How to secure your digital content using video encryption

You want others to see your music video if you publish it on the internet. However, if your film is for corporate training, you don't want unauthorised persons to see your sensitive company information. Video encryption can keep unauthorised people from accessing your content.

Data breaches, illegal sharing and data theft are all dangers for modern businesses. To be competitive in today's world, you must rely on content security to keep your company's information safe and secure.

Encrypting your videos is one method of safeguarding your company's data. Once your video footage has been encrypted, you can safely share it with your employees, customers, partners, and prospects.

There are three ways to safeguard your videos from unwanted access: encrypting the video, protecting the video, or doing both.

What is encryption?

While encryption refers to the hiding or modifying of data, protection refers to safeguarding the file using codecs, passwords, container formats, and so on, all so that outsiders cannot access the data contained within.

However, for increased security, you can use both encryption and protection, which is the greatest solution for securing your content. In informal conversation, the term encryption can refer to encryption, protection, encoding, or any combination of the three. As a result, encryption in this context means securing your data in every way possible, which includes encryption as well as protection.

What exactly is video encryption?

The method of making your video secure from prying eyes is known as video encryption. Why should you encrypt your videos? There could be two explanations for this. The first is for personal use, and the second is for Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Personal encryption, as the name implies, is used to protect one's privacy. For example, suppose you make a film and want to share it with your relatives, mates, customers, and so on, but you don't want unwanted people to access it.

Digital Rights Management is similar in concept but more sophisticated. The various degrees of DRM are as follows:

– Software-centric video
– Adaptive streaming
– Qualitative and quantitative video streams for various price points
– Device or media-centric video
– Region-centric video

So, what exactly is the distinction between personal encryption and Digital Rights Management? Others are kept out of personal encryption except for the intended recipient. However, in the case of DRM, it either temporarily or permanently shuts people out, without human intervention and under certain conditions.

For various pricing ranges, qualitative and quantitative video feeds are available. – If you're willing to spend more money, you can obtain 4K, but if you want to save money, you'll have to settle for SD. It has an effect on the quality since it directly affects the resolution (physical data of the video stream). The higher the price, the higher the quality.

Region-centric video

Do you want to target a specific region? Perhaps you don't want the video to be seen in other areas or countries. The reasons for this type of DRM could be because you are legally prohibited from catering to other regions, or you want to influence market dynamics. In such cases, region-specific management is required.

Device or media-centric

This is done to prevent your material from playing on incompatible devices. You generate media that is limited to a specific device, such as iTunes, Kindle, or Apple TV. As such, those who do not adhere to the devices in question are unable to play it.

Software-centric video

To play some videos, you must have proper software support and/or pay a licence fee. Specific NLEs will not play certain codecs if the operating system does not support them or if the licence is not paid for. As a result, codec licensing is yet another method for controlling video consumption.

Adaptive streaming

During adaptive streaming, the video dynamically changes to the resolution and bit rate of the internet speed and/or other circumstances.

How are online videos kept secure?

The video is first encoded using conventional encryption and stored on a secure server. The video is not available for everyone to view. To view/access the movie, you must first log in to the server using a confirmed email address and password.

The video is delivered to the viewer's computer through a secure channel and may be watched using a browser that decrypts the video. The browser prevents unwanted access to other applications to see or record it. The browser also prevents the OS from storing the material on the viewer's PC. The secure connection ends as soon as the viewing is over. The data from the viewer is sent on to the content provider for targeted marketing and statistical study. You may also use this data to track down pilferages and leaks. And, if the video is accidentally downloaded, the encryption ensures that it does not play on the accessible media player.

How exactly does video encryption prevent piracy?

The "pirate" must have sufficient expertise to decrypt the encryption. To obtain a high-quality stream, pirates must pay up. And, of course, if you pay, the server will have the essential information about you.

To obtain an accessible format, the pirate must encode the encrypted stream using the software. The procedure either increases the file size or decreases the quality of the source. As the file size grows, the pirate must pay more money to transfer the data again. To detect correlations, cloud algorithms might use the uploaded material and compare it to the original stream.

Options for video encryption

When it comes to video encryption, there really are two scenarios: video at rest and video in action (streaming).

Video at rest

Here are some possibilities for videos that remain on hard drives or are downloaded to play later:

– AES encryption standard - 128, 192, or 256 bits
– Google Widevine
– Apple Fair Play for iTunes videos
– Marlin
– PMP (Protected Media Path) in Windows

Video in motion or video streaming

Some examples of video in motion or streaming video include:

– RTMFP and RTMP(E)
– HTML5 DRM standard

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which has been approved by the government of the United States and is currently utilised all over the world, is the encryption method that provides the highest level of safety.