Why video watermarking is necessary for streaming content from virtual film festivals.

Travel bans, theatre closures, and nationwide lockdown imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic have forced film festivals to reevaluate how they operate and how they attract new participants. Pre-release and curated films are now being shown at film festivals via streaming platforms. In order to enhance the virtual experience, filmmakers will deliver prerecorded messages and participate in live video conversations being streamed by the event's organizers.

As a result, pirates are more likely to steal content, particularly unreleased films, from the internet. The B2C SVOD services domain has recently flourished and can be applied equally to virtual film festivals in terms of identity management and credentials sharing. The lack of physical control and enforcement during movie premieres, as well as the transfer of premium content from public to private locations, makes screen grabbing much easier.

DRM protected content has been used by organizers and distributors to keep premium streaming content out of the hands of pirates, but recordings of live streams can also be used. In order to prevent content piracy and prove ownership, copyright, and authenticity, forensic watermarking is an effective video protection technology. Using watermarking techniques, metadata (user ID, IP address and time stamps, for example) can be embedded into the video stream, which can be used as forensic evidence to track down the source of the infringement.

Studio and filmmakers may require a level of specificity that video watermarking can't provide, such as being able to identify individual user accounts or streaming sessions. This can be accomplished with the use of session-specific watermarking. Only two content versions are used to create unique manifests for each session, which can be regularly cached on a CDN. This method does not necessitate the use of any third-party libraries because the relevant session data is stored within the content itself for server-side processing.

If you're planning to host virtual film festivals or award screenings, you'll need a platform that can securely host these events as well as provide additional features, such as geo-blocking or secure distribution. It's possible that these virtual platforms will continue to be used for festivals even if physical ones return, since they've drawn in new viewers and increased viewership.