Recently, our friends at Encoding.com published the 2018 edition of their very popular annual report “Global Media Formats.” After reading last year’s report, I had personally reached out to Gregg and his team to see if they wanted to include some of our data in this year’s edition. As a result, in this year’s report they included data from BuyDRM which was provided to add additional visibility into the DRM Marketplace.
The Report, available here describes at a very high level, how Encoding.com sees the digital media space from their vantage point. In the “Digital Rights Management” section, we see how Encoding.com and BuyDRM see the DRM Marketplace at large.
From the report comes this high level graphic:
“Encoding.com Global Media Formats Report 2018”
As you can clearly see, Encoding.com reports on four major silos of DRM including combining the older, phased out Widevine Classic DRM with the now standardized Widevine Modular DRM. They also include the Adobe Flash Access solution which has been merged into the Adobe Primetime and is no longer licensable to operate by 3rd parties like BuyDRM. On a minor note they seemed to have dropped the Microsoft label from PlayReady as well.
While we aren’t big fans of the “KMS” (key management server) moniker since we operate a widely known and supported DRM Platform, we were honored to be included in the report as Encoding.com is clearly a world-leader in the encoding space. That being said, based on the communications we have received we want to provide some additional clarity around the data represented in this report.
- Encoding.com’s data is based on media content they have encrypted using their “media workflow automation solution.”
- BuyDRM’s data is based on media content we have delivered DRM license keys for from our multi-DRM platform KeyOS.
Therein lies the clear difference in how the viewer should perceive the data:
Encoding.com is measuring the number of files encrypted (packaged) and BuyDRM is measuring the actual files played by users.
In fact, at a much more granular level, BuyDRM’s actual 2017 data looks like this:
BuyDRM KeyOS MultiKey Stats for Apple FairPlay DRM Licenses Delivered in 2017
BuyDRM KeyOS MultiKey Stats for Microsoft PlayReady DRM Licenses Delivered in 2017
BuyDRM KeyOS MultiKey Stats for Google Widevine DRM Licenses Delivered in 2017
We provided Encoding.com with an analysis of the changes we see in the consumer DRM industry at large below:
DRM Usage Perspectives
Variety of market drivers affecting “Transformation of DRM Landscape”
- Clearly FairPlay and Widevine hit a tipping point EOY 2017
- PlayReady in a decline but still magnitude of 2X of WV or FP
- Magnitude of combined WV/PR growth similar to Adobe Flash in 2000
- DRM-Enabled playback platforms growing 4X Annually
- US + Europe highest consumption. APAC market in growth mode
- Variety of market drivers affecting “Transformation of DRM Landscape”
- Apple expanding and improving FairPlay SDK licensing program
- Apple Safari on iOS now supporting FairPlay managed playback
- Google AndroidTV with WV pushing out other TV OS platforms
- Google pushing Progressive Web Apps
- Roku added WV support Via Youtube integration
- More penetration of support in Encoder and server market
- Android and iO natively enable HW-based DRM for HD/4k
- No device royalty fees To OEMS when deploying WV/FP
- FP growth would Be 2X if no direct license required from Apple
- Android STBs will dramatically takeover STB market ala Android mobile
