Protect HLS Live Streams in Wowza Streaming Cloud With DRM Technology

Let’s look at how to protect an HLS live video stream from Wowza Streaming Cloud on iOS and Apple devices. This uses EZDRM applying Apple FairPlay. To begin, there are a number of values you’ll need to locate for this process, starting with the username and password for your EZDRM account. You’ll also need to gather information from Wowza Streaming Cloud. Now for this demonstration, we’ll be using Wowza documentation which utilizes the Wowza Streaming Cloud rest API on an available live stream. In Wowza Streaming Cloud, verify that you have a working live stream. As you can see, I’ve got one up and running.

From the bottom of the overview, we can copy the HLS playback URL and verify it’s working. THEOplayer has a great test page made specifically for EZDRM where you can do this. Be sure you’re testing it in a Safari browser. As you can see, the stream is working fine, but to encrypt the stream we’ll need the license acquisition URL and certificate URL. The certificate URL is for Apple FairPlay and something you’ll need to get from Apple and host yourself. The license acquisition URL, sometimes called the process SPC URL will generate from EZDRM.

One other aspect of the license is the FPS authorization URL. You’ll need to create a file for this, host it, and let EZDRM know the location of the file through their website. Please check with EZDRM on the specifics.

Back in Wowza Streaming Cloud, let’s Stop Live Stream while we collect some information to make changes. We’ll need to go under Transcoder and for this stream copy its ID. We’ll use this to make changes with the API. We’ll also need to go under Account Settings and copy the API key for the same purpose. We’ll need the access key as well. You may need to add one if one doesn’t already exist.

Now we can go back to our documentation and get the curl script to request a DRM key. We’ll need to copy and paste this information somewhere we can modify it. In the script, add your username and password for your EZDRM account. Then you can open it in a terminal, paste the information in and execute the curl script. Copy over the returned information somewhere you can use it. Within the information you’ll find the license URL. Copy and paste that for use later. Now, copy the asset ID. We’ll need this not only on its own but we’ll also use it at the end of the license URL.

Now we can configure DRM on our existing transcoder. Copy the curl command somewhere for editing. We’ll start by replacing the username, password, and content ID for EZDRM. Then we’ll add our API key and access key for Wowza Streaming Cloud. At the bottom of the script, we’ll also need our host information, API version and transcoder ID for our live stream. When we’re finished, we’ll open a terminal, paste in our modified script and execute it. Thus we’ve configured our transcoder.

Now back in Wowza Streaming Cloud, we can locate our live video stream and start it up once again. You may need to reconnect the encoder once it’s started. Back on the test player page, we can try running the stream again. The stream won’t play this time because we haven’t configured the player to use FairPlay. Copy over the needed URLs and then try testing the stream again. This time it works. That’s it for protecting a live video stream on Wowza Streaming Cloud with EZDRM. Thanks for watching and happy streaming.