen solution for broadcast

By
Merrick Kingston

Tom Morrod

April 11, 2011

Broadcast-equipment vendor Grass Valley, and middleware and content-security vendor Irdeto, have partnered to develop a multiscreen solution that is aimed at the world of broadcast. For managing content ingest, metadata, and transcoding, the solution relies upon Grass Valley's Mediafuse product; Mediafuse oversees the core, content management processes that allow live and pre-recorded content to be formatted, then IP-encapsulated for distribution to connectable devices. In order to ensure that this content is secured for IP distribution, the solution relies on the Irdeto Broadband suite - which is integrated across Irdeto's product range with several major DRMs including Microsoft's Windows Media DRM and PlayReady, and Adobe's Flash Access.

Also at NAB this year, both Harris and Harmonic have released multiscreen hardware in the form of dedicated transcoding platforms, for content wrapping and repurposing. Such platforms indicate that multiscreen solutions are set to become affordable as packaged products, rather than remain boutique systems that have often required siloed workflows, and a dense archive of pre-encoded and wrapped video assets.

The joint solution has been designed so that broadcasters who use current iterations of Mediafuse can upgrade to the new functionality, and importantly, leave their existing production infrastructure intact.

The opportunity to reach IP-connectable devices is not limited to pay-TV. Indeed, although many pay-TV operators have begun to distribute content to PCs, gaming consoles, and other connectable devices - and where this content includes linear broadcast that networks could directly distribute themselves - the market is not remotely saturated. The UK offers a telling example. In 2010, of the 83m installed connectable Blu-Ray players, connectable TV sets, Xbox360's, PS3s, smartphones and PCs, only 14m of these are addressed by pay-TV - corresponding to a total penetration of 16 per cent. There is ample opportunity for broadcasters to address the remaining 69m devices. Moreover, across both Western Europe and North America, pay-TV multiscreen penetration is much lower; pay-TV device penetration stands at 4 per cent in both regions.

The inclusion of Irdeto in Grass Valley's multiscreen product will allow the broadcast specialist to make a technical leap, providing a tool kit of pre-integrated DRMs for MediaFuse. In order to reach a wide range of addressable device ecosystem a multiscreen products either need to build it's own DRM integrations or partner with an established cross-DRM technology. For Grass Valley, this will allows it to not get bogged down in the complexities of the DRM market, which is further fragmenting from a universal, platform-and-device-independent DRM. Major traditional DRMs, such as Microsoft's Playready, Apple's Fairplay and Adobe's Flash Access all historically constituting the means to secure audio-visual content, while solutions from Marlin, Widevine, NDS and Nagravision have broadened the set of DRMs from which broadcasters and pay-TV operators may pick. For Irdeto, the opportunity to partner with Grass Valley further entrenches it's security products in video distribution. Not only will the Irdeto suite of DRM integrations allow Grass Valley's MediaFuse to engage in direct multi-device playout, but it also brings Irdeto's product range into the heart of multiscreen delivery - complimenting its current strengths in operator CA and middleware, and in consumer devices with Cloakware.

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Companies: Grass Valley Microsoft Apple Adobe Widevine NDS Nagravision Irdeto Marlin