What is DRM (Digital Rights Management) & How to Enable It?
Product: Muvi OneMultiple DRMs per OS & Browser
DRM Support in Mobile Browsers
Features Not Supported in the DRM Player
DRM Supported in Different Devices & Platforms
Introduction
After publishing your video and/or audio content to your store (website, app), your major concern is whether the content is secure or not. There is a chance that someone might download and misuse your content if it is not protected or secured. Consequently, various methods are available to protect digital content, ensuring that it cannot be copied or downloaded unauthorizedly and misused. One such method is implementing DRM or Digital Rights Management. DRM is implemented by inserting code that stops copying, limits the number of devices the content can be accessed, or specifies a time during which the content can be accessed. Muvi's Multi-DRM solution provides license management features for multiple DRM formats such as Widevine, PlayReady, and FairPlay, and enables you to deliver content securely over the browser, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and more. Even your live streaming content is encrypted and broadcast to users who have authentic access to your live events.
How to Enable DRM
You can enable DRM for video while adding a video encoding profile. You can also edit an existing encoding profile and enable the DRM. When you are creating content, select the profile where you have enabled the DRM option. The video will automatically get encoded with DRM.
- To add a DRM-enabled video encoding profile, click on” Encoding” in the CMS.
- Click on "Add Profile" in the top right corner.
- Type a profile name (e.g., DRM, DRM-Video, DRM-Audio, etc.).
- Select the “Source Type” to video (to enable DRM for video content).
- Enable DRM (Digital Rights Management).
- Click on “Save”.
- You can also edit an existing encoding profile and enable/disable DRM for that profile.
- The Profile will be created.
- You can select the DRM profile while creating new content or updating the existing content.
| *Note:
HLS HLS has wide playback support, and it can be easily played in a browser without any additional software. It is the only format Safari browser supports, the default web browser on Apple devices. MPEG Dash
MPEG-DASH relies on the Player software for playback support. iPhones, MacBooks, and other Apple products cannot play video delivered over MPEG-DASH as it is not supported on the Safari browser.
Third-Party Feeds DRM is not supported for third-party feeds added in Muvi One, as we don't encode third-party feeds |
How DRM Works
At Muvi, your content is protected by the DRM. The DRM technology ensures that the video is in an encrypted format (i.e. MPEG-DASH or HLS [.m3u8]) and available in parts so that the complete video/audio can’t be accessed in one file. Here, the Bento4 tool is used to convert MP4 video to MPEG-DASH. Even if someone downloads some parts of the video, he/she can’t play the video as it requires a License key to play the content. To decrypt the video, the downloader needs 2 things - Content Unique Key & License Key. The Token generated is device-specific, which means, the token generated for one device won’t work on another.
- At Muvi, we use industry-standard DRMs including Google Widevine, Apple FairPlay, and Microsoft PlayReady. Google Widevine is used in Chrome, Microsoft Playready in IE & Edge browser, and Apple FairPlay is used in the Safari browser.
- The license key is unique for each DRM account. The content key is unique for each content. Once encoding is completed, we upload the video to the respective S3 bucket. This file format is.MPD.
- End-user browses content to play with Muvi’s proprietary HTML5 Player. The player contains the Amazon Cloud front CDN URL for the content. CDN URL points to the packaged MPEG-DASH video stored in the respective S3 bucket.
- When the end-user browses for the content, we select which DRM license to use depending on the end-users browser. Client DRM processes the license key & plays the content if authentication is successful.
Testing DRM
If you want to test whether your content is DRM enabled or not, then try to download the content in the Firefox browser. It will show you a warning message that the content is DRM enabled and you cannot download it. You can also ask us to send you.MPD file and.MPEG-DASH stream. You won’t be able to play the videos as they will be encrypted. You will be able to play videos only inside our player as it has the decryption client.
Testing DRM-Supported Devices
To find out whether a device supports DRM-enabled content or not, you can try to play this Test Link on that specific device. If the content is played seamlessly on that device, then it supports DRM-enabled content.
DRM Supported Platforms
We support DRM content for the following platforms.
| Platform | Supports DRM Content (Yes/No) |
| Web | |
| Website | Yes |
| Mobile* | |
| Android | Yes |
| iPhone | Yes |
| Fire OS | Yes |
| TV Apps | |
| Roku | No |
| Apple TV | Yes |
| Android TV | Yes |
| Fire TV | Yes |
| Samsung Tizen App | Yes |
| LG TV App | Yes |
| VEDW TV App | No |
| Casting** | |
| Chromecast | Yes |
| AirPlay | Yes |
| Gaming Console | |
| XBOX | No |
Note:
|
Multiple DRMs per OS & Browser
For different types of Operating Systems (OS) and Browsers, different DRMs are available. Below is the list of different Operating Systems and Browsers and supported DRMs for them.
| Operating System | Browser | DRM |
| Microsoft Windows (7, 8, 10, 11) | Edge, IE | PlayReady
|
| Apple (iOS, iPadOS, watchOS 7, tvOS, and macOS) | Safari | FairPlay
|
| Google (Android) | Chrome, Firefox, Barve | Widevine
|
DRM Supported OS & Browsers
Below is the list of Operating Systems and Browsers that support DRM.
| OS | Browser | Video Play (Yes/No) | |
| Windows 10 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 10 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 10 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 10 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 8 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 8 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 8 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 7 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 7 |
|
Yes | |
| Windows 7 |
|
No | |
| MAC OS 10.10.5 |
|
Yes | |
| MAC OS 10.10.5 |
|
Yes | |
| Mac OS 10.12 |
|
Yes | |
| Mac OS 10.12 |
|
Yes | |
| Mac OS 10.12.1 |
|
Yes | |
| Mac OS 10.12.1 |
|
Yes | |
| Mac OS 10.12.1 |
|
Yes | |
| MAC OS 10.11.3 |
|
Yes | |
| MAC OS 10.11.3 |
|
Yes |
DRM Support in Mobile Browsers
| OS | Browser Support | Video Play (Yes/No) |
| iOS 11.2 & Higher | Safari | Yes |
| iOS 11.2 & Higher | Chrome | No |
| Android 6.1 & Higher | Chrome 60 & Above | Yes |
| Note: Mobile browsers that do not support DRM content playback display the following error message when users attempt to play the content. |
Features Not Supported in the DRM Player
The DRM player doesn't support certain features that are supported in the non-DRM player.
- Resolution - Users are not able to change the resolution on a DRM player. While playing the DRM content, the player doesn't show the gear icon to select and change the resolution.
- Flash Player Functionality - is not supported in the DRM player.
- Back Button, Resume Watch, AutoPlay, and Play Duration features are not supported in the DRM Embed Player, Preview Player, and Social Share Player. However, these features are supported in the Frontend DRM player.
How to Disable DRM
If you wish to disable DRM for your store, you need to add a Support Ticket. Once the DRM is disabled for your store, we will have to encode all the videos in your store manually. It may take a few days to weeks to encode all the videos depending on the size and number of videos.
DRM Supported in Different Devices & Platforms
| Platform Type | Platform/OS | Browser | DRM Technology |
| Web | Windows | Chrome | Widevine |
| Firefox | Widevine | ||
| Edge | Widevine | ||
| Internet Explorer | Playready | ||
| Linux | Chrome | Widevine | |
| Firefox | Widevine | ||
| Mac | Safari | Fairplay | |
| Chrome | Fairplay | ||
| Firefox | Fairplay | ||
| Mobile | Android | Native apps | Widevine |
| Chrome | Widevine | ||
| Firefox | Widevine | ||
| iPhone | Native apps | Fairplay | |
| Safari | Fairplay | ||
| Chrome | Fairplay | ||
| Firefox | Fairplay | ||
| TV | Samsung | Playready | |
| LG | Playready | ||
| Android | Widevine | ||
| Apple | Fairplay | ||
| Fire TV | Widevine | ||
| Roku | Playready |
| Note: DRM primarily encrypts content, controls playback, and prevents unauthorized downloads. In some cases, it may also restrict screen recording/screen capturing or reduce capture quality; however, this behavior is device, OS, and browser dependent and is not guaranteed. To learn more about DRM and Screen recording/capturing, click here. |



