Flash Media Server Article

Explore video content protection measures enabled by Flash Media Server 3

Video on the Internet has exploded in popularity. Video streamed using Adobe Flash Player software has raised the bar for content distributors to create a rich video experience. Compelling video content has driven the popularity of Internet-based high-quality video. Content created by everyone, which we call "user-generated content," and content created by professionals—such as major broadcasters, filmmakers, and advertisers—position the Internet as a significant factor in delivering video today.

This video explosion can also be attributed to the increase in quality and bandwidth. The FLV format, used by Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR, has improved the quality and performance significantly since it was introduced. The success is also due to a whole ecosystem of companies helping people and companies to encode, publish, manage, and deliver video. Adobe partners with many of these companies through our partner programs: Flash Video Streaming Service and Flash Media Solution Provider. Check them out.

With more and more compelling content online today, there are requirements to ensure that your video is protected from misuse or repurpose. You may not think that your home videos on a social media provider are important enough to worry about, but consider what people could do to your "innocent" home movies. If you are trying to monetize your video, you wouldn't want people figuring out a way to remove the ways for you to profit. Even worse, someone could be making money from your video without your authorization.

The following white paper introduces you to some of the risks for delivering video on the Internet today. It illustrates how you can help protect your content using the built-in features of Adobe Flash Media Server 3. This paper also provides you with examples of how you can help ensure that your video—with increased protection measures applied—can be available for a large number of people to enjoy on the Internet.

Read the white paper:

• Video content protection measures enabled by Flash Media Server 3 (PDF, 440K)

Topics covered:

• How your video content can be captured
• Flash Media Server stream protection methods
• Basic video protection enabled with Flash Media Server 3
• Content protection with server-side programming
• Protecting your content from the "replay"
• Future content protection methods from Adobe

Streaming through Flash Media Server 3 is one easy method to protect your content. Built into Flash Media Server are useful ways to ensure that your video is available to a wide audience and to control the experience and the actual video files.

Flash Media Development Server 3 is available for free. Included in this full-featured version are solutions that help to protect your content on the Internet but allow a limited group of people to watch the content at the same time.

Where to go from here

Read the following articles to learn more about the topics covered in this white paper:

• Flash Video Learning Guide: Delivery options for Flash video
• Scaling and securing streaming media applications with Flash Media Server 3
• DRM and digital media protection with Flash Media Server

About the authors