A question for site owners about possible new content protection technology.
 

Hypothetically speaking, if I had the contacts and access to a new(ish) movie streaming technology already being used for mainstream (legal movie and tv show distribution) with the following properties:

Positives:

1) Videos stream in very high DVD quality. Even at 1920x1200 Resolution, there's no pixilation. It's like watching a DVD, more or less.

2) Stream compression is such that a DVD quality movie is about as large as the equivlent sized MPEG file at 480x360 resolution.

3) Stream begins almost intantly and will NEVER need to buffer so long as the user is on .5mb cable or DSL connection.

4) Steam is indexed can be skipped ahead or rewinded just as easily as a local MPEG file.

5) To date, encryption has never been broken. No methods are currently available to capture or save the streaming movie digitally. Analog recording through a seperate device may be possible, I'm not entirely sure on that point.

Potential Negatives:

1) User must download a small, light weight video player. Very stable, very simple to use.

I haven't been REALLY persuing it because the draw back of users requiring to download the player. However, as tubes, torrents and other pirating methods gain more and more popularity, maybe now the need for solid protection out weighs the negative of the required player download.

My question, then, is this: Is there any interest in this sort of technology? It would most likely be a leased solution where site(s) would pay a fee, based on their size (user base) for continuing use of the technology. This fee would be reasonable and scaled based on the size and need of each customer.

Thoughts?

my thoughts.

1. I hate leasing, I would rather own if I like the technology.

2. What type of protections are on the streaming that they don't have the ability to capture the stream locally?

Potential Problems:
None

Launch it and push it and you'll get some good clients.

The steam is totally proprietary. It can, so far, only be received, decoded and played back by it's specific player. Although in use now, it's not seeing the heavy, heavy porn surfer numbers so that's not to say that someone won't eventually break it (probably will) when the demand is high enough. From what I understand of it from the guy that made it, who's probably the best engineer/programmer I've ever met, it's simple to change the encryption on the fly and thus force hackers to start over almost as soon as they've beaten it.

I expect an outright purchase option could be made available, but may well be pricey.

Another plus, as I see it, is it lends its self really well to feeds. Feeds mostly already stream, but with this tech they could stream faster, with better compression and higher quality. Easy peasy.

#5... if it's on my screen I can capture it.

At this point in time, no you can not. I'm sure of that because it so far has been the major selling point to smaller studios signing on for distribution. Currently negotiations are underway with a few very large studios to distribute on this platform.

I thought the same way when I was first introduced to it. I've always been able to capture anything. Streaming WMV? No problem. Flash? Easy. Shit I was working with DRM streams and figured out how to capture them easy as pie. I haven't been able to capture from this stream at all digitally.

If you mean outputting to a VCR or other device, then yeah that can probably be done.

No, i mean using a screen capture device, and I guarantee you I can. If it's on my monitor, I can capture it.

Well we have to agree to disagree on that for now because I can't prove it to you at this moment.

In any case, even if you were able to stop the average surfer from downloading and the sharing or seeding content, that'd put a serious dent in the content theft and slow it right down. Technology savvy hardcore downloaders and file sharers probably make up a very small percentage of the problem. Eliminate the average Joe, and the difference would be huge. Nothing's perfect.