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HLS and AES workflow on JWPlayer Platform


Hi. We're currently evaluating alternatives for a provider that integrates both HLS and AES encryption in its platform. We've seen that the Enterprise subscription supports HLS playback and AES *decryption*. But before we decide, we'd like to address the following questions:

1) Do you integrate the AES *encryption* process as part of the hosting platform? I mean, could we upload our MP4 files directly and process both encoding and encryption on JWPlayer Platform? Or do we need a separate hosting for previously encrypted files? If so, it seems we'd lose some of the functionality included, as thumbnail track generation, or even automatic encoding for different resolutions/formats, right? We've read that AES encryption would be a feature in your development plans (march 2016 or so), but were wondering if there's an implementation ready or estimated timeframe.

2) Do you support HLS automatically for videos uploaded to your own JWPlayer Platform on Enterprise accounts?

Again, we'd like to know if our workflow/pipeline would be as simple as configuring our desired settings/conversions and just upload MP4 files and have the required processing (segments, encryption and so on) already taken care of, or if we'd need a third-party service for HLS and/or AES, as this would be a significant factor in the decision-making process. Thanks for your attention.

3 Community Answers

Donni

JW Player Support Agent  
1 rated :

You would need separate hosting as the player will only perform decryption at this point I don’t have an ETA on if or when we would perform encryption. As for your second question, every video that is uploaded is converted to HLS and soon we we will also make DASH available as well. Do you need to have AES encryption or would you be interested in token signed URLs?

j...

User  
0 rated :

Hi, Donni, thanks for your answer.

We've already tried the URL Token Signing succesfully on a Free account, but as long as the token is still active (i.e. has not expired), the user could easily download the complete video. Would this still be an issue with HLS on an Enterprise account?

Since our content is delivered on demand via subscription only to our customers -just for streaming, not download-, we want to avoid downloads and unauthorized reproduction/redistribution as much as possible. So, we'd thought AES encryption would be helpful, but are open to examining alternatives, while still trying to keep our workflow simple, better yet with a single service provider - probably JWPlayer Platform. DASH sounds like a feasible alternative too, if this could be available into the workflow very soon - is there an ETA?.

What would you suggest in an scenario like ours? Would the combination of HLS / DASH and URL Token Signing be sufficient to prevent unauthorized content redistribution? We've also looked at DRM, but for the time being, it seems that we'd like to wait for more mature/less fragmented implementations in that subject, as maintaining several thid-party service providers would also increase costs considerably. Thanks in advance.

Donni

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Hi Juan,

I’m going to take this offline and have someone from our sales team reach out to you directly.

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