CONNECT Player Features

The CONNECT Player SDKs enable operators to deploy a secure, DRM-enabled video player quickly. The SDKs let you enhance the video playout experience with advanced features, including offline playback, advert insertion, subtitling and audio track support. Users can also monitor the quality of playback and quality of service with NAGRA's rich statistics API.

The following are the principal features supported by the CONNECT Player. Other features are also provided on individual platforms.

Adaptive streaming

All CONNECT players support HLS, enabling you to package and format your content in a single, consistent way for all the major open device platforms. DASH ISOBMFF is implemented in Android and PPAPI/NaCI players.

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTML

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high-quality streaming of media content. DASH enables encryption and decryption of content by different DRMs using the Common Encryption Scheme (CENC).

DASH is supported in Android SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

HTTP Live Streaming

HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple. HLS allows you to package and format content the same way across major open platforms.

HLS is supported in Android SDK 5, Apple SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Support for Multi-DRM playback

Playback of content protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM) is supported.

NAGRA Persistent Rights Management

NAGRA's Persistent Rights Management (PRM) protects premium content on multiple devices from set-top boxes to PCs, Macs, tablets, smartphones and connected TVs.

NAGRA PRM is supported in Android SDK 5 (optionally), Apple (FPS) SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5 for all main browsers.

FairPlay Streaming

Apple's FairPlay Streaming (FPS) technology encrypts content, securely exchanges keys and protects playback on iOS, tvOS, and macOS.

FPS is supported in Apple (FPS) SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5 for Safari and Firefox browsers.

Widevine

Widevine is Google's proprietary DRM technology which supports various encryption schemes and hardware security to restrict consumer access to distributed video content according to rules defined by content owners.

Widevine is supported in Android SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

PlayReady

PlayReady is Microsoft's media file copy-prevention technology that includes encryption, output prevention and DRM.

PlayReady is supported in Android SDK 5 and Browsers and Connect TV SDK 5.

Secure Session Management

Secure Session Management (SSM) protects against account sharing by limiting the number of simultaneous encrypted playback sessions.

SSM is supported in Android SDK 5, Apple (FPS) SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Offline playback

Sometimes known as Download to go, this enables users to download and store on-demand content.

Offline playback is supported for:

DASH and HLS streams in Android SDK 5.
HLS streams in Apple (FPS) SDK 5 for iOS.

It is not supported for tvOS or in Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

General functionality

Multi-instance

Multi-instance enables more than one instance of the player to exist simultaneously.

Multi-instance is supported in Android SDK 5 and Apple SDK 5.

Resolution and bitrate capping

Resolution and bitrate capping limits the maximum resolution users will experience during playback; bitrate (bandwidth) capping limits the maximum stream playback bitrate or bandwidth.

Resolution capping is supported in Android SDK 5 and Apple (FPS) SDK 5.
Bitrate (bandwidth) capping is supported in Android SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Thumbnail previews

Thumbnail previews are displayed when users run their mouse pointer over the seek/progress bar.

DASH-IF IOP format is supported in Android SDK 5.
iFrame format is supported in Apple SDK 5.
WebVTT format is supported in Apple SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Content security

QuickMark forensic watermarking

The Nexguard library forensic watermarking tool QuickMark embeds a unique, invisible serial number onto video/audio content.

QuickMark forensic watermarking is supported in Android SDK 5, Apple (FPS) SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Adverts

Adverts with Google IMA

Adverts with Google IMA inserts advertisements via the Google Interactive Media Ads (IMA) SDK to access ad servers that support VAST and VMAP.

IMA adverts are supported in Android SDK 5 and Apple SDK 5.

Server Side Advert Insertion (SSAI) / Yospace

Server Side Advert Insertion (SSAI) inserts advert setup into the OTT stream manifest during or after the encoding process. Yospace is a version of SSAI.

SSAI and Yospace are supported in Android SDK 5 and Apple (FPS) SDK.

Statistics and analytics

Event timeline

The event timeline provides performance metrics of key playback and network actions.

The event timeline is supported in Android SDK 5, Apple SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Insight analytics

NAGRA's Insight tool enables data collection for device and network profiling purposes.

Insight is supported in Android SDK 5, Apple SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Statistics

APIs are provided to access rendering, network and playback statistics and listen for playback and network events.

Various statistics are supported in Android SDK 5, Apple (FPS) SDK 5 Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Track selection

Track selection enables different audio and video tracks to be played or subtitles displayed when a stream is playing.

Subtitles

Where supported text or caption tracks are present for a chosen content, they will automatically be added to the player instance.

Subtitles are supported in Android SDK 5, Apple (FPS) SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Multi-audio

Where multiple language tracks are present for a chosen piece of content, they will automatically be added to the player instance.

Multi audio is supported in Android SDK 5, Apple (FPS) SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5.

Multi-video

Multi-video enables users to switch between multiple video tracks in DASH streams, for example, where multiple camera angles cover a sports event or when content is available at different quality levels.

Multi-video is supported in Android SDK 5 and Browsers and Connected TV SDK 5. It is not supported for HLS streams.