The BBC has decided to license the OMA DRM system, and has signed with Intertrust, CoreMedia and the CMLA, the official licensing authority for OMA DRM, to use the technology with its iPlayer.
OMA DRM requires a set of patents that are owned by Intertrust, and CoreMedia is one of the most popular software implementations of the DRM standard, while the CMLA will certify trust chains so that encryption keys can be accurately passed between the iPlayer service and handsets.
It takes a while for the news to sink in just what this all might mean, because there are already implementations of the iPlayer on handsets, for instance the iPhone, but in each case that is simple a player that allows program streaming, usually over wi-fi, although here are other devices which have their own on-board DRM which are allowed to take a copy from the PC. (The iPhone can’t do this because no other DRM client runs on it except its own Fairplay, which is not licensed to other companies). Players which are enabled by this deal, and in particular the one offered bundled on the new Nokia N96, will mean that files can be stored on the handset, for viewing when the handset is not connected. Taking these three deals will enabled a huge number of handsets to use the same DRM.
The use case of copying from your PC is critical, because streaming will require a flat rate streaming deal otherwise. This gets around the use of either streaming or download cellular minutes being needed for the iPlayer, especially since the N96 has not yet been picked up by any of the major UK operators (although it can be bought at retail and still be used on a fixed rate contract).
About two years ago CoreMedia implemented a Windows Media DRM to OMA DRM bridge, which this system might need, which would transfer content from under the control of one DRM to being under control of the other, one on a PC the other on a handset.
We can see that the native support for Windows formats on the N96 means that the BBC iPlayer didn’t have to change too much to sit on this device as its first BBC sanctioned handset. But given that the BBC now has a version of the iPlayer which can play Adobe Flash Video files, it is likely that the widespread capability of most handsets to support Flash Video (but not always Windows Media Video) will soon see iPlayer support on a wider and wider range of handsets. Originally the Adobe move was designed to create a player that can view BBC content on a Mac an Linux based player, but it works just as well for a handset.
This week the BBC’s director of future media and technology said at a conference that it wanted to go further and build out the iPlayer with its own hardware set top reference platform, and that this was in development under the code name of Canvas according to Advanced Television News. The idea was that it was an universal IPTV platform, but we don’t think he meant IPTV, instead he meant IP based video services to the home, not the Quality of Service enabled multicast service we call IPTV.
The aim is to cut a path directly into the living room for the BCC, in the same way that it has with Freeview and Freesat (Perhaps this should be called Freenet ). But this is said to be 12 to 18 months away.
Confusingly, the iPlayer was initially a PC base P2P software client and we believe the existing PC based versions still are, using the Kontikki designed peer assisted delivery to get video from PC to PC, using a process similar to BitTorrent. However there is now also a browser plug-in version and the P2P part of the client cannot be contained in a handset, because it would have frequent outward data usage that was not under the user’s control. Skype was put on a handset in the same way.
The iPlayer is effectively a widget on the new Nokia N96 and you would have to be a UK native to realize how desirable this is. Most students watch TV on their laptops with the ‘catch up’ service of the BBC iPlayer and some 60 million streams have been delivered since it was started in November 2007
The system is not an exclusive on the N96 but just being there first is going drive its sales in the UK and make it that much more attractive to a cellular carrier. The aim is to test the mobile iPlayer on a number of other handsets, and roll these our in the future.
“Mobile is an extremely important part of our strategy to allow audiences to access BBC content on multiple platforms at their convenience.” said Matthew Postgate, Controller of Mobile BBC. “Our agreements with CMLA, CoreMedia and Intertrust have allowed digital rights protection on full television programmes for mobile for the first time. Each of these companies plays a valuable part in helping the BBC evolve its services for audiences and push the boundaries of the broadcasting industry. We are really pleased to be developing these types of partnerships with the wider industry.’
Nokia also took a license to the critical Intertrust DRM patents in August, following Adobe and a handful of handset makers and operators, including Vodafone the first operators to do so, who also happens to be a CoreMedia client.
The CMLA was formed in 2004 by Intel, mm02, Nokia, Panasonic, RealNetworks, Samsung and Warner Brothers and polices the OMA DRM system usage and act as the root of the trust chain for key passing.
Sony in a separate announcement said that its S-series and E-series stand alone Walkman MP3 players can also take content from a PC based iPlayer.