Case Study: XStream - Live Internet Broadcasting and Monetizing

Securing and streaming an International soccer match for a TV channel

Leading Danish streaming provider Xstream contacted MediaKey to help it secure, protect and monetize a live Internet broadcast of an international soccer match. Xstream had found an external billing provider, but they needed MediaKey to tie it all together.

After 4 days a solution was ready and Xstream found that not only did MediaKey prevent any unauthorized viewing of the match, it also proved to be a very profitable concept for billing the consumers.

Situation
Xstream wanted to broadcast an international soccer match for TV3 / Viasat. While they had the infrastructure to make the actual internet broadcast and a payment solution, they were missing both protection of rights and a way to bill the viewers of the match.

With the amount of broadband users the bandwidth expenses would be impossible to cover with advertising alone and without protection it would be impossible to charge the consumers to watch the match. A Pay-Per-View solution was needed.

Solution
Xstream contacted MediaKey as they needed a partner with a long experience. To accommodate Xstream.s requirements, integration with the new payment solution was needed. After only 4 days MediaKey had a tailored solution ready for Xstream that would help them encrypt the internet broadcast and enable them to charge the consumers for watching the match.

"Our client wanted three solutions in one package - Streaming, billing and protect in their content. It was important to protect the rights of the specific soccer match. With the help from MediaKey technology we had the Digital Rights Management solution implemented and up and running within 4 days", explains Claus Thomsen, CTO of Xstream.

With the MediaKey solution, Xstream could apply the DRM protection to their existing Windows Streaming servers so no new infrastructure investments were needed. The live stream was protected with the strong encryption and only consumers who paid to watch, was issued a license to the match. Billing was applied in the beginning of the actual viewing process so the consumer experience was a very smooth.

Benefits
Xstream presented one single solution to their customer which met all their requirements after just 4 days. With the new Pay-Per-View solution, the TV channel was able to offer their product to a brand new market and make good profit from it. Xstream was quickly able to provide a flexible and secure solution for their customer and with this success they expect many more events of this kind in the future.