With JW Player’s studio-approved DRM solution, broadcasters can rely on a fully integrated, scalable, and resilient content protection. This proved particularly pivotal in 2020 during periods of significant traffic spikes experienced during lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a regional streaming platform for the Middle East & North Africa region, STARZPLAY offers access to original and premium Hollywood and Arabic TV series, films and more via apps on Android, Apple, and a range of other devices. The STARZPLAY platform currently serves over 1.8m subscribers.
The business challenge
As a start-up in 2015, STARZPLAY was looking for an economic unified API integration that would help to save both costs and time spent on deployments. After testing solutions from multiple DRM providers, the organization turned to VUALTO (now a JW Player company) and its digital rights management solution.
Aside from the solution offering a much-needed update to STARZPLAY’s DRM setup, the streaming provider was immediately impressed by the support offered by the technical team, with a clear solution presented to meet the organization’s strategic requirements. As one of the first companies to offer a multi-DRM service and a wealth of experience in the sector, STARZPLAY trusted the new setup with a unified API.
A scalable, resilient video solution
From the outset, VUALTO (a JW Player company) has worked closely with STARZPLAY to implement its DRM solution. Along with allowing for a single API for a multiple DRM managed service, STARZPLAY has benefited from massively improved uptimes compared to previous years, with 100% uptime in 2020.
The DRM solution’s integrated scalability and resilience has also proved particularly pivotal in 2020, with significant traffic spikes experienced during lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. STARZPLAY saw increases of 50% in streaming hours per unique user, meaning unprecedented levels of consumer demand had to be met.
With scalable infrastructure using a Kubernetes container orchestration system on AWS, STARZPLAY was able to continue securely delivering low-latency live and video-on-demand (VOD) content to its audience throughout the UAE and Saudi Arabia, across multiple devices, retaining complete control of who watches its content and when.
A close partnership
In addition to the initial remit of the project, the working relationship has developed over the years. With the expertise and best of breed solutions being engaged across several markets, the VUALTO (a JW Player company) team has worked with STARZPLAY to implement its DRM solution again for VOD assets in the Middle East and North Africa region.
In 2020, STARZPLAY started providing a technology solution for an OTT service in India. This solution incorporates the technology provided by VUALTO (a JW Player company).
Global growth plans
“Wherever our business goes, the embedded VUDRM goes along with it. The partnership we have with VUALTO (a JW Player company) is an established part of our tech stack, bringing us go-to-market speeds. VUALTO’s 24/7 NOC support team have been beside us at every stage of our partnership, ready to help with any challenge or hurdle we’ve faced over the last five years,” Faraz Arshad, Chief Technology Officer at STARZPLAY said.
“I look forward to working closely with VUALTO (a JW Player company) in the coming years to expand our offerings in other regions, helping to solidify our strong position in an ever-growing market.”
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For more information about JW Player’s content protection solutions, read more about our studio-approved DRM offers.