We are pleased to announce the public availability of Azure Media Services Content Protection services. This includes Microsoft PlayReady License service and AES clear key delivery services! In addition, you will now have multiple options to secure your media content and delivery with Microsoft PlayReady or AES-128 bit CBC encryption. You can do the encryption either during delivery (dynamic encryption) or during the content processing workflow (static encryption). These capabilities are available to everyone via the Azure.com management portal or APIs. Let’s dive right in!
Microsoft PlayReady
With the availability of Content Protection service, you can now secure your content with Microsoft PlayReady technology. Microsoft PlayReady is an extensive, studio approved encryption technology that protects your content from piracy. Now with this new service, you can simply use this service from the cloud with simple configuration and not having to worry about managing infrastructure or protecting the keys.
Using Microsoft PlayReady as a part of the Content Protection Service is a two-step process – encrypting the content and then delivery of PlayReady Licenses to the devices to consume the same. Microsoft PlayReady is supported on a wide range of most popular devices today.
Here is a short video that explains how you can use it from the management portal. In addition, we are publishing updates to the Azure Media SDK and samples enabling you to integrate these service into your workflow. You can refer to the diagram below for our service architecture.
Clear Key AES-128 bit Protection
In many cases, where privacy is not the most important concern and the robustness of Microsoft PlayReady is not required, we have AES-128 bit clear key encryption capabilities supported as well. We have heard examples like Enterprise Video, time-sensitive content, etc. where this is a case.
Using AES-128 bit clear key is similar to PlayReady where you need to encrypt the content and then serve a key over HTTPS to the devices so that they can playback content. This form of encryption is supported by several devices like iOS and Android out of the box without requiring special SDKs. We are making this capability available to all our customers today with this release.
Here is a short video on how to use the Clear Key service via the Azure management portal. Just like with PlayReady, you can also access the capabilities via the SDKs and REST APIs. Meanwhile, you can refer to the diagram below for our service architecture.
Availability and Pricing
As mentioned above the service is available starting today to all Azure customers. Our goal with these service is to bring industry standard content protection options at a reasonable pricing. The pricing details are available on Azure pricing page.
To use these services simply login to the portal and/or download the SDKs to get started. Here are some links that will help you going:
- Azure Media Services 3.0.0.7 NuGet release: https://www.nuget.org/packages/windowsazure.mediaservices/3.0.0.7
- Sign up for Azure PlayReady service via Azure Preview feature page: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/preview/
- Content Protection Feature deep dive: http://mingfeiy.com/playready